Air force jets attacked a rebel intelligence base deep in northern Sri Lanka early yesterday, stepping up a punishing wave of airstrikes a day after Tamil Tiger fighters launched a surprise attack on a military base, the military said.
The Tamil Tigers said the bombs hit a civilian settlement in the rebel’s administrative capital of Kilinochchi, destroying 12 houses.
Separate battles between the two sides killed 19 rebels and two soldiers, the military said.
The air force has conducted a series of bombing raids over rebel-held territory in the north since the Tamil Tigers attacked a military complex in Vavuniya early on Tuesday with a massive artillery barrage, aerial bombing and a ground assault conducted by suicide attackers.
The military said that attack killed 13 troops, one civilian and 11 of the attackers. The rebels said at least 20 government troops and 10 rebel fighters were killed.
The raid also injured two Indian technicians who were servicing a radar system at the base, said Dinkar Asthana, a spokesman for the Indian High Commission in Colombo.
“They are out of danger and they are being treated,” he said, providing no further details.
Independent verification of the fighting is difficult to obtain because most journalists are banned from the war zone. Both sides routinely exaggerate enemy losses and underreport their own.
Violence along the war zone in the north has escalated as the government pressed ahead with its promise to crush the separatists and end the 25-year-old civil war by the end of the year.
In recent weeks, a reinvigorated military offensive seized large areas of land from the rebels.
Battles along the war front in the Kilinochchi, Welioya and Vavuniya areas killed 19 rebels and two soldiers on Tuesday, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
With the fighting worsening, the government announced it was barring all foreign aid workers from rebel areas, and the UN said on Tuesday it would be pulling its staff out this week.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS