Sri Lankan forces captured the strategic Elephant Pass base from the Tamil Tigers on Friday (9^th January), ousting the rebels from their last stronghold on the Jaffna peninsula and boxing them into a shrinking pocket of land in the northeast. In a nationally televised address, President Mahinda Rajapaksa praised the victory.

 

The capture of the base gives the government nearly full control of the northern peninsula, the Tamil's cultural capital, for the first time since 2000. It also puts the country's major north-south highway completely under its control for the first time in 23 years.

 

The rebels are now confined to a small area off jungle around their last remaining stronghold of Mullaittivu. The rebels were not available for comment. The government, which seized the rebels' administrative capital of Kilinochchi last week, has promised to crush the rebel group and end the Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year-old civil war.

 

But, in a reminder of the rebels' ability to cause destruction even as they suffer conventional defeats, the rebels detonated a roadside bomb in the country's eastern city of Trincomalee on Friday (9^th January) that killed three air force troops and four civilians, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

 

Analysts said the guerrillas appeared to have withdrawn their artillery and heavy weaponry from the area and were sacrificing their bases on the peninsula to consolidate forces near Mullaittivu, where they will likely make a stand.