Sri Lankan Military Says Rebel Leader Hurt in Attack

Sri Lanka's military said the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was wounded in an air raid on the group's headquarters in the north.

The report, citing ``reliable intelligence,'' didn't give details of any injuries suffered by Velupillai Prabhakaran in the Nov. 26 attack. The LTTE hasn't commented on the statement issued by the Media Center for National Security. Telephone calls to the group's Peace Secretariat and its military spokesman were unanswered today.

``Though the air force believed that Velupillai Prabhakaran had been hit in the attack, non availability of ground information'' at the time prevented the government from releasing the report to the media, the center said.

Sri Lanka's military has targeted LTTE leaders since the army won control of the eastern region in July, leaving the Tamil Tigers holding bases in the north. The Nov. 26 raid came a day before Prabhakaran gave his annual address, in which he said the government was preventing any chances of peace by carrying out its military offensives.

The raid by four aircraft destroyed a bunker used by LTTE leaders at Jayanthinagar near Kilinochchi, the Media Center said. An airstrike on Nov. 2 near the rebel headquarters killed S.P. Thamilchelvan, the head of the group's political wing.

``We are after'' Prabhakaran, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said in a Nov. 26 interview with Agence France-Presse in the capital, Colombo. ``We are specifically targeting their leadership.''

Thamilchelvan's death ``sent a very powerful message,'' the defense secretary said. ``They know we have good intelligence on their movements.''

Ban on LTTE

Sri Lanka may re-impose a ban on the LTTE that was lifted in 2002 if the rebels carry out more attacks, such as a parcel bombing in Colombo last month that killed 19 civilians, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said earlier this week.

The ban was lifted in an attempt to boost peace talks between the Tamil Tigers and the government of then prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that led to the signing of a 2002 cease-fire accord.

Negotiations with the LTTE, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., the European Union and India, failed to make progress at two meetings in Geneva last year, resulting in an increase in fighting in the country.

Train Attack

The government accused the LTTE of deliberately targeting civilians in an attack two days ago on a night mail train running between the eastern port of Trincomalee and Colombo. A mine blast struck the engine compartment, the Media Center said in a statement on its Web site. There weren't any injuries among the 300 civilians on the train, it said.

At least 11 Tamil Tigers fighters were killed yesterday when the army attacked a rebel bunker near Mannar in the northwest, the center said. The army brought in tanks to support ground troops, it said.

The LTTE is fighting for a separate homeland in a conflict that has killed 70,000 people in the South Asian island nation in the past 24 years.

The government rejects a settlement that divides the country and is offering to devolve power to some provinces. The Tamil Tigers say any peace agreement must be based on a separate homeland.

The president, in his Nov. 7 budget speech, vowed to ``eradicate'' terrorism in the country and increased defense spending by 19 percent to help combat the insurgency.