International   

East in control, Colombo to tackle LTTE in north

B. Muralidhar Reddy

Capture of Thoppigala a historic achievement, says Government

COLOMBO: The Sri Lanka Government on Thursday asserted that the capture of Thoppigala which marked the “complete liberation of the Eastern province is a historic achievement” amid signs that the military would now slowly but steadily focus on the challenge posed by the LTTE in the north.

Minister and Cabinet Spokesperson Anura Priyadarshana Yapa told a news conference here, “We have liberated the East so that the people could be free from the clutches of the LTTE. We will now concentrate on developing the east and holding elections so that the eastern people also could elect their representatives for democratic institutions freely”.

The military spokesperson, Prasad Samarasinghe, who was present at the briefing, claimed that the fall of Thoppigala marked the end of LTTE camps in the whole of East and the province is now completely under the Government’s control.

Brig. Samarasinghe maintained that there were “almost zero civilian causality” in the fight between the forces and the Tigers that lasted for nearly three months.

At the same time, he was at pains to emphasise that “when dealing with the world’s second most treacherous terrorist group there could be hit-and-run attacks here and there for awhile.”

The military spokesperson that if a blast takes place “it will be wrong to say that the claim’ that whole of East is controlled by the Government was a lie. He said that it is “highly possible” that those small pockets of terrorists may try minor explosions in few spots.

He said the troops still have to remove large amount of booby traps and defuse land mines and anti-personnel mines left by the terrorists to clear the area.

The Brig. pointed out that the army was compelled to carry out the mission to save 178,000 lives of civilians living in those affected areas. Prior to the clearing of Thoppigala, the military liberated Sampur and Vaharai by January 2007.

After liberating Vaharai, LTTE domination had been restricted to Thoppigala area where they had continued to attack civilians and the security forces. “Since February this year, the security forces commenced their march into the remaining LTTE domains in the East. The Eastern Province of the Island is made up of 9,965 square kilometres in extent and covers around 16 per cent of the total land area of Sri Lanka”, he said.

In the north a cadre of the LTTE and a soldier were killed in separate incidents of fighting. The military said troops conducting a search operation in Veppamkulam area in Vavunia recovered T56 ammunition hidden inside a water bottle.

An LTTE cadre was killed in military firing and another escaped when they attempted throw hand grenade at the search party.

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

Stories in this Section

East in control, Colombo to tackle LTTE in north
Water detected on distant planet
Not a penny for Nepal King
Ghazi’s brother predicts Islamic revolution
South Korea begins fuel shipment to North
Light from the earliest stars?
Iran to hang 20
Six die in avalanche
Thaksin summoned

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu