Friday, May 9, 2008

Blast in Ampara hours before election

11 civilians have died so far and another 28 injured in an explosion that took place inside Ampara Town's leading eatery at 5.40pm this evening. Reports indicate the eatery was busy with customers. Injured have been taken to Ampara General Hospital.

The eatery, situated on D.S. Senanayake Street near the Bus stand is owned and visited primarily by Sinhala civilians working/visiting Ampara Town with a few servicemen/women visiting it for meals and cigarettes.The blast took place hours before what is considered a surprisingly fair election thus far.

Ampara belongs to Digamadulla electorate. The forthcoming provincial council elections are the 1st in the de-merged Eastern Province and the 1st such election in the island's history after provincial council system was introduced in 1987 and first elections were held back in 1988 for the merged Northeastern Province.

Meanwhile 8 soldiers were killed (5 MIA) and another 12 injured in the battle for Adampan and particularly Alankulam (Karakkai) this morning. Adampan Town and Alankulam were under siege for over 2 months until capture. The areas came under government control after 10 years. Army now claims it killed 31 tigers in the fight, which was led by Brigadier Shavendra Silva with Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka's personal direction.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

The security needs to be tightened also in colombo. Concentrating in Ampara and the East alone will not be enough as the LTTE will hit all easy targets. The pressure in the north will not affect them as much as these units are independent.

I hope the elections in the east are fair and pilliyan group respect the decision of the people. It will be back to square one like kashmir problem because congress rigged the polls there.

kaatikuddupaan, the military inteligence has taken out senior tiger leaders. They have better ground inroads then you say. Unless you want them to bomb some location which is dummy.

No rebel army will confront an army direct on. Its suicidal. Hence LTTE will always withdraw till they are ready.

Some people are making fun of Peter. He made a point. So instead of making fun of him and not learning, the army should look into holding the land it captures. This is called lesson learnt.

Lanka Putra said...

Another defeat to LTTE, and we see a bomb goes off in Ampara. Now media is talking about the bomb, not about Army capturing Adampan. A similar thing happened immediately after Army moved into Madhu Church premises - Piliyanadala bus bomb. I wonder if this is a strategy by LTTE to undermine the victory of the security forces.

E.T. Bailey said...

Is that eight dead with five more probably dead, but currently missing, for a total of 13 dead, or is that three recovered dead and five missing?

Out of the 10 years these towns have been under separatist control, how long have they been front line positions? For example, I don't know how long the Madhu Church was a frontline position, but I've found articles going back almost a year and a half. If they LTTE is holding off SLA advances for so long, will the end of 2008 result in a default LTTE political victory?

Defencewire said...

e.t.b,
8 KIA. The operation commenced on July 2nd 2007. So that's almost one year.

LKDOOD said...

defence.lk has posted pictures of Adampan & Ampara bomb

mottapala said...

At least a slow march forward is much better than stagnating in the same place for SLDF. It Boosts morale and gives something for the boys to do.Otherwise they will be planting 'batala and Manioc'.

For LTTE cadres it works the otherway. GTI's or not they feel that they are loosing ground slowly. The whole Army including the commander knows a repeat Jayasikuru will be the final nail on the coffin. [hope he knows, he cant be that foolish]

குழைக்காட்டான் said...

Sea Tiger commandos sink SLN supply ship in Trinco Harbour

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=25590

LKDOOD said...

defence.lk:

'Ex-Invincible' sunk in Trincomalee Harbour

At approximately 2.15a.m., local time an under water explosion damaged and caused logistic vessel A-520(MV Invincible) to sink while moored at the Ashroff jetty in Trincomalee harbour, today (May 10).

No lives were lost due to the explosion.

A-520 was a merchant vessel built in 1970's and handed over to the Sri Lankan Navy, following a court order after it was apprehended while transporting 254 illegal migrants off Tangalle in 2003.

Vibe said...

DefenceWire said: "There is also another 61 Division about to set foot in the battlefield."

What's the role of the 61st division and on what area will they be deployed?


Also, thanks for answering my questions DefenceWire :)

Sun Tzu's disciple said...

1)http://historyandwar.blogspot.com/

etBaileys blog has a good take on the SL civil war.Why dont you guys go through it?It even hints Fonseka be replaced with a more pro-active soldier who can make use of SLDFs overwhelming superiority, rather than procrastinate like him.
2)http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=25581
What are those distance tags ,posted every 10 metres for? I initially thought it was for range finding, but then it is seen both to the front and back of Tiger lines.Or is it a mine marker/grid?
3)A-520 sinking is prob a frogmans act, or internal sabotage by paid agent.And it does show their reach.

LKDOOD said...



The logistic vessel called Invisible ... sank due to an underwater explosion," said navy spokesman Commander D.K.P Dassanayake.

---

Navy spokesman Cmdr. D.K.P. Dassanayake says the rebels attacked the cargo ship with an underwater explosion at about 2:15 a.m. He says the 213-foot (65-meter) vessel was empty.


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