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KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka : The Sri Lankan army said it was moving in on the jungle stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebels, in a final assault aimed at ending the longest-running ethnic war in Asia.
Flush with confidence after retaking their main city two days ago, the army vowed to capture rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as troops pushed deeper into northern territory long under the complete control of the guerrillas.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a New Year's address that 2009 would be the year of "heroic victory" over the Tigers, who have been waging war since 1972 to establish an independent homeland for ethnic Tamils.
Troops captured Kilinochchi, the de facto capital of the rebel state within a state on Friday, and the general leading the assault said his forces were now advancing on Mullaittivu, their last major centre of control.
"We are taking the offensive to the Mullaittivu jungles where Prabhakaran is hiding," Major General Jagath Dias told reporters flown into Kilinochchi for a short and carefully supervised visit to show the city was in army hands.
"We will hunt him down."
For nearly two years, Sri Lanka has banned independent reporters from rebel-held areas, including Kilinochchi, and the general's statement could not be independently verified.
Gunfire and artillery barrages could be heard from around the town during the brief press visit. A military official said ground forces backed by helicopter gunships were moving toward Mullaittivu.
The vastly outnumbered rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), had controlled Kilinochchi for a decade and have frustrated government hopes of victory many times before.
Hours after losing the city Friday, a Tiger suicide bomber in the capital Colombo killed two people and wounded 36. Six months after a major strategic loss in 1995, the rebels overran an army base and killed 1,200 soldiers.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the conflict began, but Rajapakse's government pulled out of an on-again, off-again ceasefire last year and launched a new campaign to crush the Tigers once and for all.
"For the last time, I am telling the LTTE to lay down arms and surrender," he said in an address to the nation after Kilinochchi was captured.
Prabhakaran said in his own annual address in November that the rebels, one of the first proponents of suicide bombings and considered one of the world's most fearless and effective guerrilla groups, would fight on.
"No sane voice is being raised either to abandon war or to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict," he said.
Human rights groups have criticised the Tigers for forcing children to fight as soldiers, and the LTTE has been labelled a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and neighbouring India.
Still, the rebels were able to get the international community to back them in a ceasefire deal that always struggled to take hold and finally collapsed last year, when the government pulled out.
- AFP/ms
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