Sri Lanka: Tamil Tiger rebel chief has been killed
        
            
    
        
        
        
                
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
					
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        AP – FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2008 handout file photo provided by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), …
    
                
            
                                            
        
                
    




        

        
        By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer        Ravi Nessman, Associated Press Writer
    
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    12 mins ago



            
                COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka declared Monday it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.
                State
television broke into its regular programming to announce Prabhakaran's
death, and the government information department sent a text message to
cell phones across the country confirming he was killed along with top
deputies, Soosai and Pottu Amman.
                The
announcement sparked mass celebrations around the country, and people
poured into the streets of Colombo dancing and singing.
                Prabhakaran's
death has been seen as crucial in bringing closure to this war-wracked
Indian Ocean island nation. If he had escaped, he could have used his
large international smuggling network and the support of Tamil
expatriates to spark a new round of guerrilla warfare here. His death in battle could still turn him into a martyr for other Tamil separatists.
                Sri Lanka's army chief, Lt. Gen. Sareth Fonseka, said on television that his troops routed the last rebels from the northern war zone Monday morning and were working to identify Prabhakaran's body from among the dead.
                "We
can announce very responsibly that we have liberated the whole country
from terrorism," he told state television. It was widely presumed
Fonseka was waiting for President Mahinda Rajapaksa to announce Prabhakaran's death.
                Fonseka
and the commanders of the other security forces were scheduled to
formally inform the president of the victory Monday evening.
                Senior military officials said troops closed in on Prabhakaran and his final cadre early Monday.
                He and his top deputies then drove an armor-plated van accompanied by a bus filled with rebel fighters toward approaching Sri Lankan forces,
sparking a two-hour firefight, the officials said, speaking on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the
media.
                Troops eventually fired a rocket at the
van, ending the battle, they said. Troops pulled Prabhakaran's body
from the van and identified it as that of the rebel leader, they said.
The attack also killed Soosai, the head of the rebels' naval wing, and Pottu Amman, the group's feared intelligence commander, the officials said.
                Suren Surendiran, a spokesman for the British Tamils' Forum, the largest organization for expatriate Tamils in Britain, said the community was in despair.
                "The people are very somber and very saddened. But we are ever determined and resilient to continue our struggle for Eelam,"
he said, invoking the name of the Tamils hoped-for independent state.
"We have to win the freedom and liberation of our people."
                But in Colombo, which had suffered countless rebel bombings, people set of fireworks, danced and sang in the streets.
                "Myself
and most of my friends gathered here have narrowly escaped bombs set
off by the Tigers. Some of our friends were not lucky," said Lal
Hettige, 47, a businessman celebrating in Colombo's outdoor market. "We
are happy today to see the end of that ruthless terrorist organization
and its heartless leader. We can live in peace after this."
                The chubby, mustachioed Prabhakaran turned what was little more than a street gang
in the late 1970s into one of the world's most feared insurgencies. He
demanded unwavering loyalty and gave his followers vials of cyanide to
wear around their necks and bite into in case of capture.
                At the height of his power, he controlled a shadow state in northern Sri Lankan and commanded a force that including an infantry, backed by artillery, a significant naval wing and a nascent air force.
                He also controlled a suicide squad
known as the Black Tigers that was blamed for scores of deadly attacks.
The rebels were branded a terror group and condemned for forcibly
conscripting child soldiers.
                Earlier, the
military announced it had killed several top rebel leaders, including
Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony, also a rebel leader. The military
said special forces also found the bodies of the rebels' political wing
leader, Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the rebels' peace secretariat,
Seevaratnam Puleedevan, and one of the top military leaders, known as
Ramesh.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for Sri Lanka's
ethnic Tamil minority after years of marginalization at the hands of
the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the
fighting.
Government forces ousted the rebels from their shadow state in
the north in recent months and brought the group to its knees.
Thousands of civilians were reportedly killed in the recent fighting.
Senior diplomats had appealed for a humanitarian cease-fire in
recent weeks to safeguard the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in
the war zone, but the government refused, and denied persistent reports
it was shelling the densely populated war zone.

Diplomats in Brussels said Monday the European Union will endorse a call for an independent war crimes investigation into the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions were ongoing.

The rebels were also accused of using the civilians as human shields and shooting at some who fled.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband
says there have been "very grave allegations" of war crimes on both
sides of the conflict adding "they should be properly investigated."
The U.N. said 7,000 civilians were killed in the fighting
between Jan. 20 and May 7. Health officials in the area said more than
a 1,000 others were killed since then.

On Monday, more than a thousand angry Sri Lankans
protested outside the British Embassy in Colombo, pelting it with rocks
and eggs and burning an effigy of Miliband and throwing it inside the
compound. Protesters held posters calling Miliband a "white Tiger," and
several tried to climb the embassy's high walls.

___

Associated Press writers Krishan Francis and Bharatha Mallawarachi contributed to this report.
            
        
        
    




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