Colombo: LTTE chief V Prabhakaran met his "elite" Black Sea Tigers suicide squad before they detonated an explosion on a Sri Lankan Navy Fast Attack Craft that killed 10 sailors late last month.

"The 10 sailors who had gone missing since March 22 are now presumed dead," a Defence Ministry official said. Meanwhile, pro-LTTE website Tamilnet has said that the members of the suicide squad had a meeting with Prabhakaran and were photographed with him prior to undertaking their operations.

The website identified three men as "Lt Anbumaran, Major Niranjan and Major Kananeela". The Sri Lankan Navy on March 22 had announced that one of its Fast Attack Craft was caught "in a possible underwater blast". The locally built P438 deployed in northeastern coastal waters off Nayaru near the rebel stronghold of Mullaithivu has sunk due to the explosion, the Navy said.

It said that on receiving the SOS message from the sinking craft, other sea units launched a rescue mission and six of the 16 crew members were rescued. An underwater blast damaged the boat's hull and caused it to sink in short duration of time, it said. The Navy asserted that there was no sea confrontation nor was any LTTE craft was present in the area when the incident took place.

"Navy suspects the blast was caused by a possible sea mine or due to some underwater weapon developed by the terrorists," it had said.

Source : PTI