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Tiger
suicide attack on Navy craft kills 12 Two sailors who saw an explosive-laden boat approaching the Israeli built Shaldag class FAC jumped overboard. They were later rescued by fishermen. A Navy patrol brought them to the Eastern Naval Area headquarters at the Dockyard. They are now warded at the Navy hospital. Reports also said another sailor was captured by the LTTE. The attack came minutes after Navy authorities in Trincomalee intercepted a guerrilla radio conversation in Tamil. It was a voice saying "we are leaving for the liberation of the Tamil homeland". Naval establishments in the district were alerted after this message was received. The reported remarks during the radio intercepts have raised questions whether Tiger guerrillas have now declared war on the armed forces and thus abrogated the ceasefire. Government officials were trying to ascertain this position since the Ceasefire Agreement of February 2002 requires either side to give two weeks’ notice of their decision to abrogate. The incident occurred when FACs P 473 and P 476 were out on routine patrol. The first vessel had moved away from the area and was engaged in routine tasks. The second, P 476, was passing a flotilla of fishing boats when a suicide boat emerged. It headed directly towards the FAC. It is not immediately clear whether guerrilla suicide cadres were on board or the attack was carried out using only large quantities of explosives. A debrief of the wounded soldiers is to begin only after they recover from shock, a senior Navy official said. Rescue operations were hampered until dawn after reports that at least five more guerrilla suicide boats were in the vicinity. This was detected through radio intercepts. Confirmation that the attack on the Navy FAC was a direct retaliation for the killing of five students of Koneswara Tamil Maha Vidyalaya came yesterday in the form of a message in the pro-LTTE Nidarsanam web site. It carried the photograph of an FAC and the photographs of the slain students around it. This web site is said to be run personally by the LTTE Intelligence Wing leader, Pottu Amman.President Mahinda Rajapakse conferred yesterday with armed forces top brass over the incident. He has already ordered an inquiry into the shooting of the students following reports that Police Special Task Force commandos were involved. A team of commandos led by a Chief Inspector had been deployed in the Trincomalee district following efforts by a retired DIG, now advisor to the Ministry of Defence. He
had also called upon the STF team to act toughly against any terrorist
activity in the area. However, the military high command in the
strategic district was unaware of the presence of the STF group. |
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