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Tiger rebels have rammed an explosives-laden boat against a private merchant vessel operated by foreign crew in Sri Lanka's northern waters, sparking a land, sea and air battle, the navy said.
The MV City of Liverpool, which is chartered by a Sri Lankan company, was taking in water after the attack and was being towed to the port of Kankesanthurai in the Jaffna peninsula, a navy spokesman said Sunday.
He said one Tiger suicide craft exploded against the ship, damaging the hull and one crew member was wounded. Two soldiers on board the ship for security fired at the rebels.
The merchant vessel was unloading wheat flour for the half a million civilians living under virtual siege conditions since the only land access to the Jaffna peninsula was cut off due to fighting since August.
The navy deployed 12 Dvora-class fast attack craft to hit the flotilla of 20 rebel boats and two more suicide craft were blown out of the water before they could reach the merchant vessel, spokesman D. K. P. Dassanayake said.
“The fighting lasted about 45 minutes,” Dassanayake said, adding that two sailors were wounded. The navy believed that at least six guerrillas may have perished in the fire fight.
“Usually they have two cadres in each boat packed with explosives. That means six were killed in the three suicide boats,” he said. “They may have suffered more casualties too because of the intensity of the fighting.”
The crew comprised seven Indians, two Indonesians and nine Sri Lankans, but the nationality of the crew member wounded in the fighting was not immediately known, Dassanayake said, adding that he had been evacuated to a military hospital in the area. It was also not immediately clear who owned the vessel.
“One cluster of Tiger boats went and attacked the merchant vessel while another engaged our Dvoras,” Dassanayake said.
He said the army fired at rebel boats from the Jaffna coastline while airforce Mi-24 helicopter gunships were called in to attack the boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Jaffna is linked to the nearest sea port of Trincomalee in the north-east of the island and the guerrillas are known to have attacked military as well as civilian craft operating along the island's north-eastern sea board.
The latest sea battle came two days after the military captured the main bastion of the Tamil Tigers in the eastern district of Batticaloa and claimed to have killed more than 386 guerrillas in weeks of fighting.
Troops were Sunday consolidating in Vakarai, the key rebel outpost which was taken on Friday, according to the defence ministry.
An escalation in violence since December 2005 in the country has killed more than 3,800 people, despite a Norwegian-arranged truce in place since 2002 but seen as moribund.
Over 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist conflict in the past 35 years.
