At 3:15 AM a group of 21 LTTE commandos, most of them Black Tigers, who are known to be suicide bombers, attacked the air base.
[3] Ten military personnel, including 2 Air Force officers, were killed in the attack and 22 were wounded.
An Air Force Bell 212 helicopter gunship was destroyed by friendly fire.
[4][5] Two MI 24s were also damaged in the LTTE air attack on the SLAF base in Anuradhapura.
[6] B. Raman, a retired Additional Secretary of India and former Director of Institute of Topical Studies of Chennai, released a statement regarding the attack saying that it "had been preceded by painstaking intelligence collection, and planning.