Sri Lanka news columns

Navy’s battle to save the troop carrier Tigers, not the first non-state group to launch air attacks on state The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out its sixth air attack, hitting the Sri Lankan military’s main naval base in the eastern port city of Trincomalee late on Tuesday night. Besides housing the main eastern naval base, Trincomalee is also a major point in the supply route to Jaffna for the military which has no road access to the north from the south. The initial defence ministry reports indicated that there were no casualties following the surprise enemy air attack. But later it admitted that four sailors were injured in the raid. The military spokesman said that both the Sri Lanka Air Force and the naval base had activated their anti-aircraft guns on the ground, and due to this the LTTE aircraft had changed course and dropped their bombs on the dockyard area of the naval base. The next day, Navy added six more figures to the casualty number of the LTTE air ra...