Sri Lankan air strike kills Tamil Tigers' top political leader

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a secret rebel communications center early yesterday, killing the Tamil Tigers' political chief and five others in a strike expected to deal a sharp blow to the guerrillas' morale.

The killing of S.P. Tamilselvan, who acted as the public face of the rebels, was widely seen as a public relations coup for the government. But analysts feared it would further escalate the more than two-decade-old civil war and spark a cycle of political assassinations across this Indian Ocean island nation.

"This is a message that we know their leaders' location," Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said. "This confirms that our information is very accurate."

Hours after the attack, the Tigers named the police chief of their de facto state as Tamilselvan's replacement. The rebels announced in an e-mail that P. Nadesan, who was a delegate to earlier peace talks, would take over as head of their political wing.

The 6 a.m. air strike blasted a compound deep inside rebel-held territory in northern Sri Lanka used as a communications center with Tamil sympathizers abroad, who contribute funds and arms to the separatists, said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva.

Hours later, the Tamil Tigers sent an e-mail to journalists announcing, "with deep sorrow," that Tamilselvan had been killed in the attack. Rebel spokesmen did not answer repeated phone calls throughout the day seeking further comment.

With secretive Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran almost never seen publicly in recent years, Tamilselvan, assumed by some to be the group's second in command, had become the rebel leadership's link to the outside world.

He regularly held talks with peace envoys and diplomats, met with foreign humanitarian workers, and gave interviews to the few international journalists allowed by the government to cross into rebel-held territory in the north. He led the group's delegation at failed peace talks in Geneva last year.

Once a top fighter in the rebel force, Tamilselvan was injured in battle and forced to walk with a cane. Despite heading the Tamil Tigers' political wing, he remained a brigadier, the highest rank for a Tamil Tiger, which is listed as a terror group by the United States and European Union.

In an interview in July, he promised the rebels, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, would retaliate for the army's capture of eastern Sri Lanka days before.

"[We will] weaken the military capacity of the government of Sri Lanka, which will invariably end up hitting economic targets as well," he said.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, after decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese-controlled governments. More than 70,000 have been killed in the fighting.

Fighting between the two sides has escalated in recent weeks as government officials hinted they were preparing an offensive to capture the north and crush the rebels.