Colombo – Air force jets bombed the Tamil rebel police headquarters in a northern town in Sri Lanka Friday as ground troops were poised in the outskirts of the city, military officials and Tamil rebel sources said.

The rebel police headquarters, located in Kilinochchi town, 380 kilometres north of the capital, was bombed by an undisclosed number of government fighter-bombers on Friday morning.

The location was used by the former police chief of the rebels, K Nadesan, who was subsequently appointed as the head of Peace Secretariat of the rebel movement.

Military officials said that the target was taken out accurately, but there were no reports on casualties.

On Thursday the air force bombed the rebel political headquarters and the peace secretariat building, also located in Kilinochchi town. Government troops were reported some 3.5 kilometres outside the town.

Almost all civilians have vacated the area. Some civilians at a hospital in the area were withdrawn to a safer area.

Medical staff had informed the government that they were in the process of relocating the hospital.

Over 200,000 civilians have been displaced by the fighting as government troops moved closer to Kilinochchi town, an area from where the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam 
(LTTE) were maintaining their administration.

Rebels were running their own courts, police stations and had set up their own tax system.

Security forces are in the process of recapturing rebel-held areas in the north, after taking control of rebel-held areas in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province. (dpa)