A Sri Lankan government soldier stands in front of a Tamil Tiger emblem yesterday in Mullaittivu
Internally displaced Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil civilians wait in a temporary ward as three bodies are seen kept on the ground, front, at a makeshift hospital in Mullivaaykaal, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, May 13, 2009. (AP Photo/STR)
Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil victims of a shell attack wait outside a makeshift hospital in Tiger controlled No Fire Zone in Mullivaaykaal, Sri Lanka, Sunday, May 10, 2009. An all-night artillery barrage in Sri Lanka's war zone killed at least 378 civilians and forced thousands to flee to makeshift shelters along the beach, a government doctor said Sunday.The army and Tamil Tiger rebels blamed each other for the barrage, which the doctor said left at least 1,100 people wounded. He said it was the bloodiest day he had seen in months of fighting. (AP Photo)
Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil victims of a shell attack wait outside a makeshift hospital in Tiger controlled No Fire Zone in Mullivaaykaal, Sri Lanka, Sunday, May 10, 2009. An all-night artillery barrage in Sri Lanka's war zone killed at least 378 civilians and forced thousands to flee to makeshift shelters along the beach, a government doctor said Sunday. The army and Tamil Tiger rebels blamed each other for the barrage, which the doctor said left at least 1,100 people wounded. He said it was the bloodiest day he had seen in months of fighting. (AP Photo)
A bus blazes amid artillery strikes in Tamil Tiger territory in what one doctor treating the injured called the bloodiest day he had experienced in the 30-year war
A Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil woman holds her malnourished child at a makeshift hospital in the Tamil Tiger controlled no fire zone in Mullivaaykaal, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, May 6, 2009. (AP Photo)
A Sri Lankan police commando stands guard as vehicles carrying ballot boxes return to a counting center in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, Monday, March 10, 2008. Sri Lankans trickled to the polls Monday in the turbulent eastern city of Batticaloa to vote in the first municipal elections since government forces seized control of the east last year from ethnic Tamil rebels.
Sri Lankan navy sailors look on as war ship Samudura enters the naval base during a felicitation ceremony in Trincomalee, about 230 kilometers (144 miles) north east of capital Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sept.17, 2007. Sri Lanka's top defense official said Monday that the only way to end the island nation's 24-year-old civil war was to crush the separatist Tamil Tigers with military force. (AP Photo/ Eranga Jayawardena)
18 May 2009
The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government on Saturday offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the north-east.
The government rejected the last-ditch call for a ceasefire, saying the thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone all have escaped to safety and there was no longer any reason to stop the battle.
With the war nearing its end, Sri Lankans poured into the streets in spontaneous celebration. President Mahinda Rajapaksa scheduled a nationally-televised news conference for tomorrow morning at parliament where he was expected to tell the nation the war was over.
The fate of the Tamil Tigers’ top commanders remained unclear including the whereabouts of the reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
A senior military official said troops found the bodies of several rebel fighters who had committed suicide on Saturday when troops surrounded them.
The bodies were suspected of being Prabhakaran and his deputies but the military was still trying to confirm their identities.
The rebels, who once controlled a wide swathe of the north, have been routed by government forces in recent months.
On Saturday, Tamil Tiger suicide bombers targeted troops clearing out the last pockets of rebel resistance in the war zone.
At least 70 rebels were killed trying to flee, the military said.
Hours later the rebel group offered to lay down arms, saying it was acting to protect the wounded in the war zone.
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