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COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's two-day holiday fighting pause ended on Wednesday with the Tigers saying soldiers had begun an offensive, which the military denied but said it was now free to begin a final assault to crush the 25-year war.
The Sri Lankan military says only 1,000 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels remain, and accuse the fighters of holding around 100,000 civilians as human shields.
In less than three years, the military has retaken 15,000 square km of coastal coconut groves, where commanders expect to end a war that began in 1983.
The pro-rebel website TamilNet.com on Wednesday said the military had unleashed an assault with rockets, artillery and gunfire in the morning hours.
"It is impossible to assess casualty details, but at least 180 civilians are feared killed within three hours," TamilNet said, quoting its own correspondent.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said troops were back on active duty but had not started firing.
"We are observing the activities there. We have not commenced any offensive as yet, but the restricted period is over," he said.
The Tigers have repeatedly accused the government of shelling civilian areas, which the military denies.
The United Nations has said the military has fired into civilian areas, while the Tigers are shooting people who try to flee, firing from populated areas and forcibly recruiting people as young as 15. Both deny the charges.
Verifying accounts from the battlefield is difficult since independent media are restricted from the area, and both sides regularly exaggerate details.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered troops to go to a defence-only stance for the two-day Tamil and Sinhala New Year on Monday and Tuesday, and urged the LTTE to surrender and let civilians out.
The LTTE said the truce was too short and designed to ease international pressure for a full cease-fire. The rebels say people are staying by choice, despite the fact more than 65,000 have fled Tiger areas this year.
The government says the Tigers repeatedly have manufactured civilian crises to build pressure for a truce so that it can then re-arm, and has thus ruled out offering the LTTE any choice except surrender or annihilation.
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