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Eight Tiger rebels killed across north
Government forces killed eight Tamil Tiger rebels in a series of attacks against the separatist group across northern Sri Lanka, the military announced on Friday.
- AP
- Published: 22:50 November 30, 2007
Colombo: Government forces killed eight Tamil Tiger rebels in a series of attacks against the separatist group across northern Sri Lanka, the military announced on Friday.
The fighting, part of an escalation in violence between the two sides in recent months, came amid a security clampdown on the capital, Colombo, following a pair of rebel bombings that killed 20 people.
The military released security camera footage yesterday showing one of the attacks, a suicide bombing at the Colombo offices of a Cabinet minister that killed one person as well as the bomber.
In the footage, the female bomber is seen patiently sitting in a chair on the other side of an official's desk in what appears to be a waiting room as people mill about around her.
The bustle of the office quickly turns into a chaotic dash for safety when the woman detonates the bomb, which police say was hidden in her bra.
The bombings demonstrate how the rebels were suffering under a government offensive against their stronghold in northern Sri Lanka, security officials said. "They were desperate and unable to face the security forces in the north," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Stronghold
On Thursday, troops killed four guerrilla fighters in a battle near the rebels' stronghold in northern Sri Lanka, the military said yesterday. Four others were killed in two separate battles in the region, the military said in a statement.
The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to create a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's minority ethnic Tamils following decades of discrimination by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.
The group, branded a terror organisation by the US and European Union, is responsible for more than 240 suicide bombings as well as scores of other deadly attacks. The death toll from the worst of the bombings rose to 19 on Thursday as two of the injured died from their wounds, security forces said.
The earlier bombing at the Colombo offices of Social Services Minister Douglas Devananda killed one person.
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