SLA claims strategic junction is captured

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 January 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The Sri Lankan army said that troops of Operation Jayasikurui captured the strategic Kanakarayan Kulam junction this afternoon.

Army sources in vavuniya said that only three soldiers were injured in the surprise attack on the junction which the Liberation Tigers have held against repeated onslaughts by the SLA for more than six months.

Army sources said that by this evening they had captured the most parts of the Kanakarayan Kulam town.

They said it was a special operation in which elite troops had carefully manoeuvered and surprised the LTTE's positions round the junction.

However the army's claim could not be verified independently.

The SLA has claimed the capture of Kanakarayan Kulam town before and this had later turned out not to be the case. On that occasion, Sri Lankan state TV had showed SLA troops moving past a milestone which was marked Kanakarayan Kulam.

Recently the SLA claimed that they had overrun the nearby town of Puliyankulam and this was widely reported in the local press. However, a few days later, the MoD admitted that the SLA was not in control of the town, but only parts that it had captured in previous assaults.