Navy records major victory

Sinks three LTTE ships carrying weapons and ammunition

By Tissa Ravindra Perera and Ayesha Wijeratne
The Sri Lanka Navy registered one of its greatest achievements in recent history when it completely destroyed three LTTE weapon smuggling ships in the south-east high seas of Dondra Head Sea killing some 45 LTTE cadres.

Addressing a news conference held at the Media Centre for National Security yesterday morning, Navy Spokesman Commander D.K.P. Dassanayake disclosed that the destroyed vessels were believed to have transported three aircraft, a bullet proof vehicle for LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, a Fast Attack Craft, a large number of mortars, 152mm, 130 mm, 130 artillery ammunitions and a considerable amount of spare parts.
Navy Commander Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda declared Monday’s operation as “the biggest victory the Navy has ever achieved” on grounds that the naval forces were successful in destroying three large ships within a span of less than 24 hours.

The Navy is reported to have destroyed nine out of 10 ships owned by the LTTE. Six vessels were destroyed since February this year.
“The LTTE cannot keep on fighting as they have no way of bringing arms. Only one vessel is left with them now,” the Commander noted.
Karannagoda also said that it was the LTTE, which initially opened fire at the Navy during Monday’s incident and the naval forces retaliated by opening fire at the vessels and destroying them.

“The Navy has had a clear description of these vessels through the naval intelligence sources. The Navy had to follow the internationally accepted rules of engagements since the three vessels did not respond when the Navy challenged them,” the Commander pointed out.

The first vessel SEISHIN (45 m length) was initially spotted at around 7 a.m. on Monday and was destroyed at around 10:30 in the morning.
The second vessel MANYOSHI (45 m) was spotted at around 5 p.m. in the evening (Monday) and after applying the same procedure to the vessel found that, it was with no name, flag or code of registry.
“More than 72 explosions had occurred in one vessel,” the Commander disclosed.

The third vessel KOSHIYA, which was around 70 m long, the fastest out of the three was detected around 10 p.m. and destroyed around 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning by the Navy after chasing it for nearly seven hours, while being fired at with heavy calibre weapons. The Navy had later identified it as 120 mortar weapon.