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KILINOCHCHI - Sri Lankan troops drove Tamil Tiger fighters from their last stronghold in the island's east, the military said, but the rebels vowed to carry on with a guerrilla-style war.
The capture of a jungle area called Thoppigala, which had been in Tiger hands since the mid-1990s, rounds off a significant territorial setback for the rebels who have lost vast swathes of terrain in the east this year.
But while the Army has had the upper hand in recent months, the Tigers' military machine is still intact in the north, where they run a de facto state.
The military says it has killed nearly 450 rebel fighters in the Thoppigala area, in the eastern district of Batticaloa, since February and that around 20 of its men have been killed.
The Tigers say 60 of their guerrillas have been killed and believe they have killed three or four times that number of troops.
- REUTERS
