Tamil Tiger leader trapped

KILINOCHCHI (AFP) - The leader of Sri Lankas Tamil Tiger rebels is trapped in a small strip of jungle and intends to make a final stand with his surviving forces, an army commander said Friday.
The commander said a rebel spokesman who surrendered to government troops earlier in the week had reported that Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, was still in charge of his cornered and depleted separatist army in the islands northeast.
The Tamil Tiger spokesman says that Prabhakaran was living inside and that he will be there until the last moment, Brigadier Shavendra Silva told reporters.
But, even at the last minute, he will try to escape, said the commander, who is spearheading the offensive against the Liberation LTTE.
Prabhakaran has not been seen for 18 months, and speculation has been rife that he may have been killed or already fled the island. The fighting has sparked a wave of international concern for the fate of 50,000 people still said by the United Nations to be trapped in the conflict zone.
The UN also estimates that as many as 6,500 civilians may have been killed and another 14,000 wounded in the fighting so far this year, diplomats said.
Reporters taken by the military to the front line at Puttumatalan, about an hours drive along a bombed out road from the former Tiger capital Kilinochchi, saw smoke rising from the last patch of land where the rebels are encircled.
Intermittent gunfire and explosions could be heard in the area, but journalists were not allowed to speak with any of the tens of thousands of civilians who managed to escape the conflict zone earlier this week.
Silva told reporters in Kilinochchi, 330km north of the capital Colombo, that many guerrillas wanted to surrender.
The army says the remnants of the LTTE - who once controlled a third of the island - are now confined to a 10 square kilometre strip of coastline.
My soldiers are suffering casualties because they cannot fire (heavy weapons), Silva told reporters, insisting his troops were under instructions to maintain zero civilian casualties.
The LTTE have been widely accused of using civilians as human shields. Sri Lankas hawkish administration is also facing mounting international demands for a truce as a way to spare civilian lives.
We urge the government to exercise extreme caution in its military actions and call upon the LTTE to allow displaced people to leave the area immediately, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement.
The government, however, has resisted appeals to end its offensive, and has also turned down requests to send humanitarian teams into the area.
Instead it named the armys number-two, Major General G A Chandrasiri, as taking charge of relief operations, officials said Friday.
As well as blocking most aid agencies, the Sri Lankan authorities have herded escaping Tamil civilians into closely-guarded internment camps so they can weed out suspected rebels.
However, a Sri Lankan government official who declined to be named acknowledged Colombo was under tremendous international pressure - with neighbour India sending an emergency diplomatic mission on Friday.
These killings must stop. The Sri Lankan government has a responsibility to protect its own citizens and the LTTE must stop its barbaric attempt to hold civilians hostage, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in a statement.