Cite
MLA
“Battle of Mullaitivu (1996).” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/battle-of-mullaitivu-1996/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Battle of Mullaitivu (1996). Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/battle-of-mullaitivu-1996/
The LTTE overran the base before a relief force landing from the sea could reach it, and carried off its heavy weapons.
01An isolated base
Mullaitivu was a brigade-size camp on the north-east coast, reached only by sea, in country the LTTE controlled. Before dawn on 18 July 1996 the Tigers attacked it from several sides at once, with Sea Tiger boats blocking the beach. The defenders were pushed back into a shrinking perimeter. A relief force was landed by helicopter and sea at Alampil to the south, but it took days to fight its way up the coast, under fire from the scrub on its flanks. Inside the camp, ammunition and water ran low.
02The loss
By the time the relief came near, the camp had fallen and nearly the whole garrison had been killed. The Tigers took the base’s artillery and stores, which they used in the battles of the following years. The army withdrew the relief force, and Mullaitivu stayed in LTTE hands until January 2009, when it became the last town the Tigers lost before their final stand. The army rebuilt its coastal camps after 1996 with deeper defences and better links to the sea.
Mullaitivu showed that the LTTE could destroy a fortified army base in open battle, and the guns it captured there strengthened it for the rest of the 1990s.