Tamil Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan was killed in a Sri Lankan air force raid early today, the rebels said, in what analysts warned was a body-blow to any hope of ending the conflict soon.
Thamilselvan was the rebels' main interlocutor at the last round of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in Oct 2006, and was the international face of the separatist group.
Today's air raid came amid near daily land and sea clashes, ambushes and air strikes that have killed an estimated 5,000 people since early last year alone.
"With deep sorrow we announce to the people of Tamil Eelam, the Tamil people living all over the world and the international community, that at 6 a.m. today ... head of our organisation's political wing Brig. S.P. Thamilselvan was killed by the Sri
Lankan air force aerial bombing," the rebels said on their website www.ltteps.org.
Rebel aide Bawan, who works at Thamilselvan's peace secretariat in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi, confirmed the news by telephone. Sri Lanka's stock market rose on the news.
Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother, welcomed the news, and said the military would pick off the rest of the Tigers' leaders one by one.
"This is just a message, that we know where their leaders are. I know the locations of all the leaders, that if we want we can take them one by one, so they must change their hideouts," he told Reuters.
"When the time comes only, we take them one by one."