Battle of Jaffna (1995)
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| Battle of Jaffna (1995) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Sri Lankan civil war | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Sri Lanka |
 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Major General (later General) Rohan Daluwatte, Brigadier (later Major General) Janaka Perera |
V. Prabhakaran | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| Unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 10,000 | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 500 killed (According to Sri Lankan Government claims)[1] | Unknown[1] | ||||||
The Battle of Jaffna was fought from October to December 1995 for the city of Jaffna.[2]
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 during Operation Pawan but the city was later captured again by the Tigers.
The newly elected president of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumaratunga, ordered this offensive after peace talks with the LTTE broke down after the Tigers attacked and destroyed Sri Lankan Navy gunboats and fired anti-aircraft missiles at Sri Lankan Airforce AVRO aircraft over Jaffna. Control of the peninsula became vital to the control of Palali airbase.
On October 17, 1995, 10,000 SLA commenced the campaign to Jaffna city (25 miles away) and in a 50-day battle that lasted until December 5, 1995, up to 300 Sri Lankan Army soldiers and over 550 LTTE cadres were killed. In the end the army managed to take the city and the peninsula from the Tigers, thus crippling the LTTE, however most of the LTTE forces managed to retreat into the jungle.[3]