Word: jaffna
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...even more so when the insurgents are better armed than the government forces. Sri Lanka found itself forced to declare martial law Thursday following another dramatic defeat at the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who last week took control of the gateway to the disputed Jaffna province, leaving some 40,000 government troops trapped and surrounded. And to make matters worse, India - whose government includes parties from India's Tamil province, and which was eventually asked by Sri Lanka to withdraw the last time it sent in peacekeeping troops - refused a request to help evacuate the beleaguered...
...considered the best-guarded area in the city. Many prominent buildings were damaged, including some of the city's best hotels. Nobody has claimed responsibility, but it is certain that it was the Tamil rebels. We knew a major attack would happen after the government forces overtook Jaffna, the rebels' seat of power last December. There will be pressure on President Chandrika Kumaratunga to increase military operations in the northern part of the country. But that might not be enough. The rebels have the manpower and capability to stage more attacks. And I expect them...
...struggle. Tamil fighters, known as Tigers, dropped their usual tactics of ambush and evasion to launch a 3,000-strong force against a government base controlling Elephant Pass, a narrow, one-mile causeway, surrounded by marsh, beaches and sand dunes, that connects the mainland with the Tigers' heartland, the Jaffna Peninsula...
...northern city of Jaffna, 300 miles away, Jayamani Marianayagam ricochets between grief and anxiety as she recounts the fate of her son Jude Chandrakumar. Three weeks ago, the 17-year-old boy was practicing You Are My Rock, O Jesus on the organ in St. Mary's Cathedral when a street battle between two militant Tamil factions spilled through the doors and into the sanctuary. Mistaking young Chandrakumar for a wounded rival, guerrillas grabbed him. The boy's body was found that night outside the church, his legs broken, his fingernails missing, his head half blown away. "No mother should...
...from curbing the indiscriminate violence, the patrolling Indian soldiers sometimes add to it. After every attack on the peacekeeping troops -- and there have been 40 published incidents in the past three months around Jaffna alone -- surrounding areas are cordoned off and large numbers of civilians hauled in for brutal interrogation...