The Sri Lankan government announced on Friday afternoon that the war against the LTTE would be completed within the next few hours with troops taking complete control of all areas in northern Mullaithivu district.

The announcement came as thousands of civilians began coming out of the little strip of land of less than two kilometres long into government held areas with speculations growing that the capture of the LTTE leaders was at hand.

President Mahinda Rajapakse who left for an official visit to Jordon on Thursday said from there that within the next 48 hours all civilians trapped within the LTTE held areas would be freed.

The exodus of civilians began after troops reached the final phase of their hostage rescue mission as they opened up an escape route for the civilians on Thursday.

More than 5,000 civilian have crossed over in the past 24 hours as troops surrounded an area where LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and some of the others are believed to be hiding.

Several family members of the LTTE Sea Tiger leader Soosai, including his son and daughter, were captured by the navy as their tried to flee the fighting area in a boat.

President Barack Obama, warning that the situation in Sri Lanka could turn from a “humanitarian crisis into a catastrophe,” has urged Tamil Tigers to disarm and let civilians go and called on the Sri Lankan government to end “indiscriminate shelling.”

A human rights group, meanwhile, said it has grounds to believe that the Sri Lankan military will launch an even heavier offensive against the rebels now that elections in India have ended.

India’s powerful regional Tamil political parties have made protection of civilians in Sri Lanka a key election issue, Amnesty International noted. “There are real fears that the ‘bloodbath’ will turn into a flood of misery after 13 May,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director. He called on the United Nations Security Council to protect civilians before hundreds more are killed and wounded by the two sides.

Obama said he has been increasingly saddened by the “desperate news” from Sri Lanka where the military has been pounding shrinking rebel positions. Thousands of civilians have been caught in the crossfire. “This has led to widespread suffering and the loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of lives,” Obama said.

Urging the Tamil Tigers to “lay down their arms and let civilians go,” Obama called the forced recruitment of civilians by rebels and the use of civilians as human shields deplorable. “These tactics will only serve to alienate all those who carry them out,” he said.

The president also urged the Sri Lankan government to “stop the indiscriminate shelling that has taken hundreds of innocent lives, including several hospitals,” and said the government should live up to its commitment to not use heavy weapons in the conflict zone. He said the government should give UN humanitarian teams access to the trapped civilians so that they can receive the assistance necessary to save lives.

“Now is the time, I believe, to put aside some of the political issues that are involved and to put the lives of the men and women and children who are innocently caught in the crossfire, to put them first,” Obama said.

Amnesty International says both the Tigers and the Sri Lankan military have been violating the laws of war. “The controversy over who is responsible for these devastating attacks underlines the need for the Security Council to demand immediate access to the area by humanitarian organizations as well as U.N. observers,” said Zarifi. “The Security Council should emphasise that both the government and the LTTE will be held fully accountable for any breaches of their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law.”

“More civilian casualties and inadequate care for those caught in resettlement camps will only make it more difficult to achieve the peace that the people of Sri Lanka deserve,”Obama said.

The minister for parliamentary affairs, Babar Awan has alleged that a "media trial" was underway against the army operation in Swat which he defended as inevitable and essential for the survival of the country. “The army is pitted against the enemies of the country and is determined to eliminate them in order to restore stability and integrity of the country,” Awan said while speaking in the National Assembly on Friday. He said the criticism that the army operation was launched without proper planning and consideration of its implications in terms of massive displacement of people.

He said the people of Swat have vacated their homes not because of army's shelling and bombing which is targeted to obliterate the extremists who have challenged the writ of the state. He said the army could not reveal its plans prior to launching the operation.

He said it was unrealistic to expect the army to reveal its plans before launching it operation. He insisted that the army moved under orders from the civilian government when the Taliban captured cities, beheaded people and looted banks and government property. Awan said the talks with the militants were possible only after the government writ is restored in Swat. The talks will now only be held when militants will lay down their arms, he said.

Awan said Prime Minister had discussed the issue with political leadership before his address regarding operation. The military is there to protect innocent people whereas federal government has unanimously approved the military action.

Washington, May 15
A top US diplomat today said Islamabad needed to do more to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack.

Robert Blake, now tipped to become the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Bureau of the State Department, told a powerful Congressional Committee that as far as Indo-US relationship was concerned, a lot depended on the actions being taken by Pakistan on 26/11 attack.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Blake told Senators that the attack had been a major setback to the Indo-Pak peace process. He acknowledged Pakistan should do more.

“They’ve taken some steps to bring cases against nine of the suspects in Mumbai attacks. But now it’s important that they prosecute them,” Blake said.

“I believe that concerted action by the Pakistanis against not only those suspects but against Lashkar-e-Toiba would enable the two countries to regain some of the progress in the composite dialogue and other areas of their cooperation,” Blake argued.

“Prior to the attacks in Mumbai, the governments of India and Pakistan were making quite good progress in forging closer relations across a broad range of fronts. They had something called the ‘composite dialogue’, which had a number of components to it to try to address some of the most ticklish issues in Indo-Pak relations,” he observed. — PTI