SL Navy arrests Tamil civilians fleeing to India

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 September 2006, 06:10 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Sunday morning handed over 56 members of sixteen Tamil families and seven boatmen to Talaimannar Police on a report that they were taken into custody in Mannar Sea when they were attempting to flee to Tamilnadu in India to seek refuge. Forty two of them were taken into custody while fleeing in three boats. The rest were arrested while staying in a church in Thalvupadu.
Full story >>

Tiger artillery targeted SLA Intelligence Camp in Vadamaradchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 September 2006, 13:32 GMT]
Artillery shells, fired from LTTE controlled Nagarkovil, during the recent clashes off the Point-Pedro sea Friday night and Saturday morning, had targeted a Sri Lanka Army Intelligence Camp, located in Puloli, Point Pedro, sources in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

SLA shelling triggers artillery duel in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 September 2006, 12:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched artillery shelling towards Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled territory in Vavunatheevu in Batticaloa district. LTTE responded by counter-artillery fire toward the SLA postions, civilian sources said. The artillery duel lasted from Sunday midnight till 3:00 a.m. Sunday. Tension prevailed in the area.
Full story >>

Abductee found dead in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 23:21 GMT]
An Actuarial Manager of Union Assurance in Colombo was found dead Saturday morning at Thotalanga, Grand Pass in Colombo. The victm, Reginald Jesudasan, 31, son of a retired Tamil Inspector of Police, was abducted Friday around 7:20 p.m. when he left the office.
Full story >>

Tamil parties protest against abductions in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 18:05 GMT]
Representatives of Tamil political parties addressing a press briefing held Friday in Colombo Holiday-In-Hotel said they are going to hold awareness meetings among Tamil people in Colombo from next week against the increase of abduction by the intelligence service of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). They stressed that several Tamil youths in Colombo had been abducted by SLA intelligence unit in past and immediate action should be taken to stop this.
Full story >>

2 SLN Dvora vessels sunk, one damaged in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 04:04 GMT]
Two Dvora Fast Attack Crafts were sunk and another damaged in the clashes that took place in the seas off Vadamaradchi Point Pedro Munai, Sri Lanka Navy sources in Jaffna said. The SLN sources claimed that they had destroyed several Sea Tiger vessels. Heavy fighting was reported from 9:00 p.m. Friday till 4:00 Saturday morning between the Sea Tigers and the Sri Lanka Navy.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka rationale for offensive ‘spurious, deceptive’ - LTTE

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 03:59 GMT]
Dismissing the Sri Lankan military’s justification for its latest major offensive against the LTTE in Sampoor as “spurious” and “deceptive,” the Tigers’ political representative in the area said the LTTE first fired on the naval base in Trincomalee when resisting the SLA’s initial offensive in late July.
Full story >>

Vatican appeals over missing Jaffna priest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2006, 03:57 GMT]


The Vatican’s representative to Sri Lanka this week appealed to the humanity of those responsible for the disappearance of a Catholic priest in the northern Jaffna peninsula while Jaffna Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam said he is yet to get a response to even his second appeal to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaske over Father Jim Brown’s disappearance. The church-run Centre for Peace and Reconciliation (CPR) in Jaffna joined calls for a proper investigation.
Full story >>

Clashes erupt off Point Pedro coast

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 15:33 GMT]
Heavy fighting erupted between the Sea Tigers and the Sri Lanka Navy off the coast of Point Pedro, on the northern coast of Jaffna, Friday evening, sources in the peninsula said. Clashes in the seas off Manalkadu, in Vadamaradchi East, spread fled their houses.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka military using "scorched earth policy" - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 15:13 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army is deliberately razing Tamil villages to the ground as part of its military offensive against the LTTE in Muthur East region of Trincomalee. Through Norwegian facilitators, the LTTE has condemned in the "strongest possible terms Sri Lanka's 'scorched earth' policy of occupying Tamil civilian centers and rendering them uninhabitable," the LTTE's military spokesman, I. Ilanthirayan, said Friday.
Full story >>

‘Coordinated, deliberate’ SLA campaign in LTTE areas - SLMM

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 14:05 GMT]
Amid the furore triggered by international truce monitors’ findings that Sri Lankan security forces carried out the massacre of 17 aid workers, other conclusions by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) lost focus, including the charge the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) carried out “deliberate, planned and coordinated offensive military operations” against LTTE cadres and civilians in LTTE-controlled areas from April 1, weeks after Norwegian facilitated talks in Geneva to de-escalate rising violence.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka's military conducting slow pogrom - paper

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 10:36 GMT]
The deliberate displacement of over 160,000 Tamils by Sri Lankan military offensives and attacks this year combined with the purposeful blocking of food, medicine and relief supplies amounts to a 'slow pogrom' of the Tamils, the Tamil Guardian newspaper argued in its latest editorial. "Whilst trotting out the tired counter-insurgency rhetoric of 'hearts and minds' and a glib insistence that Tigers, not Tamils, are the target, Sri Lanka's military has always been ready to punish the Tamils for the LTTE's violence," the paper said.
Full story >>

Maharaja TV employee abducted in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 10:26 GMT]
A Tamil woman, employed in the computer section of the Maharaja Televion (MTV), was abducted Friday around 7:30 a.m. in Wellawatte, Colombo. Six armed men, riding in a white-van, abducted Thavarajah Thavamani, 26. More than 10 Tamil civilians, including three females, have been abducted in Colombo city and its suburbs during the past week alone, humanitarian sources said.
Full story >>

One hundred Tamil civilians arrested in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 08:19 GMT]
About one hundred Tamil civilians were arrested Thursday in Vavuniya town in a combined cordon and search operation by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Police. They were brought to Vavuniya Police Station and subjected to severe interrogation.
Full story >>

SLA trooper killed in ambush, curfew re-imposed in Vadamaradchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2006, 04:55 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army Lance Corporal was killed and five troopers wounded in a Claymore blast when a group of SLA soldiers on a road clearing patrol were ambushed near Karaveddy Predeshiya Sabha (PS) office in Vadamaradchi, around 7:45 a.m., Friday. SLA announced over its radio that curfew has been re-imposed in Vadamaradchi sector from Friday noon and launched a cordon and search operation in Karaveddy. Several civilians were assaulted by the soldiers following the attack. Tension prevails in Vadamaradchi.
Full story >>

One soldier injured in Vadamaradchchi, Tamil youth shot dead in Kopay

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 23:43 GMT]
Following a claymore explosion at Idaikkadu in Nelliyadi in Jaffna-Point Pedro Road Thursday soldiers manning the gateways to Vadamaradchchi, Vallai, Mulli in Kodikamam, and Aayam in Chavakachcheri road prevented the movement of about one thousand civilians for about three hours. SLA did not allow the movement of about hundred vehicles. One SLA sodleir was injured in the explosion.
Full story >>

LTTE seeks road supply to Jaffna civilians

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 14:16 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers are ready to allow food and medicine for the civilians in Jaffna to be transported by road through the Vanni, to ease the difficulties of the population there, LTTE officials told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Wednesday. Agreement on the use of a sea route to the peninsula is proving problematic as the Sri Lanka military is seeking to resupply its garrison there under the guise of aid for civilians, LTTE officials said.
Full story >>

SLN arrested fleeing Sri Lankan Tamils in Mannar Sea

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 12:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Wednesday night around 11 p.m. arrested 18 Tamil civilians with four Indian boatmen while they were fleeing to seek refuge in Tamilnadu from Talaimannar coast. They were handed over to the Talaimannar Police Thursday morning. SLN has detained the Indian boat in its custody.
Full story >>

British Tamils protest against Rajapakse’s London visit

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 11:53 GMT]
More than one thousand British Tamils and UK residents, Wednesday held a demonstration in front of the British Parliament in London from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. protesting against the visit of the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to London, and condemning the Sri Lankan Government for violations of the human rights of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the organizers of the rally said.
Full story >>

Seven Tamil civilians arrested in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2006, 10:00 GMT]
Seven Tamil civilians were arrested Wednesday night during a combined cordon and search operation by SLA troops and Police along Vavuniya-Horowopottana road following the killing of a home guard by unidentified persons. The home guard was shot dead Wednesday evening.
Full story >>