SLA attacks bus carrying school children in Madu, 17 killed, 17 wounded

(TAMILNET)At least 11 school children, principal of the displaced Chinna Pa'ndivirichchaan school and two teachers were killed and 17 wounded when a Deep Penetration Unit of Sri Lanka Army triggered a Claymore mine targeting the bus carrying school children in Madu division of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam controlled territory Tuesday at 2:25 p.m. Pa'l'lamadu hospital authorities told TamilNet that 11 of 17 killed in the attack were school children. The bus was 1 km away from Madu church, after having picked up the children at Thadcha'naamaruthamadu and was on its way to Pa'l'lamadu from Madu.

The principal was among the dead. 7 children were critically wounded. 12 of the 17 wounded were in critical state.

Officials at the Mannaar Operations Command of the LTTE said they had spoiled a number of attempts by the SLA DPU teams to infiltrate and place Claymore mines along the roads within the past 3 months.

Source: Tamilnet

SLA denies any involvement in Mannar incident

Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara totally denied LTTE allegations that Sri Lanka Army deep penetration unit attacked a civilian school bus in the Madhu area. He stressed that there were no military teams operating in those areas.

Source: Dailymirror

Sri Lankan army kills 43 rebels in clashes

By DPA

Colombo : At least 43 Tamil rebels and a Sri Lankan soldier have been killed in clashes in the northern part of the country, military officials said Tuesday.

On Tuesday, troops captured the Vivattankulam area in Mannar, 320 km north of the capital, destroying 16 bunkers and killing at least 22 rebels, the military said.

Six rebels each were killed Monday in two separate incidents in the Wanni area, 240 km north of the capital while nine rebels were killed in Welioya, 280 km northeast of the capital, on the same day, military said.

A government soldier was killed in Muhamalai, 370 km north of the capital, in a confrontation with the rebels Monday, officials said.

Government troops are continuing their operations mainly in the Mannar area un the northwest while other smaller operations also are being conducted in the north.

The military during this month has claimed to have killed over 800 rebels and lost 30 soldiers, but there is no independent confirmation of the figures.

Source: indianmuslims.info

SAARC summit to be held in Sri Lanka

The 15th SAARC Summit will be held in the picturesque Sri Lankan city of Kandy from July 27 with Colombo planning ''foolproof'' security arrangements to ward off any LTTE attack as it battles the rebel forces in the north.

''Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse visited Kandy (about 80 kms of North East of Colombo) on Monday and held a meeting with regard to making available all facilities in time before the SAARC summit beginning on July 27,'' a top official told PTI.

''Security issue was also discussed,'' the official said, adding it was decided to take special measures to ensure ''fool proof arrangements.''

The week-long summit that will conclude on August 3 is expected to be attended by SAARC heads of state including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Among various infrastructural facilities, the government proposes to renovate the whole road network in Kandy in time for the summit. The event will be marked by special cultural pageants and other colourful programmes in the hill resort.

The summit is also expected to be attended by around 1,000 delegates from the SAARC countries besides a 300 strong representatives from the media, officials said.

Arrangements will also be made for special train services from Colombo to Kandy during the summit. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and his cabinet colleagues Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Rohana Dissanayake were among those who attended the meeting chaired by the president.

Fighting between military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has intensified since the government scrapped a ceasefire on January 16, leaving over 600 rebels dead.

Source: NDTV

Sri Lanka seizes rebel stronghold

Sri Lankan soldiers have captured a small area of a rebel-held territory in the country's embattled north killing 22 insurgents.

Sri Lankan troops backed by artillery and mortars on Tuesday destroyed 10 rebel bunkers and seized about 1 square kilometer of territory in the village of Viyattankulam in the Mannar district, the military said.

Ten rebels were killed in the battle.

In another confrontation in nearby Palaikkuli village, troops destroyed six rebel bunkers and killed 12 guerrillas. A small area of rebel land was also captured in Palaikkuli.

Military officials said that troops did not suffer any casualties.

The Colombo government has gained the upper hand in recent months, killing senior rebel figures including the Tigers' political leader and military intelligence chief.

Military analysts, however, say the rebels have retained their strike capability and see no clear winner on the horizon.

Source: presstv.ir

Cong raises alarm over ‘pro-LTTE’ wave in TN

TNCC informs party high command, writes letter to the CM against open support to the outfit

The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee has informed the AICC leadership about the hail LTTE meetings in Tamil Nadu, particularly the recent one organised by a DMK ally, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi led by Thol Thirumavalavan, demanding the lifting of the ban on the Tiger outfit.

“The TNCC president has informed Arun Kumar, MP and CWC member in-charge of Tamil Nadu, about the VCK meeting in Chennai on Friday night and about several political and non-political organisations praising the LTTE and its leader, Prabhakaran,” said a party source.

