COLOMBO (AFP) — Sri Lanka's president vowed Tuesday to press on with a military campaign to crush Tamil Tiger rebels, a day after guerrillas set off a bomb inside a train killing nine and wounding 84 people.
"I will not stop till terrorism is defeated," President Mahinda Rajapakse told journalists at his heavily guarded office in Colombo.
"No one should have expectations that there will be a let-up in the battle against terrorism because of the frenzied attacks by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," he said.
Monday's bombing targetted an evening rush hour commuter train in the southern suburbs of Colombo. Officials on Tuesday raised the toll from eight to nine dead.
On May 16, another bombing inside the city killed 13 people and wounded more than 80 people.
"I will leave no room for terrorism in this country," Rajapakse said, accusing the rebels of trying to "whip communal strife" on the island.
"The government will not let this happen," he added.
Rajapakse accused the LTTE of targeting civilians to offset its supposed defeats and setbacks as security forces attempt to move into vast swathes of rebel-held jungle in the island's north.
Both sides in the long-running ethnic conflict have been accused of targetting civilians.
Fighting has escalated since the start of the year, when Rajapakse formally pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the LTTE.
After managing to expel the LTTE from its enclaves in the east of the island after heavy fighting last year, the government says it now has the upper hand in the decades-old conflict.
"We intend to take the success in the east forward, until we ensure the people of the north of their rights," Rajapakse said.
Local polls to elect officials to run the multi-ethnic and multi-religious eastern province were held earlier this month, with a government-backed former Tiger breakaway faction, the TMVP, securing the majority of seats.
Rajapakse hailed the elections as a sign that normality has returned to the area.
"There will be a political solution given from the Tamil people," he said referring to the ethnic Tamil legislators that were elected to run the council. "We have sent a speedy message to the North from the East," he said.
However, Sri Lankan rights groups continue to voice fears over the conduct of the TMVP.
The defectors are still heavily armed, and have been accused of kidnapping children to use as fighters and intimidating or murdering opponents -- the same conduct the rebels in the north are accused of.
The president's comments come as security forces killed at least 22 Tiger rebels in ground battles in the northern areas of Jaffna, Weli Oya and Mannar on Monday, the defence ministry said, adding that two soldiers were injured.
Monday's fighting raises to 3,895 the number of rebels the government says it has killed since January. The ministry says 298 soldiers have died over the same period.
The numbers cannot be independently verified as Sri Lanka bars journalists and human rights groups from the embattled areas.
Sri Lanka's war with the Tamil rebels, who staged their first attacks in 1972, has left tens of thousands of people dead.
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