SRI LANKA: The Sri Lankan military said it had shot down a Tamil Tiger aircraft for the first time yesterday after the rebels launched a pre-dawn air and ground assault on a military base which killed at least 25 people.
Rebels however denied their plane had been shot down and said its raid had succeeded in destroying an air force radar station in an assault that killed 20 soldiers.
The raid was one of the most audacious counter-attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) since the army stepped up its advance over the past three weeks, seizing rebel strongholds in what has been the bloodiest fighting since 1999.
If confirmed, the downing of the rebel aircraft would provide a boost to the military, frustrated and embarrassed by its inability to impose its air superiority and stop six earlier attacks by the Tigers' ramshackle air force since 2007.
The rebels hit a base in Vavuniya, a headquarters in the rear, located south of the frontline and 250km (155 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo, with an artillery barrage and ground troops before two aircraft dropped bombs.
Eleven rebels, 12 soldiers, one policeman and one civilian were killed during the fighting, military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said. Thirteen soldiers, seven air force personnel and nine police were wounded, he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had provided aid to 84,000 people since July. It said tens of thousands were moving deeper into LTTE-held territory.
The military has ratcheted up pressure on the Tigers on a frontline that stretches coast to coast across Sri Lanka's north, aiming to encircle the rebel headquarters at Kilinochchi.
The LTTE, fighting to establish a homeland for ethnic-minority Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka, used its air force for the first time in March 2007 in a surprise attack on a military airfield in Colombo. - (Reuters)