Sri Lankan attack helicopters have bombed Tamil Tiger positions in the north of the island, a day after ground forces seized the rebel headquarters town of Kilinochchi.

The military on Saturday said it was now targeting the port town of Mullaitivu and other rebel strongholds in the north to push further into rebel-held areas with the aim of bringing an end to the 25-year separatist war.

"MI-24 helicopters attacked rebel positions west of Mullaitivu in support of ground troops," said a military source asking not to be named in line with national security policy.

There has been no comment from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on the fall of Kilinochchi, considered the capital of the rebels fighting for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils.

Fall of Kilinochchi

Troops fought their way into Kilinochchi on Friday, in one of the biggest blows for the rebels in years.

Details of casualties from the fighting have not yet emerged and a pro-rebel website, Tamilnet.com, said the Tigers had moved their headquarters further northeast before the town fell.

"The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has entered a virtual ghost town," the website said. "The Tigers, who had put up heavy resistance so far, had kept their casualties as low as possible in the defensive fighting."

Brigadier Udaya Nanyakkara, a Sri Lankan military spokesman, said troops were carrying out search and recovery operations in Kilinochchi town on Saturday.

Security, meanwhile, has been tightened across the island following a suicide bombing that killed three air force personnel in the capital Colombo shortly after Mahinda Rajapaksa, the country’s president, announced the fall of the de facto rebel capital.

The LTTE started fighting the government in 1983. It says it is battling for the rights of minority Tamils in the face of mistreatment by successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority since Sri Lanka won independence from Britain in 1948.