Battle of Pulukunawa
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| Battle of Pulukunawa | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Sri Lankan civil war | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Sri Lanka Police | Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
|
Special Task Force, Sri Lanka Artillery | Black Tigers | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| ~140 | ~500 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 26 killed | ||||||
The Battle of Pulukunawa took place during the Sri Lankan Civil War. It occurred on 11 December 1996 in which the LTTE militants attacked and overran the Special Task Force detachment at Pulukunawa in Ampara.
The Special Task Force (STF) which was an elite paramilitary unit of the Sri Lanka Police maintained a detachment at Pulukunawa, 19km from the town of Ampara on the Ampara Maya-Oya road. The camp consisted of about 140 personal mostly STF personal and police. It had a small detachment from the 4th Field Regiment of the Sri Lanka Artillery with a single 85 mm Type 56 field artillery gun which provided artillery support for the local area.[2] Days before the attack the Directorate of Military Intelligence had issued warnings to units in the area that a major attack was imminent and the LTTE had completed its final reconnaissance.[3]
The attack
In the early hours of 11 December 1996, the LTTE militants numbering over 500 which included female cadres began their attack on the STF detachment. The soon breached the perimeter and over ran the camp. They claimed to have held control of the camp for two and a half hours before withdrawing to jungle.[3][2]