STF soldiers fire into LTTE held area in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 December 2005, 12:03 GMT]
Around fifty soldiers of the Sri Lanka Special Task Force (STF) Thursday morning 11:00 a.m. opened fire at random into paddy fields located inside the LTTE held area, dispersing more than a hundred farmers working in the fields. Only minor injuries were sustained by a few farmers in the gunfire, LTTE's Udumpankulam area Co-ordinator Mr. Veeramani told TamilNet.

STF soldiers were riding in in two Buffel Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), Veeramani said.

Thamaraikulam is located 13 km south of Akkaraipattu in Amparai district.

The South African built mine-protected APC, used by the elite counter insurgency arm of the Sri Lankan armed forces, the STF in Amparai, were deployed by the Sri Lankan military in the late 80's.

The Buffel (Afrikaans for Buffalo) APC vehicles were deployed by the then Apartheid South African regime to quell uprisings and to break up the protests. The Black South Africans gave the vehicle a slang term: Sarcens.

The hull of the Buffel vehicle is v-shaped, designed to deflect the blast and debris of an exploding landmine.

A number of Buffel APCs, described as tree-flattening, mine-resistant, and bullet-proof, were destroyed by improvised explosive devices used by the LTTE in Sri Lanka.