Sri Lankan troops advanced on the military headquarters of the Tamil Tigers and engaged the rebels in fresh gun battles, a day after capturing their de facto political capital.
The defence ministry said ground forces, backed by helicopter gunships and war planes, were moving towards Mullaittivu where the Tamil Tigers have their main military facilities.
The air force used Mi-24 helicopter gunships to carry out four bombing raids in support of the advancing troops while jet aircraft were also deployed to hit Tamil Tiger positions, a military spokesman said.
He added that ten such missions were carried out yesterday.
In the capital Colombo, a bomb went off at a commercial area of the city on wounding three civilians and damaging several vehicles, police said.
A suicide bombing in Colombo yesterday killed two people and wounded 36.
Troops, who took the Tamil Tigers' northern stronghold of Kilinochchi yesterday, were fanning out to neighbouring areas and confronted small pockets of rebel resistance, a military official said.
The defence ministry said government troops were moving further north of their positions in Kilinochchi in a bid to retake the strategically vital Elephant Pass which was lost to the Tigers in April 2000.
Military officials said the fall of Kilinochchi had cleared the way for security forces to re-establish control over a vital highway linking the northern Jaffna peninsula with the rest of the country.
