Sri Lankan fighter jets yesterday bombed and destroyed a satellite communications center run by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in their northern stronghold, an air force spokesman said. The rebels said the air raid killed three civilians.
"Air force jets bombed an LTTE satellite communications and coordinating center in [the] Dharampuram area northeast of Kilinochchi on Sunday morning," said a spokesman at the Media Center for National Security, adding that details of casualties were not immediately available.
The center, located in a village near the rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi, was used to communicate and coordinate with rebels agents overseas, said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva.
He said it was unclear if there were any casualties.
The rebels said in a statement that the air force had bombed a civilian area in Kilinochchi, killing three people and wounding seven.
The conflicting claims could not be independently verified.
The military said separately that ground fighting on Saturday in Vavuniya and Mannar in the north killed seven Tamil Tiger rebels, while a mine blast in Mannar killed a soldier and a rebel Claymore fragmentation mine killed two police personnel in the eastern district of Batticaloa.
The military also said fighting on Friday killed 14 rebels and left three soldiers wounded.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Nauru said it would hold a referendum to change its official name, described as a colonial relic from a time when “foreign tongues” mangled the native language. Nauru would change its name to Naoero to “more faithfully honor our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity,” Nauruan President David Adeang said in a statement on Tuesday. The Pacific island nation’s native language is Dorerin Naoero, which is spoken by the vast majority of its approximately 10,000 inhabitants. “Nauru emerged because Naoero could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues, and was changed not by our choice, but for convenience,” the government said in