62,000 flee as troops move in for Tigers showdown

Sri Lankan government troops battled into the last redoubt of the rebel Tamil Tigers on Tuesday as the exodus of people fleeing the war zone surpassed 62,000 and the United States said the conflict was at a "decisive point".Sri Lankan soldiers battled into the last redoubt of the rebel Tamil Tigers on Tuesday as the exodus of people fleeing the war zone surpassed 62,000 and the United States said the conflict was at a "decisive point".The International Committee of the Red Cross warned the situation was "nothing short of catastrophic" and urged both sides to prevent further mass casualties among civilians, saying hundreds had been killed in the past 48 hours.The neutral agency did not assign blame to either side.Senior U.S. diplomat Michael Owen, speaking in Washington, urged Sri Lanka to allow the international community to monitor what was happening and assure help for trapped civilians."The 26-year-old conflict is at a decisive point and we see the potential for major developments witin the next 48 hours," Owen told reporters, urging restraint on all sides.The operation gathered speed after the military's noon (0630 GMT) deadline for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to surrender passed without any word from the separatists, in what appears to be the final act in Asia's longest-running war.The LTTE hours later vowed no surrender, despite being massively outgunned by a military built up to wipe them out and finish a conflict that has percolated since the early 1970s but erupted into full-blown civil war in 1983."LTTE will never surrender and we will fight and we have the confidence that we will win with the help of the Tamil people," Seevaratnam Puleedevan, secretary-general of the LTTE peace secretariat, told Reuters by telephone.Sri Lanka's military, in what it dubbed the world's largest hostage rescue operation, went in to keep the stream of people moving and give troops a clear shot at the LTTE and its elusive leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran."So far 62,600 people have come out and still they are coming," military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said. Earlier, he said soldiers had reached the beach, which meant they had divided the Tigers' last remaining area into two.