COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 18 (UPI) -- The leader of the Tamil Tigers rebels has died in battle along with his son and several key rebel leaders, the Sri Lankan military said Monday.
The announcement on state television came shortly after the military said it surrounded rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the jungle in the northeast part of the country, the BBC reported.
Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, leader of the Sri Lankan army, said the military defeated the rebels and "liberated the entire country."
"Today we finished the work handed to us by the president to liberate the country from the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," Fonseka said in the broadcast.
The government information department sent news of Prabhakaran's death to cell phones across the country, the British broadcaster reported.
The Sri Lankan broadcast quoted military officials as saying Prabhakaran and two of his commanders were killed in an ambush in the Mullivaikal district as they tried to escape the war zone in an ambulance. At least three senior rebel leaders, including Prabhakaran's oldest son, Charles Anthony, were killed, the military said.
Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara also confirmed Prabhakaran's death, saying 250 Tamil Tigers were killed in an overnight battle.
The Tamil Tigers have waged a bloody 25-year insurgency for an independent Tamil state that has left more than 70,000 dead in the south Asian country. Prabhakaran founded the group, declared a terrorist organization in 32 countries, which was behind the assassination of two world leaders and pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks, FBI information indicates.
