Tigers blow up navy ship as offensive goes on
Tigers blow up navy ship as offensive goes on
COLOMBO (AFP): A Tamil Tiger suicide squad blew up a navy ship in northern Sri Lanka yesterday in an attack which claimed the lives of three sailors and ten rebel cadres, the military said.
As a major government ground offensive entered its second week, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) set off two blasts, crippling the 1, 500-ton Edithara at the Kankesanthurai navy facility blocking the entrance to the port, a military source said.
"The first blast was just outside the port and the ship was being brought in when the second one went off," a navy source said, adding the cargo of the Edithara had been unloaded when it was hit first.
Fifteen sailors were also wounded, he added.
Tigers divers had swum up to the boat, having jumped from four LTTE boats, which then engaged navy forces in an attempt to break into the harbor, located on the northern tip of the LTTE- dominated Jaffna peninsula, the military said. Three boats were destroyed in the diversionary assault while the fourth escaped.
A military statement said LTTE radio transmissions intercepted by the security forces showed that at least 10 members of the suicide squad, known as Black Sea Tigers, were killed in the Kamikaze-style operation.
The daring attack came as the army's biggest offensive yet, code-named Leap Forward, entered its second week yesterday with troops consolidating in a 78-square kilometer area captured inside the Jaffna peninsula.
The LTTE's clandestine radio, the Voice of Tigers, yesterday claimed responsibility for the attack but said details were still awaited.
The LTTE ended six months of peace talks on April 19 by carrying out an identical suicide strike on the northeastern Trincomalee port, blasting two navy gunboats and killing nearly 20 people.
The Tiger radio yesterday announced that 63 of their cadres were killed during Friday's counter-offensive to retake seven villages lost to the army which has deployed 10,000 troops in Operation Leap Forward.
Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordered the retaliatory offensive code- named "Leap of the Tiger" to dislodge the army from their new positions but military spokesman Sarath Munasinghe denied any pull out.
The casualties in Friday's attack led by Tiger suicide units were listed as 33 soldiers killed and 95 wounded in action. The army claimed killing 62 rebels, one less than admitted by the LTTE. Tigers claimed killing 100 troops.
The army defense lines had moved within six kilometers of Jaffna town, the symbol of Tamil separatism and the capital of LTTE's fiefdom, where they have their own civil administration.
Travellers from the embattled region told reporters at the northern town of Vavuniya on the mainland that black flags went up in Jaffna and the LTTE's public address systems played sombre music to mourn the 63 Tigers who died Friday.
An LTTE truck loaded with explosives blew up accidentally at Thavady in Jaffna, killing several senior LTTE cadres and wounding civilians but the exact casualties were not immediately known, travellers said.
Defense analysts said there was an upsurge in rebel suicide attacks probably because the guerrillas feared an imminent military onslaught to take the densely populated town of Jaffna.