On Thursday, the Sri Lanka Army Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) exploded a claymore mine and three explosives in Akkarayan- 20 km from Kilinochchi, the rebel capital. In the attack, four health officials from the Tamil Tiger operated Mobile Medical Services were wounded.
As the health officials were traveling back to Kilinochchi following a routine visit to rural villages in Mannar, the claymore mine hit the vehicle and damaged it while severely wounding a nurse and the driver, says local officials to TNS.
This attack comes shortly after yesterday's pressure mine explosion in the east by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) where nine civilians, including three children, were killed and fourteen were wounded. In that explosion, rebel sources said that the SLA troopers moved beyond the Forward Defense Line of the LTTE controlled area to administer the attack.
Through such attacks, SLA is trying to penetrate LTTE controlled areas by tactically forcing civilians to flee the borders of LTTE controlled areas, the sources further said. In addition, a similar attack took place in Thikiliveddai, another LTTE controlled border area, where two young boys were killed in ambush on farmers traveling in a tractor.
Even though the military has denied that its forces had been operating behind rebel lines, few diplomats and journalists in the capital Colombo believe them.
Low Expectations as Violence Rises
Despite the rising violence, the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have begun talks separately with the Norwegian facilitators in Oslo regarding the safety of the SLMM monitors. Following repeated broken promises by successive Sri Lankan Governments in a series of peace talks over the last 20 years, civic leaders in the North and East of Sri Lanka are not placing any expectations of returning to normalcy following current talks.
Both parties last met in February where they agreed to de-escalate violence. However, a covert war continues as innocent civilians are frequently affected by the violence. This is pushing the country onto the brink of re-entering into a war that has killed more than 80,000 people.
(http://www.tamileelamnews.com/news/publish/printer_5422.shtml)
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