Tigers loose five in sea battle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers announced this evening in the Vanni that five Sea Tigers including two Black Sea Tigers were killed in a seven hour long sea battle with the Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) last night. They said that the fighting had taken place in the seas between the Trincomalee harbour and Kokkilai and that ten Israeli built Dvora Fast Attack Craft (FAC) of the SLN had taken part in the battle.

The fighting had begun around 7.50 p.m. yesterday and had raged until 3 a.m. in the early hours of the morning today.

The LTTE gave the names of the dead Black Sea Tigers as Captain. Poonkuyili and Captain. Eelavan.

The LTTE also said that one Tiger, Kulanthai (Pasupathy Nimalasekaran of Jaffna) was killed today in a confrontation with the SLA today at Olumadu.

Meanwhile the Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa said that they had recovered one T56/1, 300 medium rounds, 7 AK-47 magazines and 82 drum magazines of T-81 LMGs in last night's attack on the Police sentry at Manjanthoduvai.

They said major. Arunthavaraj (Amarasingham Lekharan, Batticaloa) was killed in the attack.