Date:01/10/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/10/01/stories/2006100101591400.htm

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16 LTTE cadres killed in encounter at Pillumale post

B. Muralidhar Reddy

LTTE claims that the STF carried out an ambush in Batticaloa

LTTE's Koaveli leader killed, claims Government
Truce monitors visit attack site

Sri Lanka Navy claims to have destroyed a Sea Tiger boat

Police commandos remove bodies of Tamil Tigers killed in an encounter in Ampara on Saturday. - PHOTO: AP

COLOMBO: At least 23 persons were killed on Saturday in continuing violence in different parts of Sri Lanka.

The Government claimed that 16 cadres of the LTTE were killed in an encounter with the Special Task Force (STF) at the Pillumale post in the east. However, the Tigers said 11 of its cadres were killed in a `counter-insurgency' operation conducted by the STF.

The Government said LTTE's Koaveli leader, Kannan, was killed in the counter-attack on Tigers who attempted to attack the police post in the early hours. "Following a civilian tip-off on a possible Tiger attack on the Pillumale police post on Friday the STF took over the police post and ambushed the area to trap the Tigers," it said.

The STF recovered 11 T-56 weapons, 19 pressure mines, 32 magazines and 3 handsets brought by the Tigers for the attack, it said.

The Government said the attack on the police post is a clear indication of the presence of the LTTE in the area, which recently witnessed the murder of 10 Muslims.

The LTTE said its cadres were killed in an ambush carried out by the STF inside its territory in Batticaloa district. Its military spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayan has been quoted in the TamilNet as saying that the bodies of the cadres killed in the STF attack were transferred in military vehicles into STF-controlled area.

He charged the Sri Lankan forces with engaging in `offensive attacks' inside Tiger territory when the LTTE had informed facilitators that it had stopped all retaliatory attacks following the appeal by the Co-Chairs.

Truce monitors visited on Saturday evening the site of the attack inside the LTTE-controlled area where they examined the traces of the attack and the tracks of the Buffel Armoured Personnel Carrier of the STF, Mr. Ilanthirayan said.

In another incident, an SLA soldier on a motorbike was shot dead by unidentified men at Kovilkulam on Friday night.

The Sri Lanka Navy claimed to have destroyed a Sea Tiger boat killing four Tiger cadres and recovering a large cache of armament in Velanithurai late on Friday night.