Loss of Vidattaltivu, huge blow to LTTE
Gallant soldiers of Army Task Force 1 and Commando Brigade operating
on the Mannar warfront liberated the strategically important
Vidattaltivu town. Vidattaltivu is the largest town situated on the
North- Western coast of the Island, 20 km North of Mannar and used by
the terrorists as their main Sea-Tiger base cum logistic hub in the
West.
Soldiers of Task Force 1 on Tuesday evening commenced their forward
march from their initial locations at the Southern limits of
Vidattaltivu town, i.e. few hundreds meters short of Vidattaltivu terror
defence, located 2 Km South of the town. These troops were able to
capture a 2.5km stretch of the LTTE Forward Defence by late in the
evening.
Unable to withstand the military onslaught, terrorists started to
flee further northwards towards and later suffered heavy damages during
their withdrawal as the elite commandos flanking in the Northeastern
boundaries of Vidattaltivu laid an ambush on them. The commandos
confronted with a group of approximately 60 LTTE cadres around 1.45 p.m.
As the terrorist started to withdraw towards Iluppaikkadaval, North of
Vidattaltivu; commandos called in indirect fire.
As a result, heavy artillery and multi barrel rocket fire were
directed at the terrorists. Also, Air Force launched close air support
missions to ground troops using MI 24 helicopter gunships. Ground troops
claimed over 30 terrorists were killed due to artillery and air assault
while the rest turned tail.Meanwhile, troops approaching from the East
of Vidattaltivu cut off the Mannar - Poonaryn road at a location 2 Km
North of Vidattaltivu early this morning, besetting the terror
stronghold from the South, East and the North.
Later, troops marched into the town and declared the area liberated
for the first time since 1987.Sources at the battlefield said that the
soldiers approached from South had to cross a strong LTTE defence built
on a 7 feet tall earth bump with a deep ditch in front of it, before
they entered into the Vidattaltivu town limits.
This defence cut across the Mannar-Poonaryn road, 2 Km South of
Vidattaltivu and ran 10 Km from the coast to Paramarayankulama, situated
8 Km South East of Vidattaltivu. At that, the defence was consisted with
fortified bunkers made out of thick wooden logs at every 150m distances.
Following the successful capture of the Mannar ‘Rice Bowl’ troops
within 24 hours commenced their march towards Vidattaltivu. Troops
halted 200m South of the above-mentioned strong LTTE defence and waited
until the new front opened up by the 582 brigade of the Task Force-1 and
the commandos to make their approach from the East. This new front
opened up 10 Km East of Vidattaltivu managed to reach Mannar - Poonaryn
road North of Vidattaltivu within one week.
While conquering the strong defence line of the LTTE in the South,
troops braved dense mine fields removing hundreds of anti personnel
mines, improvised explosive devices and booby traps.
Following its loss of 10 arms carrying ships to Sri Lanka Navy, and
the loss of land domination over Eastern coast to army and also due to
the strong sea blockade maintained by navy in the North-Eastern waters,
the only available sea supply route for the LTTE has been identified as
the one across the Gulf of Mannar.
Presence of large amount of Indian fishing vessels and less
maneuverability available for the navy ships in the coastal waters over
the shallow continental shelf have made it virtually impossible to
ensure complete denial of enemy use of sea lines of communication.
Therefore, the loss of Vidattaltivu, the best geographical location
in the North-West coast for Sea Tiger operations will be a huge loss to
the terrorists than it is really depicted in terms of square kilometres,
defence observers added. |