KILINOCHCHI, SRI LANKA, January 2, 2008: Sri Lanka’s military have seized control of the Tamil Tiger rebels’ de facto capital of Kilinochchi, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced.
A pro-Tamil website confirmed the news but said the town was mostly empty as the rebel fighters had moved out. The town is of huge symbolic importance to the Tigers, who had assembled there the trappings of a separate state they want for the ethnic Tamil minority.
The Sri Lankan army has for months been advancing towards Kilinochchi, which had been in the hands of rebels for the last decade.