More troops sent to Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 December 1997, 23:59 GMT]
Sources in Vavuniya said today that a large number of troops are being sent to the 'Jayasikurui' front from last week. They were, however, not able to ascertain whether the induction of soldiers is connected to the major operation to achieve the link up between the troops of Operation Jayasikurui and the SLA base in Kilinochchi before February 4, 1998, the fiftieth anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence.

There are forty five days to the new dead line which has been set by the Deputy Minister for Defence Gen. Ratwatte.

Sources said that if the heavy monsoon showers which have begun lashing the Vanni region again do not stop by early January, the army will be left with hardly twenty days to capture the remaining stretch of the Vavuniya - Kilinochchi road.

Normally the northeast monsoon rains begin subsiding in late January they point out.

The Sri Lankan Army now says there are only twenty kilometers between its current positions east of Mankulam at Karuppattamurippu and Kilinochchi.

In eight months the government was not able to capture more than twenty kilometers of the strategic highway (A 9) and another thirty two kilometers of an old jungle road which runs almost parallel to the east of the A 9.

The Liberation Tigers have resisted repeated attempts by the SLA to capture about 28 kilometers of the A 9 between Puliyankulam and Mankulam.

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