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.