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.