Eastern debacle propels LTTE towards desperate measures

Propaganda campaign fails; Plan to create mayhem in Capital during festive season

FUTILE EXERCISE: The LTTE has now resorted to a new campaign. It has made this move after realising that they have miserably failed in their efforts to bring international pressure on the Sri Lankan Government by launching an ambitious campaign to paint a bleak human rights picture, using some Southern politicians as their agents.

They could not convince the international community at the United Nations Human Rights Council to review

 the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka.

They could not hoodwink the international community about the situation in Sri Lanka through their stage-managed campaign to tarnish Lanka's image globally. They also wanted the international community to impose sanctions or bring HR observers to the country. They failed in this endeavour as well.

On the contrary, the international community, following extensive submissions made to the Human Rights Council of the UN by Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe explaining the real picture, praised the measures taken by the Government to ensure fundamental rights in the country amidst a war against terrorism in the ground, sea and now in the air.

Having perceived their failure to hoodwink the international community, complaints regarding disappearances and abductions also decreased during the past two weeks.

Then, the LTTE began their next campaign by launching their first air attack on the Katunayake Air Base as they realised they could not face the war on land or sea effectively.

Their 'propaganda war' in the international arena also proved futile.

The objective of the air attack was obviously to bring down the morale of the Security Forces who are

recording one victory after another in the Eastern theatre.

The Tiger outfit has now realised that no type of attack could bring results for their campaign to boost the morale of the Tiger cadres who are on the verge of deserting the organisation due to their inability to face the Security Forces.

The next step was the use of suicide cadres. It has now been revealed, with the recovery of the artificial limb, that the Tiger cadre who had driven the explosives-laden tractor towards the Chenkaladi camp was a disabled Tiger cadre who had lost one of his legs.

The Tigers have now resorted to the last and most brutal lap of their campaign, targeting innocent civilians to achieve their objectives.

They first launched a mortar attack on innocent Tamil civilians in Morakotachchenai and Santhiveli in Batticaloa on March 29 killing eight Tamil civilians including innocent children.

There was no apparent reason, other than their desperation due to defeats they are facing in the East, for the LTTE to launch such an attack on civilians.

The obvious reason for these attacks is their inability to break out from their hideouts in the Thoppigala jungles.

Then came the killing of six Sinhalese aid workers who were completing a Children's Home in Mailambaveli in

 Eravur, for children who became orphans after the Tsunami disaster.

The six aid workers were brutally massacred at their worksite by the Tiger cadres who had mingled with the civilians in the area.

This is almost a repetition of the incident in Omadiyamadu in Valachchenai where 12 irrigation workers were massacred by Tiger terrorists.

However, the incident did not create a stir as it happened in the case of the killing of 17 aid workers at Muttur, where the Security Forces were made the immediate culprits of the incident.

The bus bomb explosion at Kondawattuwan has now brought the LTTE to its most ruthless stage. They used the same tactic during their defeat in Vakarai to divert attention of the Security Forces who are now engaged in jungle warfare with the LTTE to other areas.

The LTTE did it during the festive season in January, by exploding two bus bombs in Nittambuwa and in Hikkaduwa directly targeting innocent civilians, with multiple motives.

The Security Forces and the Police brought that situation under complete control with the assistance of the public.

Sixteen innocent civilians, most of them from the Inginiyagala Police division in the Ampara district, fell victim to the bomb that exploded inside the Badulla bound bus plying from Ampara. It was stopped at the Kondawattuwan Security Forces and Police checkpoint for a security check.

However, this incident could have been easily averted if the Police post established at the Ampara Central bus stand with a staff of 12 Policemen with a Sub Inspector in charge was effective in their duty to check the buses on regular basis.

The Police force and the well organised Home Guard Force should maintain law and order situation in areas such as Ampara and Moneragala, Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Polonnaruwa and Puttalam areas where a low intensity threat is prevailing, to back the Army and the STF troops who are now engaged in the difficult task of pushing back the LTTE into Thoppigala jungles.

The constant search operations and putting up road blocks in such towns would help prevent the transport of explosives by desperate Tiger cadres to create a panic situation in the Capital during festive season.

