Lanka bombs Prabhakaran's hideout

Colombo: Sri Lankan jets blasted a hideout of the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels on Wednesday during an intensifying thrust to retake insurgent-held territory, the military said.

There was no independent confirmation of the strike on the building, which is in the Kilinochchi district roughly 300 kilometres north of the capital Colombo.

The military believes Velupillai Prabhakaran, the elusive founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is hiding somewhere in the district.

On Tuesday the military said they were within 5.5 kilometres of Kilinochchi town, the LTTE's defacto capital and a prized target as Sri Lanka's armed forces try to finish a foe it has battled since 1983.

Location destroyed

"Fighter jets engaged a location frequented by the LTTE leader Prabhakaran in Vaddakachchi," Air Force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said. "Pilots confirmed the location was completely destroyed."

Nanayakkara had no information on casualties and the rebels could not be reached for comment.

Another air strike hit an LTTE ammunition store on the north of the island yesterday. The air force has kept up almost daily air strikes against the Tigers over the last three months as part of a stepped-up offensive.

Yesterday, the rebels accused the air force of killing civilians in a bombing run the day earlier.

On its official website, the LTTE said: "Three civilians were killed instantly when the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed an area north of Murukandy in Kilinochchi".

Soldiers killed 23 guerrillas in other skirmishes in the north of the Indian Ocean island nation on Tuesday, the military said. One soldier was killed and ten were wounded.

The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to establish a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's ethnic minority Tamils, in a nation that has been ruled by majority Sinhala-led government since independence from Britain in 1948.

Rights groups say both sides have been responsible for murders, abductions and indiscriminate fire in a war that has killed 70,000 and is one of Asia's most persistent insurgencies.

Both sides regularly accuse the other of targeting civilians and inflate their victories and downplay their losses in a long-running propaganda duel. Independent confirmation is difficult.