Word: kilinochchi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...only terrorist group to have assassinated two world leaders. The rebels, based in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, have been waging a violent offensive against the central government on and off for more than 20 years. Federal forces recently announced they had captured the Tigers' capital, Kilinochchi, but it's a safe bet that, regardless of territory lost or possibly dwindling ranks, the guerillas will not give up their fight willingly...
...Kollupitiya junction in the heart of Colombo Friday afternoon, the streets filled with confetti and bursts of firecrackers. Sri Lankans were celebrating their government's claim that troops had captured Kilinochchi, the administrative capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that has waged a 25-year struggle for an independent Tamil homeland. After a triumphant speech by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a handful of men danced in the streets, as a drummer pounded out one of the island's raucus baila beats...
...Kilinochchi's importance is only partly strategic. It is one of several key areas of territory along the A9 highway, a road toward the northern tip of the teardrop-shaped island and one of the main supply routes into Mullaitivu, the thick jungle areas where the LTTE is believed to base its operations. Symbolically, Kilinochchi is more important. The 463 square mile (1,200 sq. km.) district it governs has been under LTTE control for more than 10 years, ever since the Sri Lankan Army lost a battle known as Operation Unceasing Waves in September...
...years, the LTTE, who say they are fighting subjugation by the majority Sinhalese, had set up law courts, banks, hospitals and administrative offices - all the trappings of state that stand in defiance of Sri Lanka. But it is no longer the home of rebel leadership or military operations. "Kilinochchi was ceded by them a long time ago," says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a public policy group based in Colombo. "Mullaitivu is a much more vital strategic asset...
...Tigers' cadres. Even if Mullaitivu were to fall, the Tigers could simply move underground, returning to the guerrilla tactics such as suicide bombings which made them famous and have contributed to the conflict's enormous death toll: more than 65,000 deaths since 1983. "Even if you occupy Kilinochchi, you're not going to defeat the LTTE as such," says Gajan Ponnambalam, a member of parliament whose party, the Tamil National Alliance, is sympathetic to the LTTE. "They'll go underground and continue the struggle in a different...