A top United Nations humanitarian official condemned a kamikaze rebel attack on Sri Lanka's capital, and urged government forces and the Tamil Tigers Saturday to avoid a «final bloodbath» in a conflict that has already claimed too many civilian casualties. The surprise suicide plane attacks in Colombo late Friday left four people dead, including two rebel pilots, and embarrassed the government, which only two weeks ago claimed it had effectively grounded the Tamil Tigers' small force of light aircraft by seizing all rebel airstrips. The attacks also signaled the Tigers are not ready to give up their 25-year fight for an independent state for minority Tamils. The military has vowed to crush the group and end the civil war soon. Government forces have driven the rebels out of much of their de facto northern state in recent months and trapped them in a tiny sliver of land along the northeast coast along with tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. Estimates indicating a high number of civilian casualties in the conflict have forced international observers to speak out. Human Rights Watch said Friday some 2,000 noncombatants had been killed and accused both sides of war crimes, calling on them to immediately stop «the ongoing slaughter of civilians.» U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said Saturday, accoridng to AP, the U.N. was afraid for the civilians trapped in the shrinking war zone. «I fear the reality is that significant numbers of people are still killed and injured every day in that pocket,» Holmes said Saturday at the end of a three-day trip to Sri Lanka.
