Their release on Monday came as Lanka and India completed the formalities for the release of fishermen detained in each other's country for allegedly fishing in each other's waters, Colombo Page reported.
Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department has arrested the head of the finance division of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, a front organisation for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in Jaffna.He is alleged to have provided millions of rupees to the Tiger rebels for their war efforts. Investigations have claimed that he had provided TRO funds to slain LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, its political head S Thamil Selvan and several key members.
Forty-four Tamil Tigers and two soldiers were killed in fierce clashes between the rebels and security forces in the embattled northern Sri Lanka, where fighting has intensified since the government pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam this month.
A five-member Indian parliamentary delegation has arrived here in the Sri Lankan capital on a four-day trip to hold bilateral talks. The delegation is scheduled to visit Tamil-dominated Jaffna city, the capital of Sri Lanka's Northern Province, the Indian High Commission in Colombo said on Tuesday.
The country will not allow any "unilateral action" on its border and will pay any cost to thwart such attempts, he told the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's state conference.
Arumugam (named changed) told a team of visiting journalists at a fortified building in Jaffna that houses the former LTTE cadres that the LTTE chief was quite regular in attending training camps and used to personally supervise their programmes. "I worked for the LTTE for almost six years and was classified as a Black Sea Tiger," Arumugam told the journalists.
The LTTE forgot that Eelam was a means to an end -- that is a place of honour for Tamils and preservation of their identity and culture. By obdurately focussing on 'all or nothing' strategy, the LTTE lost everything and has brought upon untold misery on the Tamil people of Jaffna.
Human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated in the war against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam haunted Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the sidelines of the CHOGM summit with UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday giving the island country an ultimatum to conduct a credible probe into the war crimes by March, failing which he would seek an international investigation.
Over 26 Tamil Tiger rebels and one soldier were killed in fresh clashes between government troops and the guerrillas in the restive northern Sri Lanka, the military said on Monday.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Sri Lankan Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that its troops killed more than 100 Tamil Tigers while it lost 43 soldiers, with another 33 missing in action. The LTTE, however, claimed that at least 100 Sri Lankan troops were killed in the clashes and put their own losses at 16.
India has taken up with authorities in Colombo the issue of arrest of 23 Tamil Nadu fishermen by Sri Lankan Navy when they were fishing near Katchatheevu in the Palk Straits on Sunday, Ministry of External Affairs said in New Delhi on Monday.
The jets destroyed two camps of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Mullaitivu district
The Sri Lankan Navy on Wednesday claimed that it has killed at least 40 Tamil Tiger rebels when it confronted a flotilla of Sea Tiger boats in the seas off Vettilaikerni in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
"The air strikes were a sequel to the constant mortar attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam against the forward defence line of the Army," a statement from the ministry said.
Eight Tamil Tiger rebels and a soldier have been killed in a series of gun-battles in Sri Lanka's troubled northern region. While four Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels were killed in a confrontation with security forces in Mannar, two Tigers died in Jaffna, the Defence Ministry said in a statement. Vavuniya region also witnessed a clash on Monday in which a solider lost his life.
The LTTE said on Tuesday that they were entering talks although they had little confidence that the government will deliver on promises made to restore normality.
The fishermen were apprehended along with their seven boats and handed over to the Ilawalai police in northern Jaffna peninsular on Wednesday by a group of local fishermen.
Nine Lankan soldiers were also killed.
'General Musharraf came to power after an Army coup. After sometime India recognized him. Like that, in future India will have to recognize us.'
The claim came a day after the Tiger rebels blew up an army bus in Colombo, killing one soldier, and overran a naval base where they claimed 35 sailors died.
Naval gunboats intercepted the Tiger boats leading to the battle, which lasted for six hours, it said.
Defence sources said at least six soldiers were feared dead and 60 others wounded in the battle. However, there was no independent confirmation of the army casualties.
The Sri Lankan Air Force this evening destroyed an artillery gun position of the Tigers at Pooneryn, just south of the Jaffna peninsula.
Sri Lankan navy seize explosives, detonators in Jaffna
The Sri Lankan navy on Wednesday detained as many as 327 Indian fishermen when they were fishing in the Palk Strait, and later released 227 of them, officials said.
the Navy exchanged fire with a flotilla of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after the rebels attacked naval gunboats.
At least 32 Indian fishermen were arrested by the Sri Lankan navy for allegedly poaching in the country's waters off the coast of the Delft islet in Jaffna.
In a major success, the Sri Lankan troops today seized the strategic Elephant Pass, the gateway to the Jaffna peninsula, dislodging the Tamil Tigers from their key bastion a week after capturing the rebels' de facto capital Kilinochcci in the island nation's embattled north.
A defiant President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday once again rejected demands for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes during the military campaign against the LTTE, saying countries should not "dictate" to Sri Lanka.
Fresh from their success in capturing the entire North-western coast, the Sri Lankan Air Force fighter jets on Sunday pounded bunkers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and seized hundreds of arms and ammunitions while recovering the bodies of two militants, officials said.
Sri Lankan security forces on Saturday captured the strategic northern town of Pooneryn, the last Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam bastion in the west coast, giving the forces a vital land link to Jaffna.
The fierce clashes got under way at a time when President Mahinda Rajapaksa unveiled the budget proposals for 2008 in Parliament and vowed to wipe out terrorism completely in the island nation.
LTTE's political wing chief, V Nadesan, on Thursday said that the group was ready for a ceasefire now, while accusing the Sri Lankan government of 'abrogating' the six-year-long ceasefire, which came to an end early this year.
The Lankans have said in their statements that they have no links with LTTE and left Jaffna as they were upset with the continued violence in the region, adding that they wanted to live a peaceful life.
The LTTE triggered long-range artillery shelling at the Forward Defence Lines of the military at Muhamalai in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
The army captured the Viyattankulam area in Mannar after killing 22 rebels and destroying 16 bunkers
Over 29 Tamil Tigers have been killed and 36 injured in separate clashes with the security forces in Sri Lanka's embattled north. In a separate incident, two civilians were killed in a roadside bomb attack in northern Jaffna.
The 49 Indian fishermen, arrested by Sri Lankan navy recently, have been released and will return home in a couple of days, Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday said in Chennai.
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