Tigers capture Kilinochchi town

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers announced in the Vanni this morning that more than three hundred soldiers have been killed in the ongoing attack on the Kilinochchi SLA base. The Tigers had advanced towards the centre of Kilinochchi and had brought the town and it surrounding areas under their control.

In this attack, they said that they have captured a vast quantity of weapons and more than fifty bodies of SLA soldiers killed in the fighting.

The Tigers said that they had launched simultaneous attacks on the Elephant Pass army base and the Paranthan base as they overran Kilinochchi.

A Black Tiger unit had got through the defences of the Elephant Pass base and had destroyed its communications tower while other Tiger groups had overrun the forward defence lines of the Paranthan base.

At the same time, according to the Tigers, another Black Tiger unit had reached the large artillery base of the army in Elephant Pass in an attempt to destroy it. The LTTE said that five Black Tigers were killed in this attempt.

The LTTE also announced that 150 Tigers including 14 Black Tigers were killed in the fighting which continues.

Meanwhile, sources said that about 42 wounded Tigers who were being treated in an LTTE field hospital were killed when it was bombed by the SLAF and the army said that most of the bodies of the Tigers which it earlier claimed were in its possession, are lying in the area south of Kilinochchi where, according to a senior army officer, fighting is still on.

The army has also said that for it to hand over to the ICRC the bodies of the LTTE killed in the fighting there should be a truce in the area.

The ICRC said that it has to get guarantees from both sides before it undertakes the handing over of bodies.

The army also hinted that it might bury the bodies of the Tigers, casting a shadow of doubt about the veracity of its earlier claims about recovering 218 bodies of Tigers killed in the fighting.

The LTTE meanwhile, according to Sri Lankan Red Cross Society sources in Vavuniya has made arrangements for the handing over of the bodies soldiers killed in the ongoing fighting in Kilinochchi and Paranthan.