rediff.com: Tigers claim army base, many dead

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said on Thursday they had overrun a key army complex, as the air base which provides a lifeline for thousands of troops on the war-torn Jaffna peninsula came under fire for a second day.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said in a statement released in London that heavily armed commando units, backed by artillery and mortar bombardment, wrested control of the Kaithadi army base after 12 hours of ferocious combat.

It said more than 100 government troops were killed and hundreds wounded in the battle for Kaithadi, which lies about five km east of the entrance to Jaffna city, the cultural capital of the Tamil homeland for which the LTTE has been fighting since 1983.

"Overwhelmed by the speed and ferocity of the Tiger onslaught the Sri Lankan soldiers gave up their stiff resistance and fled in total disarray leaving their dead colleagues," the LTTE said.

In a brief statement, the government's Special Media Information Centre said troops had repulsed "terrorist attempts to push back the security forces" at Colombuthurai, which is on the eastern outskirts of Jaffna city.

It said security forces had also stopped the rebels from advancing eastwards from Ariyalia, slightly further outside Jaffna city, by "readjusting defended localities".

The government said seven security force personnel had been wounded in combat over the previous 24 hours.

SECOND DAY OF FIRING ON AIR BASE

They said by phone that details were not immediately available, but initial reports suggested some people may have been killed or injured in the attack.

It was the second day of firing on Palaly, which houses the military's main ammunition and fuel dump on the peninsula. Officials said neither attack damaged the air strip.

There is no accessible land route to Jaffna, some 400 km north of the capital Colombo, and if the air strip is damaged it will be difficult for the government to move troops and weapons to and from the peninsula.

ARMY DECLARES AMNESTY FOR DESERTERS

The army's hold on Jaffna, which it captured in December 1995, came under threat last month after the Tigers overran the military complex at Elephant Pass, which straddles the isthmus linking Jaffna peninsula to the rest of Sri Lanka.

Since then some 30,000 troops -- almost a third of the army -- have been virtually penned in on the flat and arid land spur.

The government has accused the LTTE of shelling heavily populated areas of Jaffna city to push out its 100,000 civilians.

"We wish to point out that it is the Sri Lankan army that has been preventing the free mobility of the civilians to safer areas under the cover of curfew," it said in its statement.

Aid officials said by phone that Jaffna was half-empty, with people moving to the northwest suburbs.

First-hand reports of the situation on the Jaffna peninsula are hard to come by because of hefty media censorship and regulations banning journalists from travelling to the region.

Sri Lanka's The Island newspaper said on Thursday that the government had agreed to an opposition request for weekly parliamentary meetings on the war situation. It was not clear whether journalists would be allowed to attend the meetings.

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