“It may take another week or so, depending on how fast the military gives us security clearance. At the moment, troops are combing the park for any militants,” Wildlife Department Director General W A D Wijesuriya said.
Seven soldiers were killed in Monday’s attack, a day before the authorities were due to open the sanctuary after its annual six-week shutdown for the high tourist season, which runs till mid-January.
Foreign tourists who were booked to visit Yala within the next few days have been re-routed to nearby wildlife parks, local tour operators said.
Tour operators said they were worried about the park attack, as many countries had just eased travel warnings suggesting the island was a safe holiday destination for their nationals.
Foreign visitors to Sri Lanka have already slipped to 313,675 from January to August this year, a 23% year-on-year decline, the tourist promotion office said.
The guerrillas have carried out several attacks against security forces and wildlife employees, and three of the five zones of the 1,000 sq km (386 sq mile) Yala park have been shut for years due to Tamil rebel attacks.
In continued violence on the island, seven suspected Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in two separate attacks on Tuesday across the northern defence lines in Jaffna, the defence ministry said yesterday.
The Tamil Tigers are fighting for autonomy in the island’s north and east, and tens of thousands have been killed since the ethnic conflict began in 1972.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan soldiers killed eight Tamil Tiger rebels in clashes in the north and east of the island, the military said yesterday as it pressed on with an offensive to push them further north.
Seven of the insurgents were killed on Tuesday in the northern military-held Jaffna peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of the country by rebel lines.
The body of another suspected rebel was found after a firefight in eastern Trincomalee district, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Sri Lanka’s north has been the focus of renewed civil war after the military pushed out fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam from their eastern strongholds earlier this year.
The rebels, who say they are fighting for an independent state for minority ethnic Tamils in the north and east, were not immediately available for comment.
Around 5,000 people have been killed in fighting between the military and the LTTE guerrillas since early 2006.

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