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Navy seizes Tiger bomb boat
A Sri Lanka Navy patrol intercepted a Tiger guerrilla boat in the seas off Trincomalee with communications equipment and an outboard motor but a subsequent search by the Harbour Police revealed it contained a load of claymore mines.

The search came after the Sri Lanka Navy handed over the boat to the Harbour Police and six Tiger cadres, who were on board, to members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Trincomalee.

The detection, a violation of the Ceasefire Agreement, comes as a Government and a Tiger guerrilla delegation are engaged in their second session of peace talks in a Thai tourist resort in Nakhorn Pathom, 32 miles from the capital of Bangkok.

Four Navy patrol craft operating in the seas some five miles off Foul Point in Trincomalee last night had detected the Tiger guerrilla boat some five kilometres off the shore. The Navy patrols had only detected a 40 horsepower engine, 12 man packs, an amplifier and an antenna mast. The Navy seized the boat and seven Tiger guerrillas on board.

They were handed over to the Harbour Police who had conducted a thorough search of the LTTE vessel. They found 35 claymore mines carefully concealed in the boat. The detection of the boat has been brought to the notice of Defence Minister Tilak Marapana and the Navy Commander, Vice Admiral Daya Sandagiri, who were in Trincomalee together with senior officers for a passing out parade.

The handing over of the six guerrilla cadres to the SLMM was the result of an agreement reached between the Government and the LTTE on how to deal with situations where troops or guerrillas are taken into custody by each other. It came after the Police in Kantalai arrested two armed guerrilla cadres felling trees in a forest reserve. They were produced before a magistrate and remanded - a move that prompted the LTTE to take seven soldiers hostage.

They were released only after the two guerrillas were granted bail. However, they failed to appear when the case was called on October 26. The Tiger guerrilla boat is said to have brought the grenades from a Sea Tiger base in Vakarai. They were to be delivered at a location in Trincomalee, according to Navy sources.

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