By Xinhua
Colombo : The Sri Lankan Air Force has set up two separate probe teams to investigate the attack by Tamil Tiger rebels on the Anuradhapura Air Force Base Monday.
Ajantha De Silva, the Air Force spokesman, said that two separate teams – five-member team and a four-member team – would investigate the attack as well as the crashing of a Bell-212 helicopter in the pre-dawn attack.
He said the investigation would look at any breach in the government’s ground and air surveillance systems.
At least 29 people, including nine government troops and 20 rebels, were killed in the attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) team while 22 troops were injured in the attack.
The pro-LTTE website Tamilnet said that at least eight Air Force aircrafts were destroyed.
The government imposed a curfew in the Anuradhapura town area and urged the people to remain indoors as the battle with the entrenched LTTE members erupted inside the air base.
This was the fourth such air raid by the Tamil Tigers against government installations this year.
The LTTE has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the island’s north and east.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the renewed wave of violence since the end of 2005, making the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement virtually redundant.