Tigers dismiss Batticaloa attack reports as SLA psy ops

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 November 2004, 04:39 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers dismissed reports in the Sri Lankan state controlled media that more than thirty LTTE fighters were killed in a landmine attack in the Batticaloa district's interior. "This is clearly another psy-ops gimmick by the Sri Lankan armed forces to disrupt the Great Heroes' Week in Batticaloa", an LTTE spokesman told journalists Monday night. Meanwhile, residents of Batticaloa town said Sri Lanka army troopers had dropped hundreds of handbills in the name of the paramilitary Karuna Group in the early hours of the morning Tuesday.

The handbills urging people not to attend the LTTE's Great Heroes' Day ceremonies were found scattered in many parts of the town.

"These are all part of a psy-ops build up to scare people from observing Heroes' Day at the martyrs' memorial in the interior", the LTTE spokesman in Batticaloa said. He said that a tractor carrying some LTTE fighters ran over a grenade in the interior on Monday. One fighter was slightly wounded when the grenade exploded several seconds after the tractor had passed it, he said.

"Sri Lanka army psy ops people are trying to turn this minor accident into a major propganda coup", he added. The Liberation Tigers say that the Sri Lankan armed forces are carrying on a full scale psychological war against them with encouragement and active support from President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government.

"Sri Lankan state media reported in August this year that Col. Rames and several fighters were killed in a landmine explosion in Karadiyanaaru. Now they report that he has left the LTTE in Kilinochci. We do not know who trained them, but we know that Sri Lanka army psy-ops are downright silly", Mr. S.Manoj, the LTTE media co-ordinator for Batticaloa said.