Sri Lanka bombs Tigers for fourth day
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, July 29, IRNA
Sri Lanka-LTTE-Air Strike
As the violence continues to escalate in the island country, the Sri Lankan Air Force jets bombed Tamil Tiger positions in the island's restive east for a fourth day in a battle over water supplies.
An operation to clear access to a sluice gate, which Lankan army accused the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of blocking to choke water supplies to Sinhalese farmers on government land, was underway but gave no details, Doordarshan News said here quoting officials sources.
A news agency photographer in the eastern district of Trincomalee heard the bombers fly overhead and heard the explosions.
"The army started shelling us this morning, and then the bombers arrived," said S. Elilan, head of the Tigers' political wing in the district.
"They bombed near the water tank, but people have already moved away from there, so there were no injuries."
Elilan said rebel fighters chased away army ground troops as the sides battled with mortars yesterday, but the military denied ground troops had approached the area from a camp five kilometers away.
Hardline Buddhist monks in saffron robes who hate the Tigers and are allied to President Mahinda Rajapakse are trying to reach the sluice gate themselves.
Many observers fear the fighting could spiral out of control, rupture a 2002 truce and restart a two-decade civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 people.
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