Sri Lanka says Tigers defeated

By C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday said the Tamil Tigers had been militarily defeated as soldiers seized control of the entire coastline for the first time in a 25-year war.

Rajapaksa, on a visit to Jordan, said he would return to Sri Lanka on Sunday "as a leader of a nation that vanquished terrorism."

Rajapaksa spoke after troops took control of the Indian Ocean island nation's entire coast for the first time since war broke out in 1983, cutting off the Tigers' last hope of escape from a military advance aimed at crushing separatist resistance.

Intelligence reports indicated that Vellupillai Prabhakaran, founder-leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and other leaders were surrounded by soldiers in barely a square km (half a sq mile) of land near the northeastern coast.

The LTTE's conventional defeat has been a foregone conclusion for months. The only question remaining has been the fate of tens of thousands of people the United Nations and others say the Tigers are holding in harm's way as human shields.

Explosions rocked the battlefield as the LTTE set off its ammo dumps, the military said.

"My government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily," Rajapaksa told a meeting of 11 developing nations in Jordan.

A presidential official who declined to be named said Rajapaksa's statement was not the official declaration of victory, which would come in a TV address after his return.