Tamil Tiger aircraft bombed Sri Lanka's main military complex in the Jaffna peninsula Tuesday, inflicting heavy damage and casualties.
In their second air strike in as many months, the LTTE said two light aircraft flew over the Palaly air field just after midnight and bombed military locations.
The Tamileelam Air Force (TAF) bombers had hit an Engineering Unit of the complex and a military storage at 1.20 am, the LTTE said.
Continuous explosions were heard from inside the High Security Zone for five hours after the air raid, fuelling speculation that stored ammunition had been set ablaze.
After the air raid, power supply was shut down for more than 3 hours and cell phone links were cut off, civilian sources told TamilNet.
The Sri Lankan military initially denied the attack, then admitted the raid had taken place but there had been no losses, and finally said the bombs killed six soldiers and wounding 13.
However residents along the road between the Colombo and Ratmalana airbase saw more than fifty trips by various ambulances shuttling between the military hospital in the city and the military airport.
Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said their pilots saw flames after dropping bombs on the sprawling Palaly air field.
"We have carried out our second air attack... on the Palaly air field and their military stores," he said.
The government flew a group of photographers to the area and showed them three out of 22 places said to have been hit by Tiger shelling as well as the pre-dawn air strike.
But the ammunition dump at Myliddy said to have been destroyed by the LTTE air raid was not on the tour.
"Six of the soldiers who were killed are those who fired at the Tiger aircraft which flew at 100 metres (330 feet)," the region's top military commander Major General G. A. Chandrasiri told reporters.
The latest Tiger air raid was an embarrassment to the air force, which announced last week it had acquired night-attack capability of knocking out LTTE aircraft.
The Tigers staged their first air strike on Sri Lankan forces on March 26 using what were believed to be two single-engined, Czech-made Zlin Z-143 training planes.
Sri Lanka's military operate a fleet of supersonic jets as well as Mi-24 helicopter gunships in addition to spy planes.
The first Tiger air attack saw the guerrillas drop six bombs on the island's main military air base - which shares a runway with Sri Lanka's only international airport - and get away unchallenged.
The government said the second Tiger air attack inflicted little damage.
"The security forces acted promptly, alerted through the air defence systems, and launched a counter air offensive at a suspected aircraft... forcing it to change course immediately," the defence ministry said.
Sri Lanka Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, however, said the LTTE aircraft changed course to bomb a nearby army detachment from where the military casualties were reported.
Fonseka said the military switched off lights, rolled out heavy guns and opened fire. However, the guerrilla aircraft managed to escape.
The defence ministry said the Tigers were believed to have five light aircraft which they had smuggled in since a Norwegian-arranged truce went into effect in February 2002.
The LTTE, outlawed in the United States and EU, is believed to be the only armed group possessing both naval and air capability.
Palaly is the main military complex in Jaffna, a former Tiger bastion captured by government troops in December 1995.
The military depends on air and sea transport to ferry supplies to 40,000 security personnel and more than 350,000 civilians living in government-held parts of the peninsula.
"I spoke to the pilots after the attack and they said they did not come under any kind of fire," Ilanthiriyan said, denying government claims that ground fire forced the low-flying aircraft to change their target.
"They had a cool flight," he added, but stressed an immediate repeat of the air strike was unlikely as the Tigers would be watching Sri Lanka play New Zealand in the semi-finals of the World Cup cricket tournament in Jamaica.
"There may not be any attacks tonight (Tuesday) because we are also watching the match," Ilanthiriyan told AFP.
