Fighting erupts in Nagar Kovil

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 July 2000, 14:12 GMT]
Heavy fighting erupted in Nagar Kovil on the southeastern coast of the Jaffna peninsula from the early hours of the morning Tuesday when the Sri Lanka army launched an operation into territory held by the Liberation Tigers. The SLA said that the operation is still in progress. Thirty seven SLA personnel, including three officers, were wounded in counter attacks by the Liberation Tigers according to the SLA.

An SLA headquarters source in Colombo claimed that the operation was a limited one aimed at preventing any offensive build up by the LTTE in the areas immediately south of the Nagar Kovil SLA base.

A communique by the Special Media Information Centre (SMIC) of the Sri Lankan government said that a soldier and an officer were killed in action. SLA sources, however, said that casualties are more than two and that the Liberation Tigers are resisting the advance of the troops fiercely with reinforcements.

The SMIC statement claimed that the operation was launched to destroy an LTTE defence line south of Nagar Kovil. "Security Forces launched an operation early this morning to destroy a terrorist bunker line south of Nagar Kovil. Troops advanced from the forward defended localities and assaulted the terrorist bunker line" the statement said.