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34 Tigers killed in Sri Lanka battle

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: Three soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army and 34 cadres of the LTTE were killed as the army launched a fresh offensive in the Tiger-held zones west of Omanthai and east of Mannar in the north in the past 48 hours.

A statement by the army said the offensive followed "urgent requests" made by the priest of Madu Church and internally displaced persons in the area to "liberate" over 10,000 stranded civilians.

It said despite several requests from aid agencies and other parties, none have been able to redress the grievances of the thousands stuck in the LTTE zones in Mannar. The civilians made a final plea though the priest of the Madu Church to intervene.

"In response to the urgent plea of the thousands stranded, Sri Lanka security forces stepped up in neutralising the terrorists' threat affecting the innocent Tamil majority in the area".

The military said the LTTE fired artillery and mortars from the villages in front of the forward defence lines west of Omanthai and "paved the way to use civilians as a human shield".

It said during 20 bodies of LTTE cadres were recovered from forward lines in Mannar district. Troops also seized arms, ammunition and equipment. Three soldiers were killed and four injured in action. On Thursday, 11 LTTE cadres were killed in the west of Omanthai area.

TamilNet, quoting LTTE officials in Kilinochchi, said more than 300 troopers had marched 2 km into LTTE territory and taken as human shield more than 120 villagers near the Vavuniya-Mannar district border.

Separately, the Presidential Secretariat in a statement denied any inconsistency in the purchase of MiG 27 ground attack aircraft from Ukraine in 2006 and maintained that misleading information would only help the LTTE to help assess the air assets of the air force.

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