Sri Lankan soldiers captured a major rebel base in the volatile east and regained control of the area's key highway for the first time in 11 years, the military said, amid a renewed push to break the Tamil Tiger separatists' hold on the district.
"They [rebels] have fled the area as our troops are advancing," military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said on Saturday, as he announced the capture of the rebel base and other small camps in Kathiraveli, a rebel-stronghold in eastern Batticaloa District.
Also Saturday, the army also took control of a main road connecting Batticaloa to the port city of Trincomalee, where the Sri Lankan navy has a major base. The rebels had controlled the road for 11 years.
Samarasinghe said the army would continue to flush rebels from the east, where both sides hold pockets of territory and the Tigers are fighting to establish an independent Tamil homeland, along with Tamil-dominated areas in the north.
On Saturday, troops were searching for and clearing booby traps and mines from Vaharai -- an impoverished rebel-held coastal strip in eastern Batticaloa which they captured on Friday.
Vaharai has been the scene of heavy fighting for months, with over 500 combatants killed since October, according to the military.
The government says the Tigers used Vaharai as a transit point to smuggle drugs and arms into the country and as a base for the sea wing of their more than two-decade insurgency.
The army's capture of Vaharai sent thousands of terrified villagers fleeing to safety in neighboring, government-held Mankerni, where they were packed into flimsy tents and in crowded schools.
Seeniwasan Giritharan, the area's top government official, said between 5,000 and 6,000 refugees arrived in Mankerni on Friday, and hundreds more were arriving on Saturday.
"We believe that the entire population has left Vaharai," he said.
But worried Tamil parents said their children were being detained by security forces as suspected rebels.
T. Tharmarasa said his son was taken away by militia as the family fled their home.
A military official in Mankerni said 11 suspected rebels were detained, and 10 had admitted involvement with the Tigers. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing military policy, said the arrests were made according to proper procedure.
The Tigers have been fighting for more than 20 years for a separate homeland for the country's 3.1 million ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
Although both sides claim to be adhering to a Norwegian-brokered 2002 ceasefire, violence has escalated since late 2005 with more than 3,600 people killed last year alone.
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