Colombo - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said yesterday they had captured another large army base in the northern Jaffna peninsula, moving closer to their goal of taking their former stronghold. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka's north and east, said they had captured the military base at Pallai, 15 km north of the strategic Elephant Pass which they took last week.
"The well-fortified and strategically crucial garrison town fell to the LTTE fighters this evening after 12 hours of ferocious fighting," the statement from their London headquarters said. A military spokesman denied the report.
The LTTE has set the goal of recapturing Jaffna, which fell to government troops in 1996. The loss of the camp at Elephant Pass, straddling an isthmus on the route to the peninsula and defended by up to 17,000 troops, was the most stunning defeat for the military in 17 years of ethnic war.