The stream of civilians fleeing Sri Lanka's war zone picked up speed and air force jets killed 11 guerrillas in a strike that left the leader of the Tamil Tigers' naval wing missing, the military said on Saturday. More than 50,000 soldiers are converging on a tiny wedge of jungle in the Indian Ocean island's northeast to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) separatists and end one of Asia's longest-running wars. With rebel territory fast shrinking, the hunt is on for Tiger leaders including the elusive Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the man who founded the group that turned the suicide bomb into a weapon of war and landed on numerous international terrorism lists. Fighters bombed a complex of bunkers with an apartment and communications dishes on Friday, killing at least 11 rebels, air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said. Initial reports said it may have been a Prabhakaran hideout, but later was found to be an operational base for the LTTE's “Sea Tigers” naval wing and its chief, Soosai, he said. “Intelligence reports say the whereabouts of Soosai is not known. He is now missing,” Nanayakkara said. Later, jets returned and destroyed a backhoe digging up the bombed site, and another was called afterwards, according to monitored LTTE communications, he said. “That implies there was a leader. Otherwise they wouldn't dig that place up like that,” Nanayakkara said. The LTTE, which is on US, EU, Canadian and Indian terrorist lists, could not be reached for comment. The pro-rebel website www.TamilNet.com said late on Friday more than 1,000 soldiers had been killed since Feb. 1, and that Tiger commandos had seized an army weapons dump.
