COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked Tamil Tiger defenses in the northeast Thursday, a rebel-allied Web site reported, as international pressure grew for a new cease-fire to allow civilians to escape the fighting.
The government, which has surrounded the rebels along with tens of thousands of civilians in a sliver of land along the northeast coast, has vowed to crush the Tamil Tigers and end this Indian Ocean island nation's quarter century civil war.
The military initially denied launching new attacks on the rebels after its two-day unilateral cease-fire expired Wednesday, but the Ministry of Defense later posted a statement on its Web site announcing it had resumed the offensive and killed at least 19 rebels. There was no explanation for the government's conflicting reports.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent his chief of staff to Sri Lanka for talks aimed at getting the trapped civilians out of the war zone.
Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian ambassador, already arrived in the capital, Colombo, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said Thursday. He gave no details of the meetings.
Ban was disappointed that Tamil fighters refused to allow the civilians to leave during the 48-hour cease-fire, Haq said.
Ban and U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes have urged both sides to agree to a longer cease-fire to get the civilians to safety and avoid what Holmes warned could be "a bloodbath on the beaches."
"Civilians must be allowed to leave the area of violence," Haq said. "They must not be used as targets of political or military designs."
Also Thursday, President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited the rebels' former administrative capital for the first time since government troops captured Kilinochchi on Jan. 2, the government said in a statement.
Rajapaksa earlier this week announced the two-day "pause" in fighting to commemorate the Sri Lankan New Year and allow the civilians to flee the war zone. Only a few hundred crossed the front lines.
The remaining civilians are trapped in the crowded "no-fire zone," a civilian refuge inside rebel territory the government has promised not to attack. However, the military's rapid advance reportedly has pushed many Tamil Tiger fighters into the refuge and reports have grown of fighting in the area.
On Thursday morning, government troops, helicopters and artillery attacked fortifications erected by the rebels on the edge of the "no-fire zone," the rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site said. The site, which reported that as many as 180 civilians were killed in fighting Wednesday, said it had no immediate details on casualties.
Meanwhile, foreign diplomats pressed for a new cease-fire.
U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters in Washington on Thursday that the government should stop shelling the "no-fire zone," grant visas for aid groups and allow journalists to visit the displaced people.
The killing of civilians will not end the fighting and will "stain any eventual peace," he said.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner issued a joint statement Wednesday accusing the rebels of forcing the civilians to stay in the war zone for use as human shields against the government offensive.
The statement called on Rajapaksa to again halt the fighting.
"It is vital that a pause in the fighting should be long enough to give civilians the opportunity to leave the conflict area, and for the U.N. to build confidence amongst the population that they will be safe if they leave," the statement said.
The government has brushed off calls for a new cease-fire.
Holmes said the rebels were clearly preventing the 100,000 trapped civilians from escaping. The rebels say the civilians do not want to leave.
In recent months, the government has forced the Tigers out of much of the de facto state they ran in northern Sri Lanka.
The rebels have been fighting for 25 years to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have faced decades of marginalization by successive governments controlled by the ethnic Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.
Holmes called reports that the casualty toll in the war zone was rising once again "very worrying," and urged the government to live up to its promises not to use heavy weapons in the area. He said dozens of civilians are killed each day.
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