Bodies of Sri Lanka rebel leader, son found+

COLOMBO, May 18 Kyodo -
Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels who built
one of the world's most feared guerilla movements, was found dead Monday in an
army ambulance in which he and several top leaders of the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam attempted to flee advancing forces, Sri Lankan military sources
said.

Celebratory firecrackers were lit in Colombo and many other towns across Sri
Lanka as national radio and television announced the death of Prabhakaran, 54,
who built a ragtag guerilla group into a formidable military machine with
ground, sea and air capability.
At the height of his power, Prabhakaran controlled nearly a third of Sri
Lanka's territory in the north and east of the island.
Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony, 24, was also in the group killed by the
army, the military sources said.
Although Charles Anthony's death as well as those of B. Nadesan, the chief of
the LTTE's political wing, S. Pulidevan and eastern leader S. Ramesh were
officially reported by the Defense Ministry earlier Monday, there was no
official word that Prabhakaran had also died.
''We are examining the bodies that are scattered around to see whether those of
Prabhakaran and (LTTE intelligence chief) Pottu Amman are among them,'' Lt.
Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the army commander, told state radio and television.
But other sources said that a formal announcement of Prabhakaran's death will
be made soon, possibly by President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is commander-in-chief
of the armed forces.
He is to address parliament Tuesday morning.
Fonseka declared Monday that all combat against the LTTE was over with the last
of the rebels defeated and the ''government's writ'' established on all
territory previously held by the rebels.
''All military operations have come to a halt with the capture of the remaining
ditch,'' Fonseka said. ''Now the entire country is declared rid of terrorism.''
He said that more than 250 bodies of terrorists, as the government has branded
the rebels, had been found scattered over the last battlefront.
The LTTE defended itself in its last strongholds with a combination of earth
and sand embankments, locally known as bunds, and ditches.
==Kyodo