In another development, a civilian aircraft with 54 people aboard was feared to have crashed in the sea during a flight from the embattled northern Jaffna peninsula to Colombo today, security officials said. They said the navy and the army had started search for the missing aircraft.

The LTTE's clandestine Voice of Tigers monitored in the northern town of Vavuniya claimed that Prabhakaran was at the forefront of Sunday morning's attack which had destroyed the garrison at Killinochchi and captured the town. Fighting is said to be continuing in the area.

The VoT broadcast announced the death of 240 LTTE cadres. Most of them are believed to be women. Although the defence ministry has been secretive over its debacleciting existing censorship regulations, sources said the number of soldiers killed and wounded may be as high as 500. Around 300 soldiers are believed missing.

Sources in the defence ministry corroborated the LTTE's claim that Killinochchi, which the army had taken from the Tigers in 1996, had been recaptured. Soldiers who could, fled the Killinochchi camp in the face of one of the fiercest counter-attacks by Tamil Tigers in recent months. In a major setback, the army has been forced to retreat 10 km north to Paranthan, exposing its fragile control over territory captured from the LTTE.

Hundreds were killed or maimed by the LTTE's relentless artillery fire and hand-to-hand combat. No one knows the fate of around 300 soldiers who are believed to be trapped in Killinochchi, cut off from all help.

``It is very similar to Mullaithivu,'' a source said quoting a senior military official. In July 1996, the LTTE attacked Mullaithivu military base killing more than 1,200 soldiers in a single day. The LTTE hasalready codenamed Sunday's operation Ceaseless Wave 2, Mullaithivu being the first.

Reports from northern Sri Lanka said the LTTE had commandeered civilians to clear dead bodies from the area. VoT radio said some bodies of soldiers had already been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in keeping with procedure.

The attack was launched in the early hours of Sunday on the entire stretch of defence lines that protect a sprawling army camp made up of several brigades from Killinochchi to Elephant Pass.

ENS adds from Colombo: An official communique from the Ministry of Defence stated that 150 soldiers were killed in action in 72 hours of fighting since Sunday. Nearly 300 were wounded, it added. The statement, quoting monitored LTTE transmissions, also claimed that 377 Tamil Tiger cadres had been killed and a ``large number'' wounded.

A spokesman for the ICRC said he could neither deny nor confirm the speculation that the LTTE was to hand over 500 bodies of soldiers to theICRC.