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| Sri Lanka |
| Tamil Tigers shell key Sri Lankan military base |
| 2008-01-29 |
| Tamil Tiger rebels Monday shelled Sri Lanka’s main northern military base, disrupting a vital air link to the troubled region as the military said it killed 82 guerrillas over the weekend. An aircraft carrying top defence officials and military brass was turned away from the Jaffna military airfield as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pounded the region with heavy artillery, officials said. They said the Palaly airfield at the northern edge of the Jaffna peninsula was shut for military and civilian aircraft as the artillery fire and retaliatory strikes continued for about two hours. “We heard heavy shelling for hours during the morning,” a local resident in Jaffna, 410 km north of here, said when contacted by telephone on Monday afternoon. Telephone lines to the area were disrupted while the firing was going on in the morning, residents said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Jaffna peninsula is the northern tip of Sri Lanka and controlled by the government, but cut off from the rest of the country by Tiger rebels. It is reliant on supplies from planes and ships. Retaliation: Aircraft pounded suspected artillery gun positions of the Tigers in the northern mainland, 25 kilometres away from the Palaly runway. “About 15 shells had been fired,” at the Palaly base, a defence official here said. “Counter attacks are taking place.” A military statement, meanwhile, said 39 suspected Tiger rebels had been killed in a string of separate clashes in the north of Sri Lanka on Sunday, on top of 43 killed on Saturday, pushing the weekend rebel toll to 82. Since the start of the month, the ministry has claimed government forces have killed 748 rebels against just 28 soldiers. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Actually they were transporting ammunition to Sri Lanka, likely from Southeast Asia. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-01-29 21:32 |
| #2 Ammo stored on ships? That's dumb, carried, yes, used, yes, simply stored, Stupid. Hard to get to, easy to destroy. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-01-29 21:03 |
| #1 Well, either they're using up their last stocks, or they've found a new way to resupply. The SLN sank all of the Tigers' ammo storage ships a few months ago. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-01-29 01:11 |