Source: The Washington Post
Wire Service: AP
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20070601-103635-3046r.htm
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka -- Day and night, warplanes roar over this rebel-held town as the steady thump of artillery echoes from afar -- a preview, many fear, of a military showdown in Sri Lanka that could leave thousands dead.
"All we hear is war," says Tavakumar, a 43-year-old anti-government rebel who only uses one name, patrolling a road a few miles from the front. "I'm ready to fight."
Five years after a cease-fire brought a measure of relief to Sri Lanka, a ferocious ethnic war is again raging between the government dominated by the country's predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Tamil Tigers, separatists seeking a homeland for the largely Hindu Tamil minority.
The signs of a deepening conflict are everywhere: soldiers in full battle gear patrolling Colombo, the increasingly fortified capital; sandbagged bunkers and trenches going up all over the rebel-held north.
Both sides claim to be observing the truce, but it has completely collapsed. The rebels are mounting renewed attacks, including a bus bombing last June that killed 64 persons, and Sri Lankan forces are pushing into rebel territory, with the aim to crush their enemy.