Tamil Tigers launch naval raid

[teron]

Tamil Tiger rebels have launched a sea attack on a Sri Lankan naval base on the Jaffna peninsula in the north of the country, says a navy spokesman. In a co-ordinated land and sea attack, 15 boats targeted the base on Delft island, but one was sunk.

The fighting is continuing, according to the spokesman.

Despite a truce still being in place on paper, Sri Lanka has been sliding back towards civil war, with more than 4,000 people killed in the past 15 months.

"We are confronting the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) on land and at sea. There were 15 boats, including three suicide boats, off Delft island in Jaffna," said navy spokesman Commander DKP Dassanayake.

"We have destroyed one boat."

He gave no casualty figures, and there has so far been no comment from the Tamil Tigers.

The government says more than 500 rebels have been killed in the last four months in confrontations in and around rebel-held territory in the north of the island.

But the Tigers dispute the figure and the Sri Lankan monitoring mission set up to observe the ceasefire says both sides routinely exaggerate the other's losses, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Colombo.

The rebels have been fighting for decades for a homeland for the Tamil minority.

Senior government figures have said they aim to defeat them on the battlefield within two to three years.

-BBC News-

 

[teron]

Tamil rebels ambush navy base in Sri Lanka's north; bomb targets soldiers in capital

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Tamil rebels ambushed a navy camp in northern Sri Lanka and said they killed 35 sailors early Thursday, while a bomb blast near an army bus in the capital wounded four soldiers and three civilians, the government said.

The separatist Tamil Tiger rebels attacked the navy base at Delft in a flotilla of 15 boats, and navy sailors sank one of them in attempts to repulse the ambush, navy spokesman Commander D. K. P Dassanayake said.

But the rebels swiftly overran the base and later found the bodies of 35 sailors, rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan told The Associated Press by telephone. He said four insurgents were killed in the assault.

"The fighting lasted only 20 minutes and we completely overran the camp," Ilanthirayan said, adding that the insurgents returned to their own base soon after the raid.

The military did not immediately have details of the casualties in the attack, and the rebels' death toll could not be independently verified. The military and rebels routinely deny and contradict each other's casualty tolls.

Today in Asia - Pacific

Asia courts Japanese engineers

Blocked by U.S., China finds its own way to space

U.S. and China open new round of economic talks

Later Thursday morning in the capital, Colombo, a bomb exploded near a bus carrying soldiers, Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse at the Defense Ministry said.

He said the bomb was fastened to a motorcycle parked by the roadside. Four soldiers and three civilian were wounded, he said.

The violence occurred a day after the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it has withdrawn personnel from two checkpoints between government-held and rebel areas in northern Sri Lanka because of escalating violence.

On Wednesday, at least 15 people were killed in a roadside bomb and in clashes in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, the military said, in worsening violence that has shattered an internationally backed cease-fire.

The rebels have fought the government since 1983 to create a separate homeland for the island nation's minority ethnic Tamils, who have suffered decades of discrimination under the Sinhalese-dominated government.

Nearly 70,000 people have died in the conflict, including about 5,000 killed since December 2005, when violence flared despite a 2002 cease-fire that is now in tatters.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/24/asia/AS-GEN-Sri-Lanka.php

 

[teron]

Sri Lanka says rebels attack navy base, several dead
COLOMBO, May 24 (Reuters) - Tamil Tiger boats attacked and infiltrated a Sri Lankan naval base on an island off the far northern Jaffna peninsula before dawn on Thursday, and a number of sailors were killed, the military said.

The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said they killed 35 sailors, but the military dimissed the assertion as propaganda.

"The Tigers have attacked a small naval detachment on Delft island in Jaffna. Less than 10 sailors are dead," Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe. "We didn't even have 35 people there. That's totally false propaganda."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL216014.htm

 

[rangamal]

tanx for info.........................

 

[diz]

thanx in info