Sri Lankan troops captured a massive Tamil Tiger training base with underground bunkers, lecture halls and a cemetery as government forces pushed ahead with their offensive against the rebels, the military said yesterday.
A series of raging battles across the northern war zone on Saturday killed 27 Tamil Tiger fighters and seven government troops, the military said.
Troops have broken through the rebels’ defenses in recent weeks and seized a series of key towns and bases. Government officials say they hope to rout the Tamil Tigers by the end of the year and end the Indian Ocean island nation’s 25-year-old civil war.
On Saturday evening, soldiers took control of a rebel training base in Andankulam in the Welioya region after Tamil Tiger fighters fled the area, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
“Earlier they had given resistance, but afterward they had withdrawn,” he said.
Troops uncovered about 100 underground bunkers, four lecture halls, water wells, toilet facilities and a cemetery for fallen fighters with 67 buried bodies, he said.
Fighting throughout the day in Welioya killed eight rebels, while battles in Vavuniya killed nine others and two soldiers, the military said. Other frontline battles killed 10 other rebels and five soldiers, the military said.
Repeated attempts in recent days to reach rebel spokesmen by e-mail, telephone and satellite phones have been unsuccessful.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
RSS