LTTE chief 'dead'; 25-yr long civil war is over

The chief of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been killed in an offensive by the Sri Lankan military, reports say.

Velupillai Prabhakaran (Photo Source: bbc.co.uk)

The announcement on Sri Lanka's state television came shortly after the military said it had surrounded Prabhakaran in a tiny patch of jungle in the north-east, the BBC reported.

The head of the Sri Lankan army Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka said the military had 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," Gen Fonseka said in the broadcast. He said troops were working to identify Prabhakaran's body from among the dead.

The broadcast quoted military officials as saying Prabhakaran, 54, was killed along with two of his deputies.

It said Prabhakaran, his intelligence chief Pottu Amman and Soosai, the head of the rebels' naval wing, were shot dead in an ambush in the Mullivaikal district while trying to escape the war zone in an ambulance.

Earlier, at least three senior rebel leaders were killed, including Prabhakaran's eldest son, Charles Anthony, the military said.

Sri Lankan military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara confirmed Prabhakaran's death, saying 250 Tamil Tigers were also killed overnight.

The government's information department also sent news of Prabhakaran's death by text message to mobile phones across the country, according to the BBC report, adding that the death of the Tiger supremo could not be confirmed independently as reporters have been barred from going to the area.

More than 70,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the brutal insurgency lasting for 25 years