Tamil Tigers lose key town to govt troops
Tamil Tigers lose key town to govt troops
COLOMBO (AFP): Elite troops smashed rebel resistance and captured a key town dominated by Tamil Tiger guerrillas in eastern Sri Lanka as the latest military offensive entered its third day yesterday, officials here said.
Special Forces units, backed by infantry troops, helicopter gun ships and naval support, crossed a strategic bridge at Panichchenkerni in the district of Batticaloa late Thursday after taking the town of Vakarai, officials said.
"We have killed at least nine Tigers and wounded many more in the battle for Vakarai on Wednesday," a military spokesman here said.
"There has been no losses on our side but a total of about 17 Tigers have been killed."
The account could not be independently verified.
Vakarai has been a strategic base for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the eastern province and many visiting journalists have met with Tiger local leaders at the town in recent months.
Government forces had destroyed five abandoned bases of the LTTE and recovered a large haul of mortar bombs and anti- personnel mines in the offensive code-named Seda Pahara or Tidal wave.
Officials said rapid deployment units were dropped at a beach- head between the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa by the navy to mount the offensive while Mi-24 helicopter gunships pounded suspected LTTE positions.
The operation is aimed at flushing out Tiger guerrillas responsible for a wave of fresh attacks in the north-eastern region where nearly 100 soldiers had been killed in sporadic violence this year, officials said.
Since the LTTE lost its hold on the northern peninsula of Jaffna after a series of military operations begun in October, the guerrillas had escalated violence in the north-east of the island.
Even as troops were conducting their latest offensive, Tigers killed four elite police commandos in the eastern Kumana region within hours of killing three more policemen elsewhere in the eastern province.
Tigers are leading a protracted campaign for independence in the island's northern and eastern regions where the two million Tamil minority is concentrated. More than 50,000 people have died in bitter fighting.