Sri Lankan Guerrillas Kill 65 Rival Rebels
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Tamil rebels killed 65 people believed linked with rival guerrilla factions in apparent reprisal for an assassination attempt on one of their leaders, government intelligence sources said Friday.
The sources said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam seized 28 youths Thursday night in the northern Jaffna peninsula, shot them early Friday, then captured and killed another 37 people, the sources said.
Sathasivapillai Krishnakumar, the Tigers’ Jaffna commander, was wounded Monday in a grenade attack in Jaffna. Diplomatic sources say he was smuggled across the Palk Straits to nearby southern India, where he was being treated.
The 65 victims were suspected members of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization, the sources added.
The Tigers, the most powerful guerrilla group fighting for an independent Tamil homeland, are locked in a struggle with the other groupsto bring all factions under its control.
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