Sri Lanka says Tigers 'infiltrating' media, aid organisations

COLOMBO (AFP) — Sri Lanka's top defence official has accused international media and aid organisations of siding with the Tamil Tigers, a report said Saturday, as the military pushed its offensive against the rebels.

A day after an angry mob stoned the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Colombo, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse said the Tigers were infiltrating relief agencies and news organisations.

"There is a well-orchestrated campaign to discredit the government and the security forces and bring pressure on it to declare a ceasefire by LTTE agents who have infiltrated international organisations and media institutions," Rajapakse told the state-run Daily News.

Colombo has rejected calls from foreign governments and agencies to halt its offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to avoid civilian casualties, saying it is on the verge of victory.

Sri Lanka has also resisted calls for a "no fire period" to allow civilians to get out of the conflict zone, while rights groups and foreign governments have accused the Tigers of holding civilians as human shields.

Rajapakse said people allegedly in the pay of the Tigers were "fabricating stories to invent a scenario of a human catastrophe and are disseminating false information."

The defence secretary is leading the government's crackdown against the Tigers, who lost their mini state last month in the face of a military offensive that has pushed the rebels back to a narrow strip of land.

His comments came after he threatened to expel aid agencies, diplomats and foreign journalists seen as supportive of the LTTE.

UN agencies have said there are 250,000 civilians trapped by the ongoing fighting in the northeast of the island, but Rajapakse, who is the younger brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, said there were fewer than 100,000.

Military officials have said some 7,500 civilians have crossed over to the safety of government-held areas this year.

Rajapakse's remarks came a day after a stone-throwing mob attacked the office of the ICRC in Sri Lanka's capital, as Colombo accused the agency of inciting panic over civilian deaths from the fighting.

Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said the ICRC had placed an order for 35,000 body bags to be used in the northeast.

ICRC spokeswoman Sophie Romanens confirmed an order for body bags but rejected the figure provided by Rambukwella.

"We help in the transfer of bodies of combatants across the front lines and for this we need body bags, but the number we have ordered is far, far less than 35,000," she said.

The ICRC has a presence in Sri Lanka's embattled northeast and has also acted as a neutral intermediary in transporting the remains of combatants across front lines.

Those front lines were moving rapidly on Friday with the military taking more bases from the Tamil Tigers, who have been pushed back into a narrow patch of coastal jungle in Mullaittivu.

Military officials said ground troops had stepped up attacks against remaining Tiger lines of resistance and carried out more air strikes on Friday evening.

In one bombing raid at least 11 guerrillas, including a senior leader, were killed, air force spokesman Janaka Nanayakkara said.

There was no immediate comment from the Tigers, but the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said the guerrillas had launched several counter attacks in the Mullaittivu district this week and seized weapons from troops.

The rebels said they had killed more than 100 government troops in a week of heavy fighting, but did not give their own losses.

Senior rebel leaders fail to prevent Sri Lankan troops' advance

COLOMBO, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's defense officials said Sunday that Tamil Tiger rebels had thrown their senior leaders to the front line to prevent the military forward march but this can not stop the advance of the troops.

"The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) had its senior leaders Soosai, Vidusha and Bhanu to prevent the Army from going forward in Puthukudyiruppu, but they had to give up," Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told the private radio station of Gold FM.

Nanayakkara said the Army's 58 and 53 divisions and a Task Force have encircled the last rebel hold in three different directions and the rebels are currently left with very little options.

All of LTTE senior leaders are believed to be trapped in Puthukudyiruppu, the last rebel stronghold after they lost most of the territory to the advancing Army.

The LATTE has also come under criticism internationally for their holding of a large civilian population as a human shield in the current military clashes.

The Sri Lankan government has called on the international community to urge the rebels to free some 70,000 civilians trapped in the battle zones.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has ferried the injured civilians from the battle zone to the eastern port of Trincomalee.

The government says over 35,000 civilians have already left the rebel clutches.

The LTTE has been fighting since the mid-1980s to set up a separate homeland for the minority Tamil community in the island's north and east, claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority ruling community.