Army gives armoured vehicles to STF

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 July 2000, 20:48 GMT]
The Special Task force (STF), the elite arm of the Sri Lankan security forces, was given ten armoured vehicles by the Ministry of Defence Wednesday to beef up its operational capabilities against the Liberation Tigers in the eastern province and the southwestern sector of the Vanni. The STF is a specially trained and equipped unit of commandos drawn from the Sri Lankan Police. The operational responsibilities of the STF have been increased due to the withdrawal of Sri Lankan army troops from the east and Mannar in recent months to stall the advance of the Tigers in the Jaffna peninsula.
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Tiger flags appear in Mannar town

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 July 2000, 21:24 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Police hastily removed flags of the Liberation Tigers that had been hoisted in the high security zone of Mannar town early Monday morning. The Tiger flag was put up at the hospital road junction, Bazzar road and at the Mannar stadium by unidentified persons suspected to be members and supporters of the Liberation Tigers Police sources in Mannar town said.
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Tigers attack SLA-Police camp

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 July 2000, 14:21 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers attacked and destroyed a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) cum Police camp at 64th mile post in the Mutur area in the eastern Trincomalee District Sunday night, security sources said. A Police Sergeant was killed and a soldier was reported missing in the attack. Three soldiers who were injured in the attack have been admitted to the Mutur hospital, the sources said.
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Judge warns EPRLF factions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 June 2000, 17:42 GMT]
Two factions of the minor ex-Tamil militant group operating in Mannar with the Sri Lankan security forces were severely reprimanded by the Mannar district judge M.Ilancheliyan Wednesday for breaching the peace in Mannar town by quarreling with each other incessantly. The Police filed a case Wednesday in the Mannar courts against both factions of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) for being a public nuisance and a threat to law and order in the town. The EPRLF was formerly a group that was fully backed by India.
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Further arrests ordered in Hamilitta murder

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 June 2000, 14:05 GMT]
The Mannar Magistrate Mr.M.Illancheliyan ordered the arrest of five more Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in connection with gang-rape and murder of a young woman on Tuesday. Ida Hamilitta, 21, was raped and killed in the early hours of 11 July 1999 in Pallimunai in the north-west of the island.
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Police smash up PLOTE van

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 June 2000, 17:52 GMT]
Sri Lankan military trained Police smashed up a van belonging to an ex-Tamil militant group and arrested five of its cadres Tuesday night around 9 p.m near Kulumaattu junction, about 2.5 kilometers west of Vavuniya town on the road to Mannar sources said. An altercation had led to a shoot out when cadres of the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) who went in a van towards Kulumattu junction were stopped by the Police for checking.
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Rescued refugees remanded

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 June 2000, 16:32 GMT]
The 24 refugees who were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) from an islet of the Adam's Bridge in the high seas between the southern coast of Tamil Nadu and Mannar on June 14 were remanded until Monday by Mannar's acting magistrate.
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Police accused of sexual brutality

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 June 2000, 07:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan police officers in Sinnakadai area in Mannar have attempted to rape women in the nearby areas after forcibly opening the doors at night, residents in Mannar said. Sex-related abusive incidents have worsened since last Wednesday, they added.
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Mannar conditions said causing refugee trickle

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 June 2000, 12:39 GMT]
Fifteen youth were arrested and detained by the Sri Lanka army when it cordoned off and searched the coastal village of Pesalai, 17 kilometers west of Mannar, Saturday morning. Sources said that the refugee camp in Pesalai was also searched. The SLA confiscated large quantities of kerosene stored by local fishermen as fuel for the light horsepower out board motors of their fishing boats.
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Bishop says 500 civilian casualties in Madduvil

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 June 2000, 19:41 GMT]
The Bishop of the Catholic Church in Mannar Rt.Rev.Dr. Rayappu Joseph said in appeal sent to the heads of foreign missions in Colombo that there were more than five hundred civilian casualties due to bombing and shelling by Sri Lankan security forces in the Madduvil area, close to Chavakachcheri in Jaffna. "I am given to understand that the attitude of the armed forces is that 'it is better to kill the people than allow them to go into the LTTE controlled areas' the Bishop states in the appeal.
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Mannar SLA shooting victims identified

