Rebel Siege Is Broken, Sri Lankan Troops Say

Government troops broke a rebel siege Saturday and reinforced a strategic army camp at this island’s northern extreme, military officials said, completing a 25-day jungle offensive in which hundreds of troops and rebels were killed.

Almost immediately after the troops entered Elephant Pass army camp, helicopters landed to evacuate some of the 55 wounded soldiers, officials said. At least 18 soldiers were in serious condition.

The troops had earlier fought their way up to Pallai, a village eight miles from the camp, before clearing the main road and railway line.

“I am very proud of the achievement,” Cyril Ranatunga, secretary of the defense in Colombo, said of the offensive.

“We were very confident of reaching the camp, but we had to carry out our mission to destroy the rebel bunkers so that there will be no threat to the camp in the future. That is why we took so long,” he said.

Tamil rebels entrenched in bunkers had been besieging the camp, 185 miles northeast of Colombo, since July 10.

Eight-hundred soldiers had been trapped in the camp since July 14, when the government landed 8,000 troops at Wettaliakkeni, six miles to the east.

The Elephant Pass camp straddles a causeway that leads to the rebel-held northern Jaffna Peninsula, the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The government says 152 soldiers and more than 1,500 rebels have died in the fighting for the camp. There were no independent estimates of casualties.