Tigers strike in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 September 1999, 23:05 GMT]
A group of unidentified armeden who entered the Vavuniya main bus depot in the heavily defended area opposite the Vanni Sri Lankan security forces headquarters (the JOSSOP base) around 12.30 a.m. lobbed grenades at the parked vehicles damaging two.

The gunmen suspected to be members of the Liberation Tigers had come in a van. The Vavuniya bus depot is by the main road, about 2 km. south of the town.

Army units which moved into the depot later found two buses booby trapped. The explosive devices in the vehicles were defused said army sources. The armedmen had also removed 65800 rupees from the depot the SLA said.

Meanwhile, about a kilometre west of the depot, a group of Liberation Tigers attacked the Thonikkal railway crossing army point, killing one soldier.

Sources said that the Tigers had come in a van and had opened fire on the point for more than twenty minutes.

The Police in Vavuniya claimed that the LTTE had withdrawn from the area with one of their colleagues who was killed in the firefight.

The Thonikkal neighbourhood was searched by the security forces today.