COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka soldiers captured a Tamil Tiger training camp as government troops pressed ahead with their offensive against the guerrillas in the country's embattled north, the military said Sunday.
The military has achieved a string of major victories against the rebels in recent months -- including the capture of the Tamil Tiger administrative capital of Kilinochchi a week ago. The government has vowed to crush the separatist guerrillas and end the Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year-old civil war in the coming months.
Army soldiers, advancing into the rapidly shrinking rebel territory, captured a rebel training camp near the village of Mulliyaweli in the last rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu on Friday, the military said in a statement.
There were underground bunkers and an auditorium in the camp, the statement said.
The statement did not provide details of casualties from the fight to capture the camp.
Separately, the military said soldiers found three bodies of Tamil rebels killed in fighting in Waddakachchi in the Kilinochchi district.
Rebel spokesmen could not be reached for comment on the fighting. Independent verification of battlefield reports released by the two sides is not possible because journalists are barred from the war zone.
Meanwhile, the pro-rebel TamilNet Web site reported that four civilians were killed Saturday night in a government artillery assault on a rebel-held village in Mullaitivu.
Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara denied the rebel claim and said the military attacks only identified rebel positions.
Human rights groups have warned that casualties among the hundreds of thousands of civilians living in the shrinking pocket of rebel territory are likely to mount as the government closes in on the insurgents.
The rebels 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 people.