Despite its posturing about coming down hard on members of any organisation supporting banned outfits by way of meetings and rallies, the DMK Government has not initiated any move against ally VCK whose leaders hailed the LTTE and its chief, describing them as “the only beacon of hope” for the “suffering Tamils” in Sri Lanka. The VCK has a sizeable support among Dalit voters in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the TNCC has written a letter to Chief Minister M Karunanidhi expressing its ‘anguish’ about the ‘open support’ for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu and the ‘severe mental strain” this is causing to its leaders. Incidentally, TNCC president M Krishnasamy happens to be the father-in-law of Union

Minister Anbumani Ramadoss whose party Pattali Makkal Katchi is another strident LTTE backer.

In his letter to the Chief Minister on Monday, Krishnasamy, pleaded for ‘stern action’ against those supporting the banned terrorist outfit. Without specifying any organisation by name, the TNCC chief said in the past two months, some political as well as non-political organisations had expressed support openly for the LTTE at public meetings and through the media.

“They were also making statements demeaning the Congress. This has hurt the sentiments of not only the Congressmen in the state, but the feelings of the people as well,” he said, adding: “Our senior leaders are under severe mental strain due to these comments. I request you to take action against those responsible for this.”

When Karunanidhi wrote an elegy for Tamilselvan in November last, members of the TNCC Legislature Party passed a resolution saying the DMK chief’s tribute for the LTTE leader killed in an aerial attack in Sri Lanka, “brought tears of blood to their eyes.”

The AICC too soft-pedaled the issue, passing a resolution in its November session saying that any support to the LTTE was “bound to hurt the sentiments of Congressmen”.

Source: indianexpress.com

The newly formed Mac Infantry in action

The Badge investiture ceremony of the newly formed Mechanized Infantry Regiment of the Sri Lanka Army was held today at the Palay Army base in Jaffna. Jaffna Security Force Commander - Major General G.A. Chandrasiri was the Chief Guest at the event. Pictured here are soldiers taking part in the parade with armed Tanks in the background.

Source/Image: Dailymirror

Sri Lanka military: Soldiers capture rebel bunkers as fighting kills 14 rebels, 1 soldier

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Sri Lankan soldiers attacked Tamil rebel bunkers in the embattled north on Monday, triggering battles that left 14 guerrillas and one soldier dead, the military said.
Army troops captured six rebel bunkers early Monday in the village of Palaikkuli in Mannar district, southwest of the rebels' northern headquarters, killing seven guerrillas,
a Defense Ministry official said. Fighting killed one soldier.
Hours later in the nearby Adampan village, soldiers clashed with a group of rebels, killing five of them, the official said speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Later, a separate gunbattle killed two Tamil rebels in the same area, he said.
Separately on Monday, fighter jets bombed an artillery position in the northern rebel-held Pooneryn area, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.
He did not give details of damage or casualties, but said pilots have confirmed that a target was hit.
The airstrike came after insurgents fired artillery into the government-controlled Jaffna peninsula, he said. Troops did not suffer casualties in the assault.
Rebel officials could not be contacted for comment.
It was not possible to independently verify the military's claims because the fighting took place deep in the northern jungles, where access is restricted. Both sides often release inflated casualty figures for their opponents while lowering their own.

Government troops have opened up four fronts around the rebels' de facto state in northern Sri Lanka, surrounding the territory, while the air force has launched a mission to kill the group's top brass and crush the rebels' decades-old separatist war.
At least 75 rebels and four soldiers were killed in fierce fighting across the north over the weekend, according to the military.
Fighting has raged since the government announced earlier this month that it was pulling out of a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire, which had long been ignored by both sides.
More than 600 people have been killed since the cease-fire officially ended, according to the military.
The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for an independent state in the north and east for the country's ethnic Tamil minority after decades of being marginalized by Sinhalese-dominated governments. The fighting has killed more than 70,000 people.

Source: pr-inside.com

Lankan air force bombs LTTE base, 40 killed in clashes

Sri Lankan security forces killed 38 Tamil Tigers and lost two soldiers in spiralling fighting with the rebels in the island's embattled north, where the Air Force jets on Monday raided an LTTE base.

"Air Force fighter jets on Monday pounded LTTE gun positions located in the Kalmunai Point in Paranthan in Northern Sri Lanka", the Defence Ministry said.

The attack was launched in retaliation to the artillery shelling by the LTTE at the Jaffna peninsula on Monday morning, defence sources said.

Sri Lanka Army responded to the attack with heavy artillery and multi-barrel rocket fire, the army said.

"The air raids were successful," it said. In ground clashes, at least three militants were killed in Alakallapottakulam in Vavuniya on Monday, the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) said.

At Pandirichchan also in Vavuniya, at least 10 militants were killed on Sunday in a clash, it said.

