The World - News from Oct. 17, 1986

Sri Lankan troops wiped out rebel camps and drove Tamil guerrillas from the jungles of the Mannar and Vavuniya districts in a four-day sweep in which 65 rebels and 14 soldiers were killed, the government said. Meanwhile, a 19-year-old Tamil civilian told a news conference at Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, where most Tamils live, that the army had hired him to kill guerrilla leaders. Selva Bala said he was hired to assassinate Velupillai Prabakaran, chief of the Liberation Tigers rebel group, and a Jaffna insurgent leader known as Kittu. The rebels are seeking a separate Tamil nation in the north and east.