International   

Uneasy calm near Sampur

B. Muralidhar Reddy

It is not war, says Colombo

COLOMBO: Uneasy calm prevailed on Tuesday near Sampur town in the east, re-captured by the military on Monday.

An Army statement said the LTTE had fired artillery shells on the Selvanagar Army camp killing one soldier and injuring four. It said the Army returned the fire. The Army said the nearly four-week curfew in parts of Jaffna peninsula would now be enforced from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Defence spokesman and Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said the re-capture of Sampur was necessitated to eliminate threat to vital national interests in Trincomalee district.

"What the Government troops performed was not a war to conquer part of the land or eviction of the public living there. Troops launched attacks on selected LTTE targets that were posing a huge threat to security in Trincomalee in order to neutralise LTTE's gun positions," he said.

Economic targets

The Minister said from its Sampur military base the LTTE had repeatedly targeted the security forces and important economic targets in and around Trincomalee to wrest control of the strategic points. The LTTE said its cadres had "tactically" withdrawn from Sampur even as pro-LTTE elements sought to argue that the Tigers did not want to be blamed for a "full-fledged war". Army spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said troops were still in the process of clearing Sampur to enable all displaced civilians to return to their houses. He claimed that large stocks of tsunami donations had been found in LTTE hideouts.

The Minister said the Government would soon launch a programme for rehabilitation of an estimated 10,000 civilians in and around Sampur.

The Government Peace Secretariat said a U.S. Pacific Command report on the vulnerabilities of the Trincomalee Naval base points out that the presence of LTTE long-range weapons at Sampur is a threat to the military installation.

"The Trincomalee harbour is also of critical importance to the national economy. In Sri Lanka, 40 per cent of the filling stations are operated by the Lanka Indian Oil Company (LIOC). The fuel supplies of the LIOC are stored at the Oil Tank Farm at China Bay near the Trincomalee harbour. The ability of the LTTE to target the Air Force base at China Bay clearly demonstrates that it could target the fuel storage facilities of LIOC," it said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

"Foreign hand in Balochistan"
Uneasy calm near Sampur
Pakistan, local Taliban sign peace agreement
The worst is over: Castro
60 Taliban militants killed
Row over luxury house
Sri Lankan MPs seek meeting with Manmohan
India links partnership to arms sales by France

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu