Two LTTE supporters killed in Akkaraipattu

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 January 2006, 10:56 GMT]
Two Tamil youths Chandranathan Sasikumar, 23, also called Appuhami, a resident of Kurukkal Road in Akkaraipattu and Gopalakrishnan Suresh, 16, of RKM Road Akkaraipattu, were shot dead by unknown gunmen on Monday at 12 noon at Deans Road in Akkaraipattu Town, sources in the eastern province said. Both victims were said supporters of Liberation Tigers, Akkaraipattu residents said.
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Two civilians, one SLAF soldier injured in Trincomalee attacks

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 January 2006, 04:06 GMT]
An Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) soldier manning a checkpoint in Anpuvallipuram in Trincomalee district was injured when an unidentified person lobbed a hand grenade around 8.30 p.m. In a separate incident, two Tamil civilians, Selvanayagam Mayooran, 35, and Sabaratnam Mathivathanakumar, 32, were injured when unknown gunmen fired at them at 10.30 p.m. Sunday while they were going to their residences in Pallathoddam in Uppuveli Police division, sources in Trincomalee said.
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Tamil Civil Group calls off hartal in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 January 2006, 02:44 GMT]
Trincomalee District Tamil Resurgence Forum (TRF) Sunday evening called off the general shut down, and the closure of government departments, and state, private sector banks in the district with effect from Monday, civil society sources said. The decision to call off hartal was taken after Mr.Mahinda Balasuriya, Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police for the North-East and Anuradhapura district, gave assurances during a meeting between a group of leading citizens and the members of armed forces that he would implement decisions taken to normalize the situation in the east port town from Monday. sources said.


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Three women members of Maaveerar family shot dead in Manipay

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 January 2006, 02:33 GMT]
Two young sisters, Bojan Renuka, 30, and Bojan Shanuka, 23, and their mother Bojan Arthanageswary, 51, residents of a house in Mudaliyar Kanagasabai Road in Manipay, close to the Manipay Hindu College, Jaffna district, were shot dead Sunday night at 11.45 p.m. by gunmen, suspected to be Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence operatives and members of Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) paramilitary, who entered the house and sprayed bullets at the residents, sources said. The father, Nagendran Bojan, 55, and brother Bojan Ullasan, 26, sustained gunshot injuries and are receiving treatment at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, medical sources said.
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Pirapaharan opens new Senchcholai campus in Kilinochchi

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 January 2006, 18:22 GMT]
Leader of Liberation Tigers, V Pirapaharan, opened the new Sencholai campus, a children's home established to care for children who had lost both parents in the war, at a location in Kilinochchi in a ceremony held Sunday, media sources in Kilinochchi said. The facility contains several residential blocks for girls. An adjoining facility for Kantharoopan Arivuchcholai, a home for boys, is expected to be completed soon, according to Senchcholai officials.
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Colombo security tightened after intelligence warning of attacks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 January 2006, 17:56 GMT]
Security in Colombo and its suburbs has been strengthened following warning by government intelligence agencies warned of imminent "terrorist" attacks on government strategic installations. Additional Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) soldiers have been deployed at the Katunayake international airport, police sources said.
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SL Parliament to debate extending Emergency

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 January 2006, 15:51 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group is to meet Tuesday to prepare for a full debate on the extension of the State of Emergency following allegations that Emergency Regulations (ER) are being used by Sri Lankan police and armed forces to harass Tamil civilians, TNA sources said. The extension motion of the State of Emergency for another month is to be debated in parliament Thursday.
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DIG orders inquiry into grenade attack on Tamil family in Trinco

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 January 2006, 15:32 GMT]
Mr.Mahinda Balasuriya, Senior Deputy Inspector of Police in charge of North-East Province and Anuradhapura district has ordered full investigation into the grenade attack on a residential quarter of the Trincomalee Urban Council (UC) which caused serious injuries to a whole Tamil family Saturday evening. The UC residential quarters' complex is located between Abeyapura, Sinhala settlement and Anpuvallipuram, Tamil settlement on Trincomalee-Kandy main road, about three km off west south of east port town, police sources said.


