The LTTE strategy clearly violates humanitarian principles. Hostage-taking of civilians must be halted at once, with all innocent parties released, it added.

Following are excerpts from the editorial:

The civil war in Sri Lanka, a conflict that has dragged on for more than 20 years, has entered a particularly tense phase.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant group of the Tamil ethnic minority demanding a separate and independent state, is under fierce attack by government forces. At present, these separatist fighters find themselves cornered in a zone of only 3 square kilometers in the northern part of the country.

Facing certain defeat, the LTTE has chosen the desperate course of forcing local residents to effectively act as human shields. While the human shields include some family members and supporters of the rebel fighters, it is obvious that the vast majority are civilians who have been conscripted into the standoff against their free will.

At the end of last month, about 100,000 such residents used a lull in the battle to flee from LTTE control. The United Nations, however, estimates that up to 50,000 such people remain trapped in these dire straits.