Subsequently, the army began an offensive against the LTTE on 8 December 2006, in the Batticoloa district with the objective of taking Vakarai, the principal stronghold of the LTTE in the east; the operation was temporarily aborted after a week of fighting due to the large number of civilians in the area and the difficulty in conducting combat operations due to the ongoing monsoon rain. Over the next few weeks an estimated 20,000 civilians fled from to government-controlled areas, fearing the imminent assault. The army launched a new offensive in mid-January, and Vakarai fell to the advancing troops on 19 January. While the offensive in the East was ongoing, the LTTE and others accused the government of murdering 15 civilians in the Padahuthurai bombing on 2 January, when the air force bombed what they claimed to be an LTTE naval base in Illuppaikadavai in northern Sri Lanka. The loss of Vakarai had been predicted to cut off supply routes of the northern Tigers to their cadres in the east, thus weakening the Tigers' already diminishing grip on the east.