Sri Lanka counts cost of Tigers raid

The wreckage of a Sri Lankan Airlines Airbus

The Sri Lankan authorities are counting the huge economic costs of a devastating raid early on Tuesday by Tamil Tiger guerrillas on the country's only international airport and an adjacent military base.

We all just ran like anything, got to a security fence, we managed to knock it down and carried on running. We spent about an hour in a ditch

Briton Alan Liddle

The national carrier, SriLankan Airlines, says it suffered losses of $350m when three of its Airbuses were completely destroyed in the raid and three others badly damaged. Eight Sri Lankan air force planes were also destroyed.

And analysts say the raid could deter many foreign visitors at a time when Sri Lanka's vital tourist industry was showing strong signs of recovery.

At least 18 people, most of them rebels, were killed in the raid which has left some 4,000 foreign tourists - some of whom were caught up in crossfire - stranded in the capital, Colombo.

Shaken tourists

Fresh peace efforts meant that Sri Lankan hotels and the other parts of the tourist industry were looking forward to their most profitable summer since the beginning of the civil war in 1983.

But images of shaken tourists describing how they fled the shooting at Bandaranaike Airport 30km (18 miles) north of the capital, Colombo, are likely to dampen consumer confidence in the island which receives some 120,000 visitors a year from Britain and Germany alone.

Forty-seven British tourists who landed at Bandaranaike were among those who came under fire as they were waiting for connecting flights. They had to run for their lives out of the terminal building.

Sean Hill, from Welwyn Garden City, said the soldiers and airport staff were too busy saving themselves when the gunfire and explosions broke out.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga ordered an immediate inquiry into how the Tigers managed to penetrate tight security around the air force base and then enter the civilian airport.

Airport officials stand alongside a dead guerrilla

"It has got to be viewed in a very serious manner. It is a very serious matter," military spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne told the BBC.

Sri Lanka authorities said the dead included nine guerrillas involved in the attack and five military personnel. Three civilians are also reported to have died.

Riots anniversary

The rebels are fighting for a homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million Tamils, saying they face discrimination by the Sinhalese, who make up 14 million of the country's 18.6 million people.

Bitter history

1948: Ceylon becomes independent from Britain

1976: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) formed

1983: Tamil race riots trigger civil war

1987: Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi sends Indian peacekeeping force. More than 1,000 die

1990: Indian troops depart

1996: Government retakes Jaffna stronghold in north

Norwegian-brokered peace efforts have been stalled for several months, with the government refusing a Tiger demand to lift a ban on the group before any direct peace talks can start.

The attack coincides with the anniversary this week of anti-Tamil race riots in 1983 which triggered the civil war.

It is the first time the military base has been attacked, though the Tigers have targeted the international airport in the past.

The BBC Sri Lanka correspondent says the attack signalled that the Tamil Tigers had lost patience with the stalled peace process.

Curfew lifted

All flights from the airport have been suspended, while incoming flights have been diverted to the southern Indian city of Madras.

SriLankan Airlines help line

([phone]

A curfew around the airport has been lifted and staff were allowed to return to their posts at 1200 GMT.

Flights are not expected to resume until Wednesday morning.

In 1986, 16 people were killed in an explosion on a plane owned by Air Lanka, then the national carrier.

Shortly after the Tuesday morning attack, the Sri Lankan air force launched retaliatory strikes on Tamil Tiger positions in the north of the country.

No details of the strikes are available, but our correspondent says it seems they were mainly symbolic, rather than the start of a major offensive.