Wednesday, June 27, 2007

LTTE suffers casualties in sea battle

LTTE's sea going arm suffered heavy casualties when one of it's clandestine boat movements was intercepted by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), yesterday. SLN gunboats deployed in the northern waters detected a group of approximately 20 sea tiger boats moving towards Point Pedro from Kadaikadu.

Upon detection, Fast Attack Craft (FAC) of the Navy engaged the sea tiger boat movement. The fierce firefight which then erupted lasted for hours. In the initial battle, Navy's gunboats destroyed 3 LTTE craft completely. As soon as these boats were hit, rest of the sea tiger boats began withdrawing towards tiger controlled territory in Kadaikadu. SLAF's Mi-24 helicopter gunships attacked the fleeing tigers and SLA's artillery bases bombarded the seas off Munai (where the rebel craft were lingering for a while) using Multi Barrel Rockets and 152mm/130mm artillery guns.

A total of 5 LTTE craft were sunk and a further 9 are confirmed to be seriously damaged. One of the disabled LTTE boats in better condition is now being towed to the Point Pedro harbor by SLN. Nearly 40 LTTE cadres are believed to be killed in this 4 hour long sea battle.

(http://defencenet.blogspot.com/2007/06/ltte-suffers-casualties-in-sea-battle.html)

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