COLOMBO, Oct 4: Sri Lanka’s military battled within 2km of the separatist Tamil Tigers’ headquarters town and allowed civilians to flee before a final siege, the army said on Saturday.

Battles raged just outside Kilinochchi, seat of the Tigers’ quasi-government in the north of the Indian Ocean island, with Mi-24 attack helicopters rocketing a bunker line while ground troops fought insurgents, the military said.

“Troops are 2km away from Kilinochchi town limits,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. “People already have left Kilinochchi now so they are definitely east of the A9 road. That is why we have given them this safe passage.”

The A9 is the main north-south highway, and most of the Tiger-held ground is to its east toward the port of Mullaitivu.

The army has created a 10-km square no-fire area to allow

civilians to go south, Nanayakkara said.

Aid workers say 200,000 people are trapped in the line of fire because the Tigers will not let them leave, and they fear the army after so many years of war, despite the safe passage promise.

Soldiers have slogged closer and closer to Kilinochchi, 330km north of the capital Colombo, over the past month with the goal of wiping out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and ending a war that has raged for a quarter-century.

Battles on Friday killed at least 20 rebels and wounded 31, while three soldiers were killed and 20 wounded, the army said.

The figures are difficult to independently verify since the war zone is off-limits to journalists and distortions by both sides are common. The Tigers have been silent on battlefield casualties for weeks and could not be reached for comment.

The military’s advance on Kilinochchi, a symbolic and strategic target, has sent thousands of civilians fleeing.

The first aid convoy for weeks into the war zone delivered its cargo and returned south of the frontline, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said. The army ordered all aid agencies out last month, saying it could not protect them.

Another convoy is due to go in this weekend.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government is confident of finishing war soon, having poured money and manpower at it since formally trashing a ceasefire in January that both sides had disregarded for nearly two years.

The Tigers are the most ruthless and effective militant group fighting for a homeland for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils, battling the government since 1983 in what is one of Asia’s longest insurgencies.In the process, the LTTE has eliminated all competitors to lead the Tamil cause, been implicated in dozens of assassinations including that of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and landed on multiple terrorism lists for widespread suicide bombings.Sri Lankan Tamils have complained of marginalisation and broken promises from every government since 1948’s independence from Britain, all of them led by members of the Sinhalese people who are 75 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million population. —Reuters