Colombo: Eight months after the LTTE was defeated following the death of its Supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, Sri Lankan security forces have found huge cache of anti-aircraft ammunition belonging to the outfit in the Northern region.
The Vavuniya police upon information received by them recovered 288 x 12.7 type live anti-aircraft ammunition hidden by the LTTE during a search operation conducted in the Vellamullivaikkal area in the region yesterday, according to the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS).
The Police are conducting further investigations into the incident.
Police said acting on information provided by an LTTE suspect, the Vavuniya Police Crime Unit launched a subsequent search operation and found the anti-aircraft ammunition.
The anti-aircraft ammunition was hidden by fleeing LTTE cadres inside the Vellaimullivaikkal jungle patch, it said.
Earlier this month, the Special Crimes Unit of the Kilinochchi police found several arms and ammunitions including 25 anti-aircraft guns buried at least 15 feet under the ground in the region.
During the last phase of the Eelam IV war, the Sri Lankan security forces had found a possible rebel aircraft research wing that apparently studied ways to either repair planes or construct new ones in the Wanni. The Sri Lankan security forces engaged in search operations in Waddaikachchi area of Mullaittivu, found several parts of a aircraft left burnt by the rebels while fleeing from the area on Wednesday, the Lankan Defence Ministry said.
According to military sources, the skeletal parts and several partly burnt pieces of a fuselage and a rotor blade of an aircraft were found in a ramshackled centre in the region.
The LTTE activists were believed to have been experimenting on the aircraft machines clandestinely during the period after the security forces found aircraft manuals, engineering sketches and brochures of model light aircraft in the centre.
Lathe machines, aluminium sheets, motor engine parts, nuts and bolts and a stock of other similar tools and accessories were also uncovered by the troops from the area.
The LTTE had conducted air raids in Colombo and other places during the height of the war.
PTI
