By Xinhua
Colombo : Sri Lankan troops are determined to crush the threat posed by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the government said Monday.
Gotabhaya Rajapakse, defence ministry secretary of Sri Lanka, in a speech made in the north central village of Galkiriyagama on Sunday night said that troops who have been successful in the east would do the same in the north, the Department of Government Information said in a press release.
“The government is determined to liberate the remainder of the un-cleared areas in the (rebel controlled) Wanni (region) from the clutches of the LTTE, the same way it liberated the east,” Rajapakse, who is the younger brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, said in the press release.
He stressed that the government has the responsibility to end terrorism in the country.
Rajapakse said the government had learnt lessons from its past history where the LTTE had used periods of ceasefire to regroup and rearm.
“We will not make the same mistakes,” Rajapakse, who survived an assassination attempt by the LTTE last December, said.
The government in mid-July announced that the entire Eastern Province had been cleared of the LTTE with the fall of Thoppigala in the Batticaloa district.
The area had been inaccessible for the troops over 12 years. Rebel activities are now confined to the north where they have main operational facilities.
During last three weeks, the clashes in the north have intensified and analysts say a major battle for supremacy in the north could soon be expected.
The LTTE have been fighting over the last three decades to set up a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the island’s north and east.