Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense said Wednesday the air force had carried out air strikes against the Tamil Tiger positions in the eastern province.

A defense ministry statement said that "Sri Lanka Air Force this afternoon (July 26) conducted air strike on known LTTE Tiger targets in general areas of Verugal, Trincomalee."

The government accused the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE) of blocking a sluice gate in the Verugal area and depriving water that flows into thousands of Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamil villages.

"The limited air strikes were aimed at dislodging the terrorists at Verugal area where they were gathered blocking sluice gates," the statement added.

This was the third time that the government had carried out air strikes on Tiger positions in the east.

The first air strikes came in late April after a failed assassination bid by the Tigers on the country's Army Commander and the second round of air strikes in mid May after the rebels had attempted to attack a vessel ferrying troops to the north.

Keheliya Rambukwella, the government's defense spokesman and the minister of policy planning, said earlier in the day the rebel act to close the sluice gate was a "crime against humanity" and the government would take up the matter with the international community.

The military officials said the international truce monitoring group, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), was told of the rebel act to close down the gate as some 1,500 families and 35,000 acres of cultivating land were affected by the rebel decision.

The LTTE rebels control parts of the eastern province and have seized areas out of government control in the long running ethnic separatist armed conflict.

More than 64,000 people have died in the conflict since the mid 1980s.

Source: Xinhua