Sri Lanka's government troops are in a consolidation operation in a major gain of territory from the Tamil Tiger rebels, defense officials said Saturday.

Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, the military spokesman said that the Army which captured from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) control the eastern province's Vakarai on Friday have launched a consolidation operation.

"The troops have moved a kilo meter northwards from Vakarai", Samarasinghe said Saturday.

Vakarai was under the LTTE control and since the beginning of last month the rebels and troops were engaged in heavy exchanges of artillery and mortar in the region.

The Sri Lankan air force carried out many rounds of aerial bombing using Kfir jets in the area.

Samarasinghe said the rebels were still firing from Verugal and Kathiraveli area where the rebels are now thought to be concentrated having fled Vakarai.

Vakarai is a coastal village in the eastern district of Batticaloa and the only major Tiger hold in the east after the fall of Sampur early September.

The government on Friday said the capture of Vakarai was crucial to free the Tamil civilians from rebel control.

Thousands of civilians fled Vakarai on Friday with the government troops making its advance into the area after weeks of fighting.

The rebels in a statement said "On 19 January 2007, LTTE decided to pull back from its Pannichchankerni position which is on the access route to Vakarai. People in Vakarai, residents and the displaced, have endured more than six months of denial of humanitarian access. Since October only once a small quantity of food and medicine was allowed into Vakara."

The military leaders say that liberating Vakarai was part of the bigger plan to flush the Tiger rebels out of eastern province. More than 67,000 people have now been killed in the island's separatist armed conflict since the mind 1980s.

Source: Xinhua