Lanka: LTTE arms ship destroyed in high seas

Colombo, Oct 7: The Sri Lankan Navy today claimed to have destroyed yet another gun running vessel of the Tamil Tigers in the high seas about 1300 nautical miles off the southern tip off Dondra.

''Sri Lanka Navy today destroyed another LTTE arms carrying ship, in the high seas south off Dondra Head and is the tenth LTTE arms ship to be destroyed by the navy within a short spell of time,'' a top Naval official said.

This is the second such operation by the Sri Lankan Navy which claimed to have destroyed three LTTE gun-running ships. Earlier the Sri Lankan navy had also claimed to have destroyed a LTTE ship killing at least 45 Tigers onboard on September 11.

The navy is set to hold a press conference here to disseminate more details about the operation. There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE in this regard.

The latest round of escalation for the last one year in the peninsula has put a serious question mark over the survivability of the Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement.

The Sri Lanka Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had signed the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) on February 22, 2002 as a means of reaching a negotiated solution to the country's ethnic conflict.

UNI