COLOMBO, Feb 7: The stream of civilians fleeing Sri Lanka’s war zone picked up speed and air force jets killed 11 rebels in a strike that left the leader of the Tamil Tigers’ naval wing missing, the military said on Saturday.

More than 50,000 soldiers are converging on a tiny wedge of jungle in the Indian Ocean island’s northeast to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) separatists and end one of Asia’s longest-running wars.

With rebel territory fast shrinking, the hunt is on for Tiger leaders, including the elusive Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the man who founded the group that turned the suicide bomb into a weapon of war and landed on numerous international terrorism lists.

Fighters bombed a complex of bunkers with an apartment and communications dishes on Friday, killing at least 11 rebels, air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said.

Initial reports said it might have been a Prabhakaran hideout, but later was found to be an operational base for the LTTE’s ‘Sea Tigers’ naval wing and its chief, Soosai, he said.

“Intelligence reports say the whereabouts of Soosai is not known. He is now missing,” Nanayakkara said.

Later, jets returned and destroyed a backhoe digging up the bombed site, and another was called afterwards, according to monitored LTTE communications, he said.

“That implies there was a leader. Otherwise they wouldn’t dig that place up like that,” Nanayakkara said.

Trapped inside the 175sq-km of rebel-held territory are tens of thousands of civilians. Aid agencies, the government and rights groups say these civilians are forcibly being held there by the LTTE. The rebels deny that.

The number of people fleeing has gathered pace this week, and rose sharply on Friday.

“Yesterday, 5,000 came out,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

According to a military tally, around 10,800 civilians have fled this year – 6,600 of those on Thursday and Friday alone.

Aid groups say 250,000 are in the war zone. The government says the number is about half of that.

People who escaped on Friday were brought to Kilinochchi, the town the rebels had declared as the capital of the separate state they wanted to create, Nanayakkara said. Troops seized Kilinochchi on Jan 2.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse warned the rebels to surrender or face a complete rout as government forces claimed more military successes against the militants.

“I want to tell the Tigers: “lay down arms and surrender to security forces,” the president told a public rally in the northwestern district of Kurunegala.

“They must let the civilians go and then unconditionally give themselves up,” he said, echoing a call by Sri Lanka’s US-led aid donors who have asked the Tigers to negotiate terms of surrender.

Military officials said the air force had stepped up their attacks on Saturday.

In his speech on Saturday, the president made no reference to an amnesty, but his defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse had made it clear that there could be no pardon for the senior

Tiger leaders who should be tried.—Agencies