Sri Lanka’s Air Force Again Bombs Tamil Rebels

The Sri Lankan air force bombed Tamil guerrilla outposts Thursday for the second day as government officials vowed to launch a new offensive and wipe out the rebels.

The government said the rebel targets were near the northernmost town of Jaffna, a stronghold of separatist operations and the same area where an air strike Wednesday left 80 Tamil rebels dead and 80 wounded. About 100 were reported dead in the two days of air raids.

The government, led by the island’s Sinhalese majority, has blamed the Tamils for bombings and massacres that killed more than 230 people in the last week.

The declaration of an all-out offensive was made at an emergency session of Parliament as discontent mounted over the government’s handling of the four-year-old civil war between Sinhalese and Tamils.

Land Minister Gamini Dissanayake said the Tamil rebels repeatedly spurned diplomacy and “have decided to kill people like mosquitoes. . . . The terrorists do not respect anybody.

“We have decided to wipe them out,” he said. “It may cost many lives, but it cannot be avoided.”

The rebels, belonging to several organizations, demand autonomy or independence in the country’s north and east, where most Tamils live.

The war took on a new viciousness a week ago, when 127 people, including women and children, were massacred after guerrillas waylaid buses and trucks and separated the mostly Sinhalese victims from other passengers.

On Tuesday, a car bomb exploded at the main bus station in the capital, killing at least 106 people and injuring 295.

Angry opposition members charged that the government’s efforts to settle the Tamil conflict peacefully have only encouraged the rebels.

“You in the government are murderers. . . . You cannot even provide security to Colombo, the capital,” Dinesh Gunawardene said in the noisy Parliament session. “You must take full responsibility of turning this motherland of ours into a land of blood and tears.”

The government also faced opposition in the streets, as protesters in Colombo and two other towns demanded President Junius R. Jayewardene’s resignation because of the bus station bombing.

Many of the demonstrators were Buddhist monks, who denounced the president’s previous offers of limited autonomy to Tamils.

About 18% of the country’s 16 million people are Tamils, who are mostly Hindus. They accuse the majority Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhists, of discrimination.