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Colombo not forthright in paramilitary issue- SLMM

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 January 2006, 01:59 GMT]
"The [Sri Lanka] government claimed that it had nothing to do with this [Karuna] group and was not aware of their existence. But when we visited the spot in the east and asked the Sri Lankan army where we could find Karuna, they told us where to go. So it was clear that the local army knew where he was," said Sunday Leader, a Colombo weekly, in the Sunday edition, quoting Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Spokesperson Helen Olafsdottir as saying in an interview to the paper.
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More Jaffna families flee to Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 18:49 GMT]
More than 150 families fled from areas controlled by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the Jaffna peninsula and crossed to LTTE held Vanni region through Mukamalai, Saturday. These families were received at Transit centre for displaced people at Mukamalai by Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, a Sri Lanka Government registered Non-Governmental organization operating predominantly in the NorthEast, TRO said in a media release.
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LTTE condemns attack on SLMM office

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 14:19 GMT]
Expressing concern about the attack on the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) offices, and relief that no one was hurt in the attack, Head of the Liberation Tigers Political Wing, S P Thamilchelvan, in a letter to the Head of the SLMM, Mr Hagrup Haukland, Saturday said: "Our leadership views this attack as an attempt to wreck the ceasefire agreement. Our leadership also expresses the continued support of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to the SLMM to implement the ceasefire agreement in its fully intended meaning and to rectify the deteriorating ceasefire environment. "
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Governor to hold Conference on Trincomalee violence

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 13:38 GMT]
North East Provincial Governor, Mr.Tyronne Fernando, has called for a conference to discuss the volatile situation in the Trincomalee district following frequent general shut down by rival parties. The conference earlier scheduled to be held on Thursday has now been advanced to Wednesday evening and will be held in Colombo, provincial council sources said.


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Two SLA soldiers sustain injuries in Eravur grenade attack

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 13:31 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers sustained minor injuries when unknown assailants hurled a grenade at a SLA road clearing patrol in Arumugathankudiyiruppu in Eravur along the Batticaloa-Valaichenai highway at 1.30 p.m. Saturday, sources said. SLA arrested three Tamil youths playing closeby as suspects.
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Four injured in grenade attack on Tamil family in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 12:02 GMT]
All the members of a Tamil family were wounded in a grenade attack in Trincomalee on Saturday evening. An unidentified attacker lobbed a greande into the front verandah of the house located in Gandhinagar, 3 km southwest of the east port town, when the entire family, a father, mother and their two children, was watching a television programme following Pongal celebrations, police sources said.
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JVP MP says he was attacked for "opposing shut down"

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 January 2006, 08:48 GMT]
A Sinhala nationalist JVP parliamentarian, who was attacked Friday in a suburb of Trincomalee town, has claimed, on Saturday, that he was attacked by a group of Sinhala persons for "opposing" the continuation of the shut down on the Tamil festival day, Thai Pongal. However, most of the Sinhala-owned shops remained closed in the east port town for the third day while Tamils remained in their homes to celebrate Thai Pongal. Two Sinhala nationalist organisations, backed by the JVP, had called for the four-day shut down in Trincomalee.
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Claymore mines recovered in Thambalakamam

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 16:30 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces Saturday afternoon recovered two live claymore mines at a place close to Swami Malai, a resettled Tamil village in Thambalakamam division about 27 km off northwest of east port town along Trincomalee-Kandy main road. Both were defused by the army bomb disposal squad. Police sources said.
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24 Mannar Tamils seek refuge in Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 12:39 GMT]
A group of twenty four Tamils including nine children from Selvapuram and Olathoduvai in Mannar district reached Rameswaram coast in Ramanathapuram Thursday, a daily in Tamil Nadu said. The influx has begun after a lapse of three years and refugees said threat of war, and harassment by the Sri Lanka armed forces after the recent attack on Sri Lanka Navy as the reasons for deciding to leave Sri Lanka shores, the paper said.
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Thousand Tamil families flee Muttur, Seruvila villages

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 12:27 GMT]
More than one thousand families have fled from their homes in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled divisions of Muttur and Seruvila in the Trincomalee district due to harassment and intimidation allegedly by the government troops manning sentries located in their villages and have sought refuge in schools and with their relatives in the LTTE held areas, social service activists said.


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Disarm paramilitary, stop Claymore attacks - SLMM

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 10:59 GMT]
The Scandinavian truce monitors, who condemned the Claymore attack on Sri Lanka Navy personnel in Chettikulam on Thursday, have blamed the Government of Sri Lanka emphasizing that the current situation also stems from "the fact that alternative armed elements have been able to operate freely in the East" in Sri Lanka Army controlled areas. While urging Colombo to "face up to its responsibility" to disarm the paramilitaries, the truce monitors said that the LTTE involvement in Claymore attacks cannot be ruled out. The SLMM appealed to both the parties to come up with firm confidence building measures with the "truthful aim of reaching a peaceful solution."
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Abducted school girl's family under SLA threat

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 January 2006, 03:03 GMT]
The Jaffna school girl abducted by four Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers from Paalpannai (Milk Farm) Road in between Thirunelvely and Kondavil junction was returned to her parents in Kondavil Tuesday night by higher officers of the SLA, reliable sources from Jaffna said.
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