The battle began with a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive attempting to break through the LTTE defence lines in the north of the island, aiming to conclude the country's 25-year-old civil war by military victory.

On 2 January 2008, the government of Sri Lanka unilaterally withdrew from the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), originally signed on 22 February 2002, with the Tamil Tigers.

Major engagements all along the de facto border separating territory held by the LTTE occurred and on March 8, SLA troops, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed across the front lines using tanks, mortars and artillery.

On May 16, a suicide bomber attacked a police bus in the Sri Lankan capital killing 10 people, including eight policemen.

A military spokesman said capturing Palampiddi was strategically important because it would block the rebels' supply route between the northern Vavuniya and Mannar districts.

According to BBC correspondents, Vidattaltivu was an LTTE naval base and a hub for smuggling supplies from India across the Palk Strait.

[30] According to the Air Force of Sri Lanka, Mi-24 helicopter gunships sank two LTTE boats 4 km north of Vidattaltivu around 1:00 PM local time.

[31] On September 2, SLA forces managed to break through LTTE defences and captured the town of Mallavi which was regarded as a "nerve centre" for the Tamil Tigers.

[32][33] The same day, the LTTE conducted a counter-attack against advancing SLA troops to regain their lost bunker lines.

The LTTE were preparing to defend the city with a string of concrete bunkers and trenches in a heavily mined jungle surrounding the town.

The military was not able to break through the remaining LTTE bunker lines situated before the city, due to heavy rain.

Furthermore, most of the Sri Lankan army soldiers were needed to secure rebel territory taken in the previous two months after the LTTE's retreat to the north.

[46] On December 20, an LTTE counter-offensive was mounted by the Tigers as SLA forces were preparing an attempt to attack and capture the village of Iranamadu, just south of the city.

[49] The Sri Lankan Army met with only minimal resistance once it entered the town, as the Tigers had withdrawn and taken hiding positions in nearby jungles.

On January 25, SLA troops crossed a lagoon and entered Mullaittivu before encountering heavy resistance from the LTTE.

[54] Human Rights Watch alleges that Sri Lankan Army artillery strikes against a hospital in Mullaitivu killed 67 people and wounded another 87;[55] an article for The Guardian contends that the artillery strikes targeting a government-designated safe zone adjacent to the hospital killed 378 people and injured 1,212.

Between March 5 and 8, heavy fighting raged as LTTE fighters conducted wave attacks against SLA lines in an attempt to break through.

[43] On March 10, Black Tiger commandos reportedly attacked SLA artillery positions in Thearaavil, 18 km from Puthukkudiyiruppu junction.

Members of 53 Division and Task Force-8 seized control over a section of the LTTE-built earth bund ditch across the A-35 main road, west of the Nanthikadal lagoon.

Now, the only uncleared territory for the SLA was the no-fire zone, where the remaining 500 LTTE fighters were mingled with the civilian refugees.

By the first two weeks of May tens of thousands of refugees poured out of rebel-held territory after the military made holes in the LTTE's defences.

In those last 48 hours of fighting the LTTE conducted massive suicide bomb attacks on advancing troops and were in general not surrendering but dying in battle.

[69] On the same day for the first time in their long struggle against the Sri Lankan government, the rebels were offering to lay down their weapons in return for a guarantee of safety.

[70] Sri Lanka's disaster relief and human-rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe stated 'The military phase is over.

'[71] On May 17, rebel official Selvarasa Pathmanathan conceded defeat saying in an email statement "This battle has reached its bitter end".

Earlier in the day, a group of about 70 Tamil Tigers tried to cross the lagoon to the other side in six boats and escape, but they were all killed by the SLA.

According to the UK Telegraph, Prabhakaran was "...killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack as he tried to escape the war zone with his closest aides.

The UN had previously estimated that 6,500 civilians had been killed in the three months to the middle of April, meaning that the death toll soared to 1,000 each day in the final two weeks of the war.

[1] Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake confirmed that during the month of September, 200 soldiers had been killed and another 997 wounded.

"[84] The panel also called on the Secretary General of UN to immediately set up "an independent international mechanism" for investigating "credible" allegations that both Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tigers committed serious human rights violations and war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the months before the decades-old civil war ended in 2009.