By IRNA,
New Delhi : Two LTTE aircraft reportedly attacked the Sri Lankan Army’s headquarters and a government building in the high security zone, forcing the authorities in Colombo to activate air defense systems and shut down power supply in national capital.
One of the planes was shot down by the counter-fire by Lankan Air Force.
One bomb, weighing 30kgs, was dropped near the Army Headquarters. Another bomb was also reportedly dropped on Revenue Department building in the high security fort area. The pilot’s body has been recovered from the plane that was brought down near Sri Lanka’s only international airport at Katunayake, about 40 km north of Colombo, Zee News portal reported.
Colombo’s international airport was soon closed down following the dramatic air raid which has come as an embrassment to the government which had claimed to have destroyed all the rebels’ hidden runways and rendered its small air wing powerless.
Some 38 people have been injured while two are reportedly dead in the attack.
The attack came even as the Sri Lankan Army were pressing the Tamil Tiger rebels into a narrow area of jungle in the north of Sri Lanka.
Air Force headquarters, which are situated nearby, could also be a target, government sources said.
According to sources, the radar in Mannar detected the suspected LTTE aircraft following which the air defense system in Colombo was activated. Army spokesperson Brigadier Janaka Nanayakkara told a TV channel that one plane was shot and came down near the Colombo Fort area, along the western coastal strip.
The two planes, believed to be Czech-built light aircraft, reportedly took off from an isolated airstrip in the northern region of Wanni, where the military has bottled up LTTE fighters in a 100-sq km area.
Power was cut off and searchlights pointed to the sky to detect any suspected LTTE aircraft, he said.
Power and calm, however, were later restored.
On November 6 last year, the Sri Lankan Air Force and the army went on an alert following reports of an LTTE aircraft hovering around northern Vavuniya.
The aircraft disappeared from the radars after it reached some two kilometers close to Vavuniya. Since then there were no clues about the aircraft though the military was on high alert for few more hours.
An LTTE mini aircraft had dropped two low-intensity bombs at a power station in the Sri Lankan capital immediately after attacking an army camp in Mannar late last October.
On the same night, prior to the Colombo air attack, an LTTE light aircraft dropped three bombs targeting the Thallady Army camp in North-western Mannar causing minor injuries to three army soldiers, according to the military.
The Tigers prior to that carried out an air and ground attack on a military camp in the northern town of Vavuniya in September, killing 11 Sri Lankan soldiers.
The LTTE is believed to have at least three Czech-built Zlin ZO 143’s light aircrafts which were likely acquired between April and July, 2006.
The LTTE Air Force came into prominence when it struck the Sri Lankan military air base inside Colombo’s international airport in March, 2007.