"The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people."

A Sri Lanka report:

"COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan forces captured the strategic Elephant Pass base from the Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday, ousting them from their last stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula and boxing them into a shrinking pocket of land in the northeast.( THEY ARE IN TROUBLE. )

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The New York Times

The capture of the base gives the government nearly full control of the northern peninsula, the rebels’ cultural capital, for the first time since 2000. It also puts the country’s major north-south highway completely under its control for the first time in 23 years.

The rebels are now confined to a small area of jungle around their last remaining stronghold, Mullaittivu.

In a nationally televised address, President Mahinda Rajapaksa praised the victory. “Our soldiers by this evening have been able to totally liberate Elephant Pass” from the rebels, he said.

There was no comment from the rebels, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The government, which seized the rebels’ administrative capital, Kilinochchi, last week, has promised to crush the rebel group and end Sri Lanka’s 25-year-old civil war.

But in a reminder of the rebels’ ability to cause destruction even as they suffer conventional defeats, the rebels detonated a roadside bomb( THIS WILL BECOME THEIR STRATEGY AGAIN ) in the country’s east on Friday that killed three air force troops and four civilians, said a military spokesman, Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.

The attack outside the eastern city of Trincomalee signaled a return to guerrilla tactics( YES ). The government captured the east from the rebels in 2007, but attacks in the area have increased in recent months.

On Friday, government forces marching from the north and south broke into Elephant Pass and fought heavy battles with the rebels, the military said. The base is on the isthmus connecting the northern Jaffna Peninsula with the rest of the island in the Indian Ocean.

Analysts said the guerrillas appeared to have withdrawn their artillery and heavy weaponry from the area and were sacrificing their bases on the peninsula to consolidate forces near Mullaittivu, where they will probably make a stand.

Human rights groups have warned that casualties among the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in the shrinking pocket of rebel territory were likely to mount as the government closed in on the insurgents.( THIS IS MY CONCERN )

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. The conflict has killed more than 70,000( 70,000) people.

Troops south of Jaffna were also fighting the rebels, pushing east from the Kilinochchi area, Brigadier Nanayakkara said. The troops found the bodies of seven insurgents from fighting Thursday, he said."

I would hope that the government reaches out to Tamils, to try and isolate the Tigers after this conflict winds down. Otherwise, Sri Lanka can expect a return of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks.