Ilantheevan Captured
The Sri Lanka Army captured the southern part of Adampan Town today when it overran Tiger fortifications at Ilantheevan. Despite soggy ground conditions, heavy rains and floods troops are continuing their operations with equal intensity.
LTTE fortifications have largely encompassed civilian houses. These houses are fortified with rare timber like large trunks of teak and often have underground bunkers. Civilians are forced to remain inside by the LTTE while the Army is advancing.
In addition to above the ground conspicuous structures like civilian houses are other camouflaged trenches and pillboxes. Many of these stagnate with water, but young Tiger cadres are forced to man them and often die inside them as well.
Tigers have also painstakingly booby trapped foot bridges, culverts etc using mortar and artillery shells. The Army defuses these whenever possible and whenever it is not possible, they blast through them using recoilless guns (RCLs) like the one in the picture below.
The Type 78 82mm recoilless gun, which was introduced in the late 1970s, is now replaced by the Type 98The SLAF believes more LTTE assets maybe hidden close to the location and will attempt to bomb any units attempting to remove such assets from the area. The SLAF and Military Intelligence believes it will take at least one more day of observations and ground intelligence to confirm the damage to the target acquired.