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 June 2000, 18:20 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army handed over the bodies of five Tamil youth to the Mannar hospital this morning. The SLA told the hospital that the youth were shot dead in a house in Thalvupaadu, four kilometers west of Mannar town, when it was surrounded by troops around 5 a.m. Friday morning on receipt of information that Liberation Tigers were in the village. However, one of the youth shot dead was identified as K. Pirapaharan, a school teacher, by his sister and another was identified by his brother as Victor Sebamalai who had not returned home after reporting to the military intelligence unit at Mannar for an inquiry on May 31.
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Vavuniya claymore kills seven, injures nineteen

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 May 2000, 05:31 GMT]
Seven military trained Sri Lankan Policemen were killed and nineteen wounded when the truck in which they were traveling was hit by claymore mine blast six kilometers west of Vavuniya town on the Mannar road Tuesday morning around 9. 15 a.m.
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Grenade attack wounds five soldiers

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 May 2000, 19:08 GMT]
Five Sri Lanka Army soldiers were wounded in Mannar town Monday when a grenade was lobbed at them during a search operation in the suburb of Emil Nagar around 6.45 p.m. The condition of two soldiers is serious, Mannar Police sources said.
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MSF brings Jaffna wounded to Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 May 2000, 17:19 GMT]
Four civilians wounded in shelling in the Thenmaradchi division of Jaffna were transferred from Mallavi to Vavuniya hospital Monday by Medicins Sans Frontiers. The four are from the village of Madduvil south which was captured by the Liberation Tigers when they advanced on Chavakachcheri and its environs on May 19-20. They were brought overland through the Vanni from LTTE held sectors of Jaffna by the MSF.
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Claymore blast kills one

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 May 2000, 14:09 GMT]
A Special Task Force (STF) elite soldier was killed and three others, including an officer, were wounded when a land rover they were travelling in was hit by a claymore blast at Nelukkulam around 11 a.m. this morning.
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CSU personnel injured in claymore attack

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 May 2000, 06:16 GMT]
Five military trained Policemen including three operatives of the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) were wounded when they were hit by a claymore mine blast in the heart of Mannar town this morning around 10.30 a.m. The Police said that the Liberation Tigers were responsible for the attack in this high security zone.
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SLA builds bulwark as Tigers advance

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 May 2000, 12:24 GMT]
The Operational headquarters of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence (MoD) acknowledged that the Sri Lanka army was pushed out of Pallai, Pulopalai and Iththaavil by the Liberation Tigers yesterday in a press release issued Monday afternoon. The SLA, according to the release, was forced to withdraw with heavy casualties. Sources in Jaffna, meanwhile, said that the SLA is constructing a massive bulwark to stall the advancing Tigers.
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Tigers advance towards Pallai -radio

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 April 2000, 07:59 GMT]
The fighting units of the Liberation Tigers engaged operation in "Unceasing Waves 3" have advanced one and a half km. from Puthukadu junction towards Pallai, the Voice of Tigers (VoT) radio said in its noon news broadcast Friday.
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Death stalks Mannar fishermen

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 April 2000, 16:29 GMT]
The body of a young fisherman with gunshot wounds that was found floating in the sea between Nachchikudah and the isle of Iranathivu was buried by his relatives who identified the body as that of Chrishtie Cruz, 26, of Panangkattikottil, a coastal village near Mannar. Cruz had set out to sea on April 10.
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Thirty-three SLA wounded in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 April 2000, 07:27 GMT]
Thirty-three Sri Lanka army soldiers were injured and one was killed when the Liberation Tigers shelled SLA's current defence positions on the southeastern coast of Jaffna yesterday according to a press release of the Operational Headquarters of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence this morning.
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