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'Like a Tsunami That Won't End'
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There is renewed momentum on both sides to win the war, which has claimed more than 70,000 lives and displaced an estimated 500,000 people. The government has vowed to crush the uprising by militant Tamils in the north by next year. More than 32,000 young Sinhalese men have joined the Sri Lankan army, which has been attacking rebel strongholds.
The LTTE, considered by the United States to be a terrorist organization, has responded with a campaign of suicide bombings against civilians in urban areas, including Colombo.
On Sunday, 14 people were killed, including a top government minister who was an outspoken critic of the LTTE. Ninety people were injured in the attack, which also killed a former Olympian, at the start of a marathon about 18 miles outside the capital.
The highway minister, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, 55, is the second high-level government official to be killed this year. On Monday, Sri Lanka's air force bombed a suspected rebel bunker, which a government spokesman said was being used to recruit and train suicide bombers. Land and air battles continued through the week, with deaths reported on both sides.
Journalists are barred from travel to the front lines because government officials say the areas are too dangerous.
The increasing violence has alarmed humanitarian groups, which say the instability is making it more difficult to deliver aid to the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans displaced by fighting.
"Certainly we are concerned that the situation is deteriorating and we are trying to come up with solutions to get food across," said Zola Dowell of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which oversees the U.N. response in emergency situations.
Fighting became so intense in the northwest of the country that Catholic Church officials removed a 400-year-old statute of the Virgin Mary, one of the country's most-visited shrines, because the local bishop wanted it safe from shelling.
"One thing is clear: The level of human suffering and destruction is enormous," said Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council, a research and advocacy group in Colombo. "The only hope for the future is that the ethnic hatred is not so deep-rooted that we could never stop fighting."
