OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES AND ASSESSMENT 
The situation remains very tense in the North and the East. Heavy fighting is ongoing in the LTTE controlled Vakarai area in Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts. The situation remains tense in the Jaffna peninsula. Harassment and disturbance fire is still taking place on the Forward Defence Line (FDL).

The situation in Jaffna town has been calmer than in the previous weeks. Jaffna now has a 24 hr supply of electricity. The curfew has been utterly relaxed and is now enforced between 23:OO and 05:OO hrs.

Violence in Vavuniya increased last week. There was one claymore attack against Security Forces, and four Tamil civilians were killed. Adductions are ongoing, as is extortion by armed political groups against civilians and the business community. Mannar remained calm and quiet. The tension in Vanni is very high due to air strikes near Mullaithivu. 

Trincomalee remained mostly calm and quiet, except for a single grenade attack against the TMVP office in Trincomalee town. The road to Serunawera has now flooded over, thus preventing any road traffic from Kantale to the area. People in the area are now relying on the ferry for their transport needs and are sharing this transport with the SLA and Police troops which use it to ferry their troops across the bay.

The situation in Batticaloa district remains difficult, with a high number of abduction cases, some of which are mass abductions, and assassinations. The LTTE returned a number of abductees in the later part of the week. Tension between The LTTE and the TMVP seems to be on the rise. The TMVP has opened several new offices in the district over the past few weeks, often taking over former LTTE offices. The LTTE attacked two of these offices last week, killing one TMVP cadre in one attack and injuring several. 

The TMVP are operating openly and armed in many towns in the district, including Batticaloa. The situation in Vakarai remains tense. Able bodied people have left the LTTE controlled area, but the elderly and the sick have not. Reports indicate that half the IDPs in Vakarai have left, and more are leaving every day. There are now 35 IDP camps in Batticaloa district.