A renegade Tamil rebel commander has pulled thousands of fighters back to defend his fortified base in eastern Sri Lanka after the main rebel faction advanced against him with heavy mortar and gun fire, a military official and witnesses said yesterday.
The dissident faction vowed to "stand firm," regroup and resume its defense.
Fighting on Friday between the Tamil Tiger rebel factions, which killed at least 10 rebels and wounded 20, was the worst since a 2002 truce halted the country's 19-year civil war, and has threatened the nation's fragile peace.
The Ministry of Defense said yesterday that the offensive by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a violation of the ceasefire.
Breakaway commander Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, also known as Karuna, recalled 2,000 of his roughly 6,000 fighters to his Thoppigala base to set up defenses, a military official said on condition of anonymity.
Thoppigala is a jungle area in Batticaloa, 220km east of Colombo.
To reach Thoppigala, the main faction would have to cross through fortified government-held areas, thereby endangering the ceasefire, the official said.
The Norway-brokered ceasefire pact bars the rebels from entering government-held areas. Any attempt to carry weapons through government territory could provoke a military response, the official warned. The closest government territory is just 10km from Thoppigala, he said.
Following the breakaway rebels' withdrawal, the Verugal River area, the scene of Friday's fighting, was calm and people were moving about as usual.
Still, people feared the stability they have enjoyed for the last two years was beginning to crumble.
"We are very afraid that if fighting breaks out ... that may start the war all over again, and business will be very much affected," said Sanjeewa Jayatillaka, who sells pencils and pens.
Muralitharan's spokesman, Varathan, said at least 300 of their fighters had been "taken prisoner" by the main rebel faction.
The military warned that both sides had planted remotely detonated Claymore mines on trees, bushes and bridges.
After hours of mortar and machine-gun fire Friday, about 500 fighters from the breakaway group withdrew from the area, claiming they were repositioning, not retreating, to prevent civilian casualties.
"We will decide on our future military action shortly," Varathan said. "Let everyone know that we are standing firm and we have men and firepower to stand any attack by the Wanni group."
Wanni is the northern territory where the main rebel group has its headquarters.
The two sides had been squared off at the river since Muralitharan announced the schism on March 3 in a dispute over regional rivalry and political strategy.
For two decades, the Tamil Tigers fought government troops in a bloody separatist conflict which has claimed 65,000 lives.
Amid fears that the peace process could be doomed if government troops are drawn into the fighting, President Chandrika Kumaratunga ordered her commanders to help evacuate rebel casualties from both sides, but not to interfere in their conflict, an official in her office said.
"We don't want to get dragged into this," Defense Secretary Ciril Herath said after an emergency meeting with European ceasefire monitors in Colombo.
The army positioned men along the roadways in the region and along the sea cliff to prevent any landing by the mainstream Tigers at Panichachankani, where refugees were being cared for by the international relief organizations UNICEF and OXFAM.
On April 2, a political alliance led by Kumaratunga, who has taken a tough line on the rebels, won the most seats in parliamentary elections, defeating the party led by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who initiated the most recent round of peace efforts.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS