Sri Lanka’s navy on Tuesday destroyed four Tamil Tiger boats and killed 16 guerrillas trying to escape as government soldiers closed in on the rebels’ last base in the north-east of the island, the military said.
Officials said the pre-dawn naval battle erupted in waters off Mullaittivu, a jungle and lagoon area and the last town in Sri Lanka still in the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
A naval blockade has been stepped up to prevent any rebel leaders from leaving the country. On the ground, government forces claim they have the Mullaittivu area surrounded.
Reeling under the military’s biggest ground, air and sea offensive in more than three decades of fighting, the Tigers have seen their territory rapidly shrink, with their political capital of Kilinochchi falling earlier this month.
Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, said over the weekend that the LTTE’s leadership, including elusive rebel supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, may have already fled by sea.
The guerrillas still control a 40km stretch of coastline in Mullaittivu around which the navy said it has set up four layers of barriers to restrict guerrilla boat movements.
In Tuesday’s pre-dawn battle, the defence ministry said the navy intercepted rebel boats trying to flee the area.
It said a navy fast-attack craft was damaged when a Tiger suicide boat detonated next to it, but that government sailors had forced the Tigers ”to retreat and abandon the mission”.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website, however, said the guerrillas carried out a suicide attack and had sunk a navy fast-attack craft.
”A flotilla of Sea Tigers intercepted a convoy of Sri Lanka navy Dvora fast-attack craft,” Tamilnet said.
”A fierce sea battle ensued. One Super Dvora fast-attack craft was sunk by [suicide] Black Sea Tigers.”
In the latest ground fighting around Mullaittivu, the army said it had captured a large LTTE oil storage depot.
”Tiger terrorists, in order to stall the troop movement into the oil storage complex, have booby-trapped or planted explosive devices circling the entire premises,” the army said.
It said troops were on Tuesday removing mines from the area.
Military claims cannot be verified as independent media are barred from travelling to frontlines.
Sri Lanka’s government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce with the rebels a year ago, and has since embarked on its most determined effort yet to dismantle the LTTE’s northern mini-state once and for all.
President Mahinda Rajapakse has said that his troops are on the verge of victory and he will not accept anything short of total surrender from the Tigers.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the drawn-out separatist conflict. — Sapa-AFP