Battle
The city of Jaffna had been for years a major stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Tigers viewed the city as the capital of their new independent state. The city was briefly recaptured by the Indian army in 1987 but was later captured again by the Tigers. The new president of Sri Lanka, Kumaratunga, initially wanted to resolve all difference with the Tamils by peaceful means but the army pressured her to order an offensive against the LTTE. On October 17, 1995, 10,000 SLA soldiers attacked the city and in a 50-day siege that lasted until December 5, 1995, up to 500 soldiers and 2,000 rebels were killed. In the end the army managed to take the city and the peninsula from the Tigers, thus cripling the LTTE, however most of the LTTE forces managed to retreat into the jungle.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Jaffna (1995)
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“The mother’s battle for her child—with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life—needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival.”
—Adrienne Rich (20th century)
“The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision—whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
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—Mother Jones (1830–1930)