 |
| Third Battle of Elephant Pass | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Sri Lankan civil war | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 M. Rajapaksha | V. Prabhakaran | ||||||
In the Third battle of Elephant Pass, Elephant Pass was recaptured from the Tamil Tigers by the armed forces of the Sri Lankan Army.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka, declared that Elephant Pass was captured by the army on January 9, 2009.
The base got overrun by the LTTE at the end of the Second Battle of Elephant Pass during the third Eelam War. The base was a stronghold for LTTE until it was recaptured.
Elephant Pass, Northern Province, Sri Lanka is located in the gateway of Jaffna Peninsula. It lies about 340 km north from capital. It has an important military base and used to be the island's largest salt field. It was regularly the site of battles during the civil war.
Corporal Gamini Kularatne PWV, SLSR (S/34553) was a Sri Lankan soldier. He was the first recipient of the Parama Weera Vibhushanaya, the highest award for gallantry awarded by the Sri Lanka Army for his actions during the Elephant Pass Siege, in which he was killed.
Eelam War II is the name given to the second phase of armed conflict between Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The war started after the failure of peace talks between the Premadasa government and the LTTE. This phase of the war was initiated by the LTTE who massacred almost 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police personnel after they were ordered by the Premadasa government to surrender to the LTTE. The truce was broken on June 10, 1990 when the LTTE in October expelled all the 28,000 Muslims residing in Jaffna.
Eelam War III is the name given to the third phase of armed conflict between the Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The Battle of Mullaitivu, also known as the First Battle of Mullaitivu and codenamed Operation Unceasing Waves-1, was a battle between the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan military during the Sri Lankan Civil War for control of the military base in Mullaitivu in north-eastern Sri Lanka.
The Second Battle of Elephant Pass, was fought in April 2000 for the control of the Sri Lankan military base in Elephant Pass, Jaffna.
The Battle for the A-9 highway was fought in March and April 2000 for the control of the Sri Lankan A-9 highway.
The First Battle of Elephant Pass was fought in July 1991 for the control of the Sri Lankan military base of Elephant Pass, which was of strategic importance as it linked the northern mainland known as Wanni with the Jaffna Peninsula. The battle was fought between troops of the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, commonly known as LTTE.
The Battle of Pooneryn took place between the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan military during the Sri Lankan Civil War for control of the military base in Pooneryn in northern Sri Lanka from 11 November to 14 November 1993.
The Battle of Kilinochchi occurred in September 1998 over the control of the city of Kilinochchi in Sri Lanka. The battle was fought between the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Operation Balavegaya was a combined military operation launched by the Sri Lankan military in Jaffna, the largest amphibious assault in its history. Operation Balavegaya was launched in response to the siege of Elephant Pass by the LTTE. It is believed that Operation Balavegaya was the largest and most successful military operation of the Sri Lankan military until Operation Riviresa in 1995.
Brigadier Balraj was a senior commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Velayuthapillai Baheerathakumar was a leading member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist Tamil militant organisation in Sri Lanka. He played a leading role in the LTTE's military victories in the Vanni during Eelam War III, including Mullaitivu (1996), Kilinochchi (1998), Oddusuddan (1999) and Elephant Pass (2000). He was killed at the Battle of Ananthapuram in the last days of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
The Charles Antony Special Regiment, was an elite infantry unit and the first conventional fighting formation created by the LTTE. It was founded on 10 April 1991, and was initially trained under the leadership of Brigadier Balraj. It was the oldest and one of the most highly trained infantry units of the Tamil Tigers with its own military academies, research units and defence colleges for its officer corps. The soldiers in the unit all hailed from villages in the Northern Province. The brigade made history during the Second Battle of Elephant Pass when it became the first non-state military regiment to defeat an entire infantry division in a conventional battle. Military analysts say that with the fall of Elephant pass, the Charles Anthony Special Regiment established the LTTE as the only non-state military force in the world capable of such complex manoeuvre war fighting. The Elephant pass base was described as "impregnable" by a US army officer who visited the garrison months before its fall in April 2000 By October 2003, the regiment had lost 14 commanding officers and 1056 soldiers. The regiment was named after the LTTE's first military commander and a close associate to LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Charles Lucas Anthony(Lt.Seelan). Lt.Seelan led the first ever attack on the Sri Lankan army by any Tamil militant group on 15 October 1981 when the LTTE ambushed an army jeep driving down the KKS Road in Jaffna, killing 2 soldiers.
The Battle of Kilinochchi was a land battle fought between the Sri Lankan Military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for control of the town of Kilinochchi in the Northern Theatre of Eelam War IV during the Sri Lankan civil war between November 2008 and January 2009. The town of Kilinochchi was the administrative center and de facto capital of the LTTE's proposed state of Tamil Eelam.
Poonakary or Pooneryn, is a strategically important village situated on the Jaffna Lagoon, directly across from the Jaffna Peninsula in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka.
Elephant Pass Military Base is a military base located in strategic Elephant Pass, Northern Province of Sri Lanka. Elephant Pass is the gateway of the Jaffna Peninsula, that connects it to the mainland.
Divisions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam refers to the military, intelligence and overseas divisions the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Most of these divisions were destroyed during the Eelam War IV, and only parts of the intelligence and financing divisions remain overseas.
General Hamilton Wanasinghe, VSV was a General in the Sri Lanka Army. He served as the 11th Commander of the Sri Lankan Army (1988–1991), third General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Joint Operations Headquarters (JOH) (1991–1993) and Defense Secretary.
Operation Sath Jaya was the military offensive carried out by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in July to September 1996 to recapture the town of Kilinochchi from the LTTE. The army launched the offensive from its base in Elephant Pass in June in response to Battle of Mullaitivu in which the 25 Brigade of the army was overrun at its base in the town of Mullaitivu resulting in the deaths of over 2,000 Sri Lankan Armed Forces personal. Units of the Sri Lanka Army fought its way south from Elephant Pass along the A9 highway to Kilinochchi which it was able to recapture in September. The LTTE recaptured Kilinochchi in late September 1998.
