Over 150 killed in renewed fighting between Lanka, LTTE

COLOMBO, SEPT 14: The Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have suffered massive casualties in two days of hea...

COLOMBO, SEPT 14: The Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have suffered massive casualties in two days of heavy fighting near Mannar in the north-west of the island with over 150 combatants on both sides killed and hundreds wounded. The latest offensive against the Tamil rebels was temporarily suspended by the military on Tuesday.

The sound of wailing sirens was almost continuously heard in the Capital on Sunday and Monday as ambulances transported injured soldiers to hospitals here. A defence ministry spokesman said 53 soldiers were killed and 92 seriously wounded in the confrontations that continued till Sunday night. Over 300 soldiers suffered minor injuries, and according to the spokesman, "most of them are back in the battlefield after treatment".

He said 116 LTTE cadres were killed and a "large number" wounded in the confrontations. The army claims to have destroyed many heavily fortified LTTE positions, aided by air force bombers, artillery and mortar but had to face stiff resistance from the LTTE.

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Most of the casualties among the security forces were caused by mortars, which the defence spokesman said was used "extensively" by the LTTE.

The LTTE claimed on its clandestine radio service on Monday night that it thwarted the army advance, losing 19 of its fighters. It said it had captured a lot of arms from the soldiers.

This round of fighting began on Sunday, immediately after two "days of tranquility" that both sides had agreed to observe to facilitate the annual nation-wide polio immunisation programme.

The Sri Lankan army, supported by the air force and artillery, began advancing along two axes towards Vidithaltheevu, a fishing village on the western coast north of Mannar early Monday morning.

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However, the LTTE put up a fierce fight for the village and Pallmadu, a road junction close to it, both of which have been at the heart of an earlier battle between the two sides. Both are strategically important objectives for the army in its mission to open a land route through Tiger-held territory to Jaffna peninsula. Vidithaltheevu lies on the west coast road from Mannar to Pooneryn, the northern-most tip of the mainland, beyond which it joins the causeway into the peninsula.

It is to this road that the military has now shifted its sights after a two-year-long, bloody and unsuccessful attempt to open another road which cut through the middle of the mainland. The latest fighting and the loss of lives in it have been the heaviest since last September, when the Tigers overran a military garrison at Killinochchi, killing over a thousand soldiers in just two days of battle.

Meanwhile, 15 bodies of soliders killed in action during the operation were handed over the Red Cross by the LTTE on Tuesday.

A spokesman of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) said it was agreed by the LTTE to hand over the bodies of the soldiers killed in fighting last weekend.