Giving a glimpse of the post-war political landscape, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed the former No. 2 Tiger as a non-cabinet minister for national integration and reconciliation late on Monday, the president's office said. Parliamentarian Vinyagamoorthi Muralitharan, better known by his nom de guerre Karuna Amman, was sworn in by the president as he and around 2,000 Tamils from eastern Sri Lanka joined the president's ruling party. Also on Monday, the military said the LTTE shelled near a ship flying the flag of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that had landed food and aid in the no-fire zone. The ICRC said the ship was not hit and was later sent back to port by the navy because of bad weather. “We have no reason to believe the cargo vessel was directly targeted,” spokeswoman Sophie Romanens said. “Shelling is going on all over the place, so it is not possible to see who fired.” The Tigers could not be reached for comment. Fighting surge Sri Lankan soldiers killed at least 180 elite Tamil Tiger fighters carrying out waves of counterattacks, and the pace of refugees fleeing the tiny war zone picked up speed, the military said on Monday. Heavy combat erupted over the weekend, suggesting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were mounting a desperate defense against a military onslaught that has confined them to 45 sq km in the Indian Ocean island's northeast. Since Saturday, the LTTE's elite Charles Anthony Brigade and Radha Regiment have attempted to punch through the army's frontline, the military said. “Now they have not held back. Their elite fighters have been deployed to stop troops from entering those areas,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. A total of 180 bodies had been found since the weekend, he said. The pro-rebel website www.TamilNet.com, quoting an unnamed source, reported the LTTE had killed a “considerable number of soldiers” in a weekend artillery attack. Nanayakkara acknowledged some soldiers had been killed: “We have suffered casualties, but we are not releasing the numbers.”
