Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebel leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran and two other top leaders have been killed, government officials said Monday.
Officials from the Department of Government Information said Prabhakaran was shot dead while trying to flee government troops in the no fire zone (NFZ) of the northern Mullaittivu district.
Two of his top aides, intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman and sea Tiger leader Soosai were killed along with Prabhakaran in the NFZ, the officials said.
All heads of Sri Lanka's security forces are expected to formally inform Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse later Monday that the whole country has been liberated from terrorism.
The Ministry of Defense said earlier in a statement that the Army foiled the last attempt of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to evacuate its top leaders Monday morning in the northern Mullaittivu district.
The government soldiers have located over 150 bodies of LTTE cadres so far and the process of identifying the bodies is in progress.
The LTTE carders have managed to take hold of two vehicles and put their senior leaders into those vehicles, but the soldiers intercepted the vehicles and crushed the move, said the statement.
The troops have so far identified bodies of Charles Anthony, the eldest son of Prabhakaran, B. Nadesan, the LTTE's political head, S. Pulidevan, the LTTE's head of peace secretariat, S. Ramesh, a special military leader, Kapil Amman, the LTTE's deputy intelligence leader, among others, said the statement.
Some residents in Colombo are firing crackers as the news of Probhakaran's death spread around the capital.
The government launched its current military offensive against the LTTE in 2006, resulting in the recapture of all the 15,000-sq- km territory held by the LTTE.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese- dominated governments, the LTTE began to fight for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east since the mid-1980s, resulting in the killing of nearly 100,000 people.
The government has rejected calls for a truce to protect civilians while the LTTE refused to surrender and free the civilians the United Nations and others said they were holding as human shields in the NFZ.
President Rajapakse is scheduled to ceremonially address parliament on Tuesday to announce the victory, marking the conclusion of the conventionary war with the rebels.?
(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2009)
