Five soldiers killed in Sri Lanka PTI[ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2001 08:38:55 PM ]

COLOMBO: Three soldiers were killed and nine others seriously wounded when a suspected LTTE suicide bomber blew himself up on Thursday in eastern Sri Lanka while two other government troops were shot dead by the rebels in another incident in the region, police and army officials said.
The suicide bomber exploded in a high security zone in Batticaloa town when the soldiers were shopping in a market-place, the military said in a statement.
The unidentified suicide bomber had mingled with the public to enter the town which is under army control.
Shops and schools were closed in the town following the explosion and the area was cordoned off.
The blast came within a week of a failed attempt to kill a police officer at Kalkudah in Batticaloa and a day after two policemen were killed when a parcel bomb exploded at Kalmunai in the eastern Ampara district.
A pro-LTTE website claimed that the three men killed in the suicide bombing were military intelligence operatives who had formerly been members of the Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE).
The trio were part of a unit called Mohan Group and were effective in counter-intelligence operations against the Tigers in Batticaloa, it said.
The unit was believed to have been responsible for recent deep penetration strikes in the LTTE-held hinterland of the district, the website said.
The reference was to several alleged undercover operations of the Army to target individual rebel leades.
The LTTE's eastern commander Karikalan had recently escaped a claymore mine explosion with the rebels alleging that the army's deep penetration unit was responsible. The army has denied its hand in any such incident.
Senior LTTE leaders Nizam, Gangai Amaran and Shankar have been killed in mysterious attacks deep inside LTTE-controlled territory in recent months, while Karikalan and S P Tamilchelvam have escaped attempts on their lives.
Meanwhile, in yet another attack in the east, LTTE rebels killed two soldiers engaged in clearing a road in Trincomalee district on Thursday, defence officials said.
The soldiers were on a routine route-clearing patrol on a road predominantly used by civilians, when they were fired at from the jungles at Somapura, 31 km south of Trincomalee.
The rebels have stepped up attacks on police posts and Army caps in the east in recent months, making the eastern war zone as volatile as the embattled Jaffna peninsula and Vanni region in the north. They have been accused of large-scale forcible recruitment of young men and boys to bolster their ranks.