Lanka halts combat ops, airstrikes; it’s not truce

Under mounting international pressure, including from India, Sri Lanka on Monday said it would immediately stop airstrikes and the use of heavy weapons in the war zone, but President Mahinda Rajapakse made it clear that it was not a ceasefire.

“It is not a ceasefire. Freeing the people who are kept there as hostages is my duty... Till the last hostage who is there is out from LTTE hold, we will continue... We are not bothered or worried about Prabhakaran (LTTE supremo) or any other person,” Mr Rajapakse said.

India had initially interpreted the Sri Lankan announcement that the combat operations have reached their conclusion and that the forces would not use heavy calibre guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons as a “cessation of hostilities”.

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Lanka Offers 48 Hours Truce

Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse late on Thursday announced cessation of hostilities by his troops “for the next 48 hours” to allow safe passage “to a secure environment” for all the civilians trapped in the conflict zone and urged the LTTE to allow the civilians to freely move to safety during this period.

“I urge the LTTE within the next 48 hours to allow free movement of civilians to ensure their safety and security. For all those civilians, I assure safe passage to a secure environment. I also assure all those living in the north, and in conflict areas in particular, that vacating LTTE-held areas will ensure their physical security and enable peace, freedom and rights for all citizens of this country,” President Rajapakse said in a “special statement” here.

The President said it was unfortunate that the LTTE was “exploiting the safe zone, declared by the security forces for the civilians, to use as an artillery launching pad to attack security forces and indiscriminately kill civilians.”

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24 die in 2 attacks by Tigers in Lanka

At least 24 civilians were killed, nine of them women, in suspected LTTE bombings of two buses: one near Colombo on Friday morning and the second at central Kandy in the evening. President Mahinda Rajapakse condemned the “repeated acts of brutality by the LTTE in its cowardly strategy of targeting innocent civilians” and appealed to the people to stay calm and “not give in to deliberate provocation aimed at fanning communal hatred and violence”. The Tigers have not yet reacted.

According to the Lankan defence ministry, a road side clay more mine placed at a location between the Shailabimbaramya temple and the University of Moratuwa, the top engineering university in Sri Lanka, was detonated to target a packed civilian bus travelling from Kottawa to Mount Lavinia. The explosion took place around 7.30 am. The initial toll showed 22 dead and over 50 wounded.

Another bomb went off on Friday evening inside a bus at Polgolla in Kandy, about 100 km from Colombo, killing two persons and injuring 12 others. DIG Kingsley Ekanayake said a suspect had been picked up for questioning.

The military said it defused a “high-intensity” clay more at Dehiwella, close to the site where the morning blast occurred.

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