Tamil Tigers Back in Control of East
Tamil Tiger rebels were back in full control of eastern Sri Lanka and launched a new search for a renegade guerrilla leader who had carved out a fiefdom there.
The northern-based Tigers secured all the areas that had been claimed by Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan when he broke away from the group last month and set up his own Eastern Tigers, military officials and cease-fire monitors said Wednesday.
The area of recent fighting was now safe enough for the European cease-fire monitors to resume their work, mission deputy chief Hagrup Haukland said. This week’s Tamil-on-Tamil violence had posed one of the greatest threats to the island’s peace since a landmark 2002 cease-fire ended 19 years of fighting. The violence had risked drawing in government troops.
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