Source: Times Of India

Sri Lanka says weekend death toll 79, 'most rebels'

Sri Lanka's air force bombed Tamil Tiger positions in the far north on Monday and government troops killed 36 rebels in the north on Sunday, the military said.

Including the 36, the death toll from fighting at the weekend reached 79, most of them rebels, according to military figures.

The weekend clashes were on the Jaffna peninsula, the northern districts of Vavuniya and Polonnaruwa and the north-western district of Mannar, and killed a total of 75 rebels and four soldiers, the military said.

A pro-Tiger website said 15 government soldiers were killed in the Mannar fighting.

The military said the Tamil Tiger rebels had fired artillery from the rebel-held area on Monday morning toward the army-controlled northern Jaffna peninsula, separated by rebel territory from the rest of the country, but there were no reports of casualties or property damage.

"There was firing from the ground. To neutralise the fire the air force fighter jets bombed the LTTE artillery gun position in Pooneryn this morning," air force spokesman Wing Commander Andrew Wijesuriya said.

Pilots confirmed the raid was successful, he said.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who seek to carve out an independent state in north and east Sri Lanka, were not immediately available for comment.

A pro-rebel website said the fighting in Mannar on Sunday killed 15 Sri Lankan soldiers and wounded more than 30. The website gave no details of rebel casualties, but the military denied the claim.

There were no independent accounts of how many people had been killed or what had happened. Analysts say both sides tend to overstate enemy losses and play down their own.

Source: ABC

JVP rejects solution based on Indian model

by Shamindra Ferdinando

The JVP yesterday rejected APRC (All Party Representative Committee) call for a series of measures to achieve maximum and effective devolution of powers to the provinces in the short term.

JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said that Minister Tissa Vitarana’s so called APRC was no APRC at all. How could they categorise it as an all party committee when the JVP and the UNP weren’t represented. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which recognised the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamil speaking people, too, boycotted the committee.

Addressing the press at Savsiripaya auditorium, Amarasinghe asserted that except the SLFP, other parties which endorsed the proposals were in fact no political parties. They were ‘three wheeler’ parties and their endorsement wouldn’t mean a thing, he said.

Severely criticising President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s approach to solve the national problem, the JVP leader accused the government of reviving the long dead Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987. He urged the government not to revive the accord forced on President JR Jayewardene by India at gunpoint as it would never facilitate a negotiated settlement. The president had conveniently forgotten the tough stand taken against the Indo-Lanka Accord by the SLFP, he said. The UNP killed 140 civilians who marched on Colombo against the Accord, the JVP Chief said, emphasising that the need to destroy the LTTE before tackling political issues.

"In our road map for durable peace, the annihilation of the LTTE comes first," he said. Along with that, the restoration of democracy, compensation to victims of violence irrespective of their ethnicity and eradication of the ‘separatist movement’ would be necessary, he said. This could be followed by elections to provincial councils and local bodies, he said, while emphasising the importance of a countrywide census after the annihilation of the LTTE.

Vitarana said that their recently unveiled proposals would be followed by a set of proposals that would be the basis for a solution to the national problem. "After, 63 sittings, over a period of 1 1/2 years, the consensus document is being finalised and it should be possible to hand it over to the President in the very near future. The outcome would be a basis for appropriate constitutional arrangements. Their implementation would of course require amendment of the present Constitution, and in respect of some Articles, approval by the people at a referendum. This would of course take time, once a favourable climate is established"

Amarasinghe strongly rejected the move to establish an Interim Council for the Northern Province in terms of the Constitution. This would cause chaos, he said adding that the JVP was totally in disagreement with the assertion that the Interim Council should reflect the ethnic character of a particular province, in this case the Northern Province.

In short, the JVP would accept the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitition, he said. Vitarana called for maximum devolution of powers to the provinces under the 13th Amendment. Amarasinghe said that the implementation of the amendment in respect of legislative, executive and administrative powers, overcoming existing shortcomings would be detrimental to the national interest and the JVP would do everything possible to thwart the move.

Responding to a query raised by The Island, Amarasinghe said that the JVP’s armed struggle against the State and that of the LTTE couldn’t be compared. The JVP was a democratic party and it never resorted to any illegal activity before the then UNP administration of JR Jayewardene proscribed the party, he said. Applauding the security forces, which twice put down JVP inspired armed campaigns, the JVP leader expressed satisfaction over the status of the ongoing action against the LTTE. He also launched a scathing attack on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Loise Arbour for being biased towards the LTTE. He emphasised that their protests directed against Ms Arbour shouldn’t be construed as anti-UN.

Briefly discussing the humanitarian disaster in US occupied Iraq, Amarasinghe challenged Arbour to criticise the US led allied action there. She was silent on the situation in Iraq, he said.

The JVP would oppose any effort on the part of the UN to bring Sri Lankan security forces before international court for human rights violations.

Source: The Island