COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan forces have launched air strikes and ground assaults on ethnic Tamil rebels in the north.
The assault came one day after government troops dealt the separatists' struggle for autonomy a devastating blow by capturing their de facto capital.
In a sign the insurgents remain determined to battle on, a small bomb planted under a car exploded on a busy street in Colombo, wounding three people.
The attack came a day after a suspected rebel suicide attacker blew himself up near air force headquarters in the city, killing three airmen.
Ethnic Tamil politicians warn that the beleaguered rebels will turn to guerrilla warfare.
They appealed for an end to the fighting and for new talks to resolve the Indian Ocean island nation's ethnic conflict.
"The noble need of the hour is an honest political solution. But it looks that we are far away from nobility," Mano Ganesan, an opposition Tamil lawmaker, said Saturday.
The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.
The conflict has killed more than 70,000 people.
International mediators, including the United States, have long called for a political solution, saying warfare won't resolve the underlying tensions between the two groups.
A 2002 ceasefire collapsed amid new fighting three years ago and a new government offensive has squeezed the rebels into 1,605 square kilometres of jungle, an area about the size of Los Angeles.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to destroy the group this year.
