Northern skirmishes continue -SLA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 October 1998, 08:48 GMT]
Twenty-one Sri Lankan Army (SLA) personnel were wounded during limited operations in Jaffna said the Sri Lankan military spokesman Brigadier Sunil Tennekoon, presenting a round up of the security situation for this week at the cabinet press briefing today.

He said that these limited operations were conducted in Sangaraththai Vayal near the Elephant Pass SLA base complex, Tholpuram and Soorawaththai in the Valikamam division and in Uduppiddy in the Vadamaradchi division of the Jaffna peninsula.

He claimed that government troops killed 14 Liberation Tigers and recovered 5 T-56 rifles, 15 grenades and a 40 mm grenade launcher from them.

During a search operation yesterday in Amban in Chavakachcheri, according to the SLA spokesman, the SLA recovered some arms, including 889 small arms ammunition.

The Brigadier, who is also the Director of Military Intelligence, made a mistake here in describing Amban as a village located in Chavakachcheri. Amban is in Vadamaradchi east.

However, there is a village in Chavakachcheri called Thambanai which may have got phonetically confused with Amban.

He stated that the SLA is continuing with the Jayasikurui Operation as planned; that the Liberation Tigers are resisting the government troops with small mortar fire; that 18 soldiers were wounded during limited operations west of Mankulam this week and that army snipers killed seven liberation Tigers in this area.

Brigadier Tennekoon also gave another list of incidents during this week as follows: two Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) boats were slightly damaged during engagements with the Sea Tigers in seas off Pesalai on the Mannar island and Pulmoddai north of Trincomalee; The SLN destroyed three Sea Tiger vessels and damaged five and captured a boat, 20 bags of cement, two 40 horse power (HP) out board motors (OBM), a 50 HP OBM and two radios; thirteen Sea Tigers were killed in these mid sea engagements this week.

There is no independent means of checking the veracity of such claims by the Sri Lankan army due to a ban on journalists visiting the war zone on their own.