Rebels attack Navy base as Sri Lanka fighting rages

By Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Tamil Tiger rebels attacked a Navy base
in Sri Lanka’s east and fought artillery duels with troops in
the north before dawn on Saturday, the military said, as the
worst fighting since a 2002 truce deepened.

The Tigers rained artillery on the strategic eastern port
of Trincomalee, a vital maritime supply line to the army-held
northern Jaffna peninsula — which is cut off from the rest of
the island by rebel territory and where a new battlefront
opened up late on Friday.

The Tigers said troops were trying to breach a “border”
that divides government territory from their own in the north,
and said hundreds of civilians were fleeing army shelling as
fighting that has raged in the east for 17 days spread.

“Trincomalee harbour is under artillery attack,” said Navy
spokesman Commander D.K.P. Dassanayake. There were no immediate
details.

Truce monitors confirmed artillery exchanges at three
points along the Jaffna border, including the main entry point
at Muhamalai. Goods traveling by land must pass through there
to reach the Jaffna peninsula, where 40,000 troops are
stationed.

“It is definitely very dangerous, opening up on several
fronts,” said Robban Nilsson of the unarmed Nordic truce
monitoring mission.

“Guerrilla tactics have always been able to fight the enemy
on several fronts, so it is definitely a very worrying
development.”

A Reuters witness in Jaffna heard fierce shelling in the
distance and said the military announced an indefinite curfew
over an emergency radio channel late on Friday. Shops must now
stay closed and people must stay off the streets.

The Tigers used their own radio station, the Voice of
Tigers, to warn civilians to immediately leave the army-held
town of Chavakachcheri which lies 10 miles east of Jaffna and
suffered years of shelling in the past.

“They are firing artillery and trying to breach our
borders,” Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said by
telephone from the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

“They are trying to thrust toward Kilinochchi, so our
soldiers are retaliating.”

The military accused the Tigers of provoking the northern
confrontation and said there was no ground offensive.

The government says it will not halt operations until it
controls a disputed sluice and an irrigation reservoir that
feeds it. The Tigers insist the land is theirs and say
continued army attacks are an effective declaration of war.

North of the town of Batticaloa toward the sluice gate, the
Red Cross say at least 15,000 Tamils are displaced behind rebel
lines having spent days under shellfire. That it is on top of
over 30,000 newly displaced in government territory.

The Tigers have long demanded a separate homeland for
ethnic Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka but President
Mahinda Rajapakse has ruled this out. The rebels say any return
to stalled peace talks is a distant prospect.