Saturday, June 09, 2007

Special Forces rout advancing tigers

Military intelligence has revealed that the LTTE's main objective has now changed to capturing a Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher before Jaffna battle. MBRL rocket fire had caused severe damages to LTTE formations in Jaffna last August and it was one of the reasons the army did not lose any of the FDLs back then.

Meanwhile, it has now been confirmed that LTTE units clad in army uniform took part in Vavuniya battle. These units spoke in Sinhala and even managed to lure an army attack group into a trap. Group leader was shot dead but the soldiers managed to return to base later. The captured army Buffel too fell into a trap set by 'Sinhala speaking tigers'. When the Buffel went to battlefield to retrieve casualties, one of the disguised tigers had told the driver that there were more wounded soldiers left, in Singhalese. When the driver drove deeper into LTTE held areas as per instructions by the tigers, it was hit by an RPG and was captured by the tigers.( Special Forces of SLA later recovered the vehicle.)

A day after the main LTTE offensive was ended, army's Special Forces units staged a devastating counterattack on newly captured LTTE positions. This took the tigers by surprise and caused them to flee from most captured areas. LTTE had captured 3 SLA mortar positions (with launchers) in the battle. However, tigers had fled leaving behind the captured launchers (with no harm done to them) when SF attacked and secured the mortar positions.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka Air Force had flown 8 bombing sorties in Vavuniya area since the battle. MiG27 ground attack aircraft pounded LTTE artillery positions and newly raised LTTE defenses with greater accuracy. In fact it was the aerial raids which caused most of LTTE casualties.

It was falsely reported in pro LTTE media that nearly 7 artillery batteries were destroyed due to a ' commando style raid' by LTTE on SLA artillery base at Pompaimadu. DefenceNet learns that this claim is entirely false. The only artillery battery damaged in this battle was hit by LTTE long range fire. LTTE's ground troops never reached Pompaimadu base to carry out a commando raid. They were stopped (and later routed) near the Forward Defense Lines by soldiers of the 57th division.

(http://defencenet.blogspot.com/2007/06/special-forces-rout-advancing-tigers.html)

No comments: