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The Nagarcoil Forward Defence Line was an Army Forward Defence Line (FDL) that separated Sri Lankan Army and LTTE militia in Northeastern Kilinochchi - Southeastern Jaffna border.
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea. The island is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the commercial capital and largest city, Colombo.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization that was based in northeastern Sri Lanka. Founded in May 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran, it waged a secessionist nationalist insurgency to create an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east of Sri Lanka for Tamil people. This campaign led to the Sri Lankan Civil War, which ran from 1983 until 2009, when the LTTE was eventually defeated during the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa.
A militia is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a nation, or subjects of a state, who can be called upon for military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel, or historically, members of a warrior nobility class. Generally unable to hold ground against regular forces, it is common for militias to be used for aiding regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or irregular warfare, instead of being used in offensive campaigns by themselves. Militia are often limited by local civilian laws to serve only in their home region, and to serve only for a limited time; this further reduces their use in long military campaigns.
The unique topography of the area [1] was believed to make it almost impossible for either of the two sides to push for a military victory in that area. The FDL comprised a very narrow isthmus connecting Jaffna peninsula to rest of Sri Lanka. It is only a few hundred meters wide and on the both sides heavily fortified and mined as well as abundant in booby traps. Compared to Muhamalai FDL, the Nagar Kovil FDL was much narrower and so it was extremely difficult to overrun enemy bunker lines. The Manalkadu desert is located North of the FDL, while the small hamlet of Kudrappu is located to the South. For the past several years, along with the Muhamalai FDL, Nagarcoil FDL was the most active front in the Sri Lankan Civil War.
An isthmus is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus.
A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm, or surprise a person or animal, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they sometimes have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. At other times, the trap is set to act upon trespassers that violate personal or restricted areas. The device can be triggered when the victim performs some type of everyday action, e.g., opening a door, picking something up, or switching something on. They can also be triggered by vehicles driving along a road, as in the case of victim-operated improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The Muhamalai Forward Defence Line was the Army Defence Line separating the Sri Lankan Army and LTTE militia in North Central Kilinochchi from South Central Jaffna. The distance between the first line of defences ranges from 200 to 600 meters. Sri Lankan soldiers captured the 1st Forward Defence Line (FDL) Mukamalaai and Kilali 20 November 2008 at about 5:00AM, pushing the LTTE lines 800m southward.
