By Walter Jayawardhana

In order to depend on the victory of a propaganda war against the government the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) started firing at the civilians indiscriminately killing scores of them sources in the North East of Sri Lanka said.

Providing a clue when this shelling started the LTTE connected website, the Tamil Net said it started on Saturday and as as many as 2,000 civilians had been killed.

As usual to distribute their propaganda they used health sources, who have no other alternative but to tell the phoning reporters what the LTTE propaganda machine says.

Dr V Shanmugarajah said he could not confirm that figure but said the makeshift hospital he is working in – at a school in east Mullaivaikal in Mullaitivu district – had so far taken in 378 bodies.

He said 106 of those killed were children.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said the shells were being fired by Tamil Tiger rebels.

“The radars detected the LTTE [Tamil Tigers] positioning their mortars south of the safe zone and firing from there,” he told Reuters.

“This morning, the radar detected two occasions of the LTTE firing to the safe zone to blame the military.”

“Sri Lankan defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told the BBC reports of government shelling were “propaganda” of the Tamil Tigers.

“He said there had been neither shelling nor air attacks on the civilian zone.”