Military

DATE=11/02/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=LANKA SEA CLASH (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-268743

BYLINE=VIKRAM SINGH

DATELINE=COLOMBO

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Tamil Tiger rebels have commandeered a Russian merchant ship in an attempt to escape the Sri Lankan navy after a sea battle off the island's east coast. From the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, Vikram Singh reports none of the Russian sailors aboard the captured vessel was harmed, but the rebels succeeded in making their getaway.

TEXT: Officials say Tamil rebels took 22 sailors hostage Thursday when they commandeered a Russian merchant ship off the coast of eastern Sri Lanka. The vessel was heading from South India to Colombo, when it unwittingly entered the scene of a large skirmish between the Sri Lankan Navy and rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Navy officials say they encountered six rebel vessels - four attack craft and two supply ships - 65 nautical miles off the coast of Mullaittivu, in northeastern Sri Lanka. The Navy says the supply ships were probably carrying fuel or explosives for Tamil separatists operating on the island.

Official accounts indicate that after government forces destroyed three of the rebel vessels and damaged the others,

the surviving Tamil fighters spotted the unsuspecting Russian ship and boarded it by force. Military officials say the Navy refused to fire on the civilian ship, instead following it to the coast near Mullaittivu, 280 kilometers east of Colombo. There, they say, the rebels escaped.

A Russian Embassy official in Colombo told V-O-A that no sailors were harmed and the ship was not damaged. He said the vessel is due in Colombo sometime Friday.

Observers of Sri Lanka's 17-year civil war say the naval wing of the L-T-T-E, called the Sea Tigers, often clashes with the Sri Lankan Navy. Just over a week ago, Sea Tiger suicide squads penetrated one of the island's strategic harbors, crippling two Navy ships and killing two sailors. More than 60-thousand people have died in the island's civil war. (signed)

NEB/VS/PFH