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| Senior Tamil Tiger leader killed | Senior Tamil Tiger leader killed |
| (about 7 hours later) | |
| A senior leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels has been killed in a government air raid, the rebels say. | A senior leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels has been killed in a government air raid, the rebels say. |
| SP Thamilselvan was the head of the rebels' political wing and held an important position in their hierarchy. | |
| The rebels said he died along with five others in an air strike by the Sri Lankan military on Friday morning. | |
| Correspondents say the death will be a huge blow to the rebels. Fighting between troops and the Tamil Tigers has escalated in recent months. | |
| If we want we can take them one by one, so they must change their hideouts Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa Have your say - what now? Thamilselvan obituary | |
| The BBC's Roland Buerk in Colombo says Mr Thamilselvan was the public face of the rebels, meeting Norwegian peace envoys and giving interviews to the media. | |
| The rebels' top leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been in hiding for years. | |
| Mr Thamilselvan's death could provoke an escalation in the civil war, our correspondent says. How the rebels choose to retaliate also remains to be seen. | |
| The death of SP Thamilselvan follows that of another key rebel spokesman, Anton Balasingham, last year. | |
| 'Deep sorrow' | |
| The Tamil Tigers announced the news on their website, saying Mr Thamilselvan had died at 0600 local time (0030 GMT) on Friday. | |
| The Tigers have suffered a series of recent reverses | |
| "With deep sorrow we announce to the people of Tamil Eelam, the Tamil people living all over the world and the international community, that at 6am today, Friday 2 November 2007... head of our organisation's political wing Brig SP Thamilselvan was killed by the Sri Lankan air force aerial bombing," a statement said. | |
| "With him Lt-Col Anpumani (Alex), Major Mihuthan, Capt Nethagy, Lieutenant Adchgivel and Lieutenant Vahaikumaran were also killed." | |
| The pro-rebel TamilNet website said the air strike was carried out in Kilinochchi, the rebels' northern stronghold. | |
| Reports say Mr Thamilselvan and his colleagues were killed by the pressure of the bomb blast which left their bodies otherwise unscathed. | |
| Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said intelligence had confirmed that the head of the Tigers' political wing was dead. | |
| He described the attack as a success and said the military had got rid of a leader who was at the top of the list. | |
| It remains unclear how the military knew of Mr Thamilselvan's whereabouts. | |
| Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother, warned rebel leaders to beware. | |
| "This is just a message, that we know where their leaders are... if we want we can take them one by one," he told Reuters news agency. | |
| War fears | |
| Friday's air raid came after a Tamil Tiger attack on an Air Force base last week which left 14 security forces personnel dead and destroyed eight aircraft. | |
| Observers say the two sides now seem to be gearing up for a major confrontation in the north of the country. | |
| Despite losing territory in the east earlier this year, the rebels still control a vast swathe of land in the north. | |
| A 2002 ceasefire which paved the way for inconclusive peace talks has existed on paper for more than a year. | |
| The rebels are fighting for autonomy for minority Tamils in the north and east, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese population. | |
| About 70,000 people have died in more than 20 years of war. Thousands have fled their homes to escape recent fighting. |