Sunday, January 8 2006 14:46 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: Sri Lankan Navy today (Jan 8,2006) intensified search for the bodies of 15 crewmen killed when their Israeli-built gunboat was destroyed in a suicide bombing by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels.

Besides, the navy was searching for the wreckage of the gunboat that was sunk by a woman suicide bomber who rammed her explosives-laden fishing craft into it early yesterday (Jan 7,2006) off Trincomalee, the Defence Ministry here said, while discounting earlier police reports that five bodies of sailors had been recovered.

Two sailors had survived the pre-dawn attack by jumping overboard just before the suicide craft hit their gunboat while 15 others died. The attack caused the biggest military loss of life in single incident since the Norwegian-arranged truce came into effect four years ago.

Trincomalee town remained calm today but the military forced petrol pumps to open against a strike called by a pro-Tamil Tiger organization in the area which is protesting last weeks killing of five students allegedly by troops.

"There are long queues outside petrol stations and the army is providing security," a resident in Trincomalee, 260 kilometres north-east of here, said by telephone.

There was no immediate reaction from the Tamil Tigers to military allegations that they deployed the woman suicide cadre to carry out yesterday's attack against the navy.

However, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) accused navy of preventing Tamil fishermenfrom stepping out along the northern coastline and depriving them of their livelihood. "The Sri Lankan Navy has banned fishing for Tamil fisherman in most sections of the north seas of the Jaffna peninsula," the LTTE said in a statement, adding nearly 1,000 families were affected.