Sri Lanka launches new strikes on Tiger territory
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, April 26, IRNA
Sri Lanka-LTTE-Airstrike
Sri Lanka's military launched new airstrikes on Tamil Tiger areas in the island's northeast on Wednesday, a day after a deadly suicide bomb attack killed 10 people and wounded the army chief.
Airforce jets bombed the Muttur Old jetty in the northeastern district of Trincomalee while on a mission to bomb Tamil Tiger positions, a PTI report said here today quoting military officials.
At least one civilian was killed and nine others wounded when one jet missed its intended target and hit the jetty, the official said.
Among the nine people injured were two Sri Lankan Navy sailors.
The Tigers said at least 12 people, including women and children, died in those raids.
Meanwhile, Tamil Tiger rebels have protested the bombings as a violation of their Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement and inquired from truce monitors if the island's ceasefire was off, the pro-rebel Tamilnet website said.
The attacks were the first official military action since a 2002 ceasefire halted the two-decades-old civil war and raised fears that the Norwegian-brokered truce was on the brink of collapse.
Swedish Major-General Ulf Henricsson, who heads the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, said if airstrikes continued peace talks would become difficult.
More than 100 people had already died in two weeks of bloody attacks since the truce even before a female suicide bomber, disguised to look pregnant, blew herself up at Colombo's high-security army headquarters.
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