Sri Lanka asks Tigers to surrender after taking key town

Sri Lanka's president on Saturday asked Tamil Tigers to surrender after troops claimed to have recaptured a strategically important town from Tiger rebels following months of heavy fighting. President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a televised address to the nation security forces wrested control of the town of Pooneryn and the main northwestern coastal route of A-32. "This morning the entire A-32 road and Pooneryn was captured by our security forces," the president said. "On this occasion, I ask (Tiger chief Velupillai) Prabhakaran to lay down and immediately come for talks." "The best thing he can do for the (Tamil) people in the north is to lay down arms and surrender," he said. Pooneryn had been a Tiger stronghold since 1993 when the rebels dislodged the main military base after killing some 700 soldiers in three days of intense battles. The rebels had used the coastal area to launch artillery strikes against a military airbase on the northern edge of the government-controlled Jaffna peninsula vulnerable to long-range attacks. The defence ministry described Saturday's capture of Pooneryn as the "greatest feat against terrorists" along the island's northwestern seaboard. The ministry said troops were closing in on the town of Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) further south. "Pitched battles are still going on in the area," the ministry said. "The terrorists are fast withdrawing" to the northwest.