Therefore, Senior Police officers in charge of these areas must be responsible for supervising whether security measures are being implemented properly to bring positive results, without leaving everything for lower level officers.

This type of alertness from the Police and also from the public will be vital during this festive season as defence authorities have already received intelligence reports that the Tigers are planning to cause chaos in Colombo.

According to intelligence reports the Tigers are determined to achieve their target anyhow using Black Tiger cadres dispatched from the Wanni.

According to sources, they are targeting Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa whom they missed earlier.

Intelligence reports have warned that the Tigers would resort to multiple choices this time - either taking the life of a VVIP or killing a large number of civilians in a bomb explosion in the Capital.

They have selected this festive season in which Sinhalese as well as Tamils celebrate the New Year as it would provide them with ample opportunities to achieve their objectives easily taking the cover of a less alert public.

But one thing is obvious. The LTTE is trying all these desperate attempts as they cannot face the advancing troops in the East.

The Army and the STF troops have made remarkable progress by liberating areas south of Batticaloa and west of Batticaloa.

The troops are now controlling areas between Pullimalai to Rukam including the area between Unnichchiya tank to Rukam tank taking nearly 50 per cent of the Chenkaladi Maha Oya road.

West of Batticaloa too the Security Forces have been able to take Vavunathivu and Kokkadicholai areas.

According to Security Forces, up to date more than 145 LTTE cadres have been killed during this operation and many Tiger mortar positions used to attack civilians in the cleared areas were taken under Security Forces control.

In total desperation, the LTTE is trying to block these Security Forces operations as they cannot find a way out of this trap.

They may leave the Thoppigala jungles in small groups by attacking innocent civilians in the areas around the Thoppigala jungles.

Therefore, the Police and the Home Guards providing security for these threatened villages will have to be extremely alert to prevent the occurrence of these unfortunate incidents like the killing of four innocent farmers yesterday in Aralaganwila.

The situation will be much worse as the Security Forces in Valachchenai and Sittandi have found a large number of Tiger cadres who had taken refuge in nearby villages after fleeing the battlefront in Thoppigala and Batticaloa west.

In a search operation carried out by the Security Forces in Morakotachchena, more than 50 suspected cadres have been detained and later handed over to the Police for further investigations.

The alarming situation is that there is a big possibility for these LTTE cadres to create panic in Batticaloa where nearly 150,000 displaced people from various parts of the East have been provided temporary shelter until their villages are cleared of terror threats.

Therefore, the Security Forces and the Police will have to play a pivotal role in countering a such situation by conducting cordon and search operations on a regular basis.

Since Colombo and suburban cities too have become vulnerable to these desperate Tiger attacks, same operations should be conducted in Colombo and suburbs too.

Constant surveillance and vigilance are essential to ward off such terror threats.

Sea Tiger plans go up in smoke

TIGER DEN DESTROYED: The air attack by the LTTE on the Katunayake air base has raised many concerns among the people locally and internationally.

The Indian concern over the LTTE air capabilities, the failure of the radar system to detect the LTTE aircraft were among the highlighting factors among the many concerns that were raised during past few days.

But the Tigers, through their failed air raid on the Katunayake air base, proved they cannot even think of an attack on the lines of the SLAF, whose pilots had precisely taken LTTE targets.

However, the wide publicity given to the failed air attack on the Katunayake air base has also created friction within the LTTE. Sea Tiger leader Soosai had taken it personally.

According to intelligence sources, Sea Tiger leader Soosai had a major meeting with other Sea Tiger leaders in Puthukuduiruppu in Mullaitivu on March 31.

The message he wanted to convey to his deputies was that they too should do something vital to boost the image of the Sea Tigers as the Tiger Air Wing did by launching an attack on the Katunayake Air Base.

The meeting they had in Puthukuduiruppu rang alarm bells among the Security Forces. The Sea Tigers were ready to launch a major attack either on the Trincomalee harbour, Point Pedro or even on Colombo or Galle ports.

Thus Air Force fighter jets went into action on Wednesday to pound the Sea Tