Sri Lanka's navy Wednesday clashed with Tamil Tiger vessels off the island's northern coast of Jaffna, sinking 11 rebel boats and leaving at least 40 guerrillas dead, the defence ministry said.
A dozen naval fast attack craft, backed by helicopter gunships and Israeli-built Kfir fighter jets, confronted a flotilla of 16 rebel boats off the southern seas of Delft, one of the bigger inhabited island's off the Jaffna peninsula, the military said.
"The navy destroyed 11 Tiger boats, including two suicide boats during the operation. We estimate around 40 Tigers were on those boats and they have been killed," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Sri Lanka's defence ministry said the boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were attempting to transport arms to rebels off Delft island.
The military did not give its own casualty figures but said one naval craft was damaged during the explosion when the two rebel suicide boats were destroyed. However, the rebels claimed they had sunk a navy fast attack craft and damaged two naval boats during the sea battle, the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com web site reported. The report did not give rebel casualties.
Both sides make sharply differing claims about casualties and independent verification is rarely possible. The sea battle came as the navy earlier Wednesday detained a "suspicious" Indonesian-registered vessel off the island's east coast, an official spokesmairtually destroyed the ability of the Tigers to smuggle weapons to the island after sinking what it said was the rebels' last gun-running ship.
Sri Lanka is pressing for a military victory over the Tamil Tigers who are fighting for a separate homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority in the Sinhalese-majority nation.
President Mahinda Rajapakse vowed in a public speech Wednesday to defeat the rebels militarily before any new peace talks. Tens of thousands have died on both sides since the conflict erupted in 1972.