Heavy resistance from Tigers - SLA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 February 1998, 23:59 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces sources in Vavuniya said this evening that eight SLA soldiers were killed and sixty were wounded in heavy artillery counter fire from the positions of the Liberation Tigers in Mankulam this afternoon.

They said that the soldiers who were killed and wounded in the LTTE's counter fire were from the 55-3 and 55-1 brigades of the SLA which are positioned between Mankulam and Kanakarayan Kulam.

Three SLA divisions -53,55 and 56- are currently engaged in the 10 month long Operation Jayasikurui to capture the A9 highway from Vavuniya to Jaffna.

The dead and wounded SLA soldiers were air lifted to Anuradhapura for treatment this evening, said army sources in Vavuniya.

They acknowledged that the attempt by the SLA to advance from its positions in Karuppattamurippu-Olumadu area to the strategic Mankulam junction had met with very heavy resistance from the LTTE after the government troops had pushed ahead for about half a kilometer today.

But the SLA sources in Vavuniya declined to give details of SLA casualties in this thrust.