Sri Lanka's long war reaches climax as Tigers concede

By C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's relentless military offensive drove the Tamil Tiger separatists on Sunday to admit defeat in a quarter-century conflict seen as one of the world's most intractable wars.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) conceded the war hours after they sent out suicide attackers as part of a last-ditch fight to fend off the military's final assault on the sole square kilometre (0.5 sq mile) they controlled.

"This battle has reached its bitter end," the LTTE's diplomatic chief, Selvarajah Pathmanathan, said in a statement posted on the pro-rebel web site www.TamilNet.com. "We have decided to silence our guns."

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory on Saturday after troops seized the entire coast for the first time since the war erupted in 1983, even as the climactic battle raged in the sandy patch where the LTTE was dug in for a last stand.

Rajapaksa was due to make a formal victory announcement in parliament on Tuesday morning, but already flags were flying, and people danced and lit fireworks in celebration.

Even though there has been little doubt for months about who would win Asia's longest modern war, sporadic battles were still being fought late on Sunday and no one was willing to predict when the last bullet would be fired.

"We are doing the mopping-up operations," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Earlier, he said: "Suicide cadres are coming in front of troops in the frontline and exploding themselves."

The final battle picked up speed after the last of 72,000 civilians who have fled over four days were freed, the military said.