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In a daring clandestine operation in a high security zone in the northern town of Jaffna on Sunday, the LTTE blasted a bus carrying Sri Lankan troops with a claymore mine.

While the pro-LTTE Tamilnet website said that two soldiers and a civilian were killed and 12 soldiers were injured in the attack which took place within 300 metres of the Jaffna District Secretariat, the Army spokesman Brig Prasad Samarasinghe said that no soldiers were killed.

"A civilian was killed and five soldiers and a civilian were injured," Samarasinghe told Hindustan Times.

The attack was preceded by about two days of artillery duels in the Muhamalai sector south of Jaffna on the arterial A9 highway.

Historic arms haul

Meanwhile, the National Security website announced that the weapons haul made by the Sri Lankan security forces in the eastern sector since October 2006 was "historic".

Among the munitions left behind by the withdrawing LTTE were two 152 mm artillery pieces; five 120 mm mortars; eight 81 mm mortars; 624 T-56 assault rifles; two anti aircraft guns; RPG launchers and rockets; two suicide boats fitted with 22 to 24 claymore mines; 71 claymore mines (some weighing 15 kgs); 13 machines guns; 34 high tech communication sets and 62 I-Com sets.