A Sri Lankan navy craft was destroyed in a blast off the island's north-eastern coast yesterday while searching out potential Tamil Tiger rebel activity, both sides said.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they sank the navy fast attack craft (FAC) by using three suicide bombers who also perished.
The Sri Lankan navy, however, reported that the vessel was destroyed in a blast from a sea mine.
Six sailors from the locally made Dvora-class FAC were rescued by another boat patrolling the waters off the Tamil Tiger stronghold of Mullaitivu district, navy spokesman D. K. P. Dassanayake said.
Ten more were missing after the pre-dawn blast.
"The officer in charge and five others from the FAC were rescued," Dassanayake said.
"One of them said the craft started taking in water after a huge explosion. They got into a life raft," he said.
"The FAC was hit by a sea mine," Dassanayake said.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com Web site reported that the navy craft was sunk in a suicide attack launched by three "Black Sea Tigers," or suicide bombers.
Tamilnet said that a sea battle ensued after the sinking, but Dassanayake denied there had been any confrontation with the Tigers.
The blast came hours after a military bus was hit by a landmine in the district of Mannar on Friday night.
That incident left at least two soldiers killed and six wounded, the military said.
The government claims that it has killed 2,242 rebels since January, compared with the loss of 131 of its own troops.
Clashes between suspected Tamil Tiger ships and the Sri Lankan navy have escalated in recent months amid heavy fighting in the island's embattled northern and eastern regions.
The LTTE relies on ships to transport black market weapons to the northern part of the island under its control.
The rebels have been fighting for a separate Tamil state since 1972. Thousands of people have been killed in a new wave of fighting since December 2005 when a Norwegian-brokered truce began to unravel.
Six rounds of direct peace talks and two further rounds aimed at saving the truce ended in October 2006, leaving the 2002 deal in tatters The truce was formally ended by the government in January.
The military has pushed out the LTTE from its last bastion in the east of the tropical island, a victory that has largely confined the rebels to their mini-state in the north.
Security forces have been trying to dismantle the de facto northern state of the Tigers, but the guerrillas have been offering stiff resistance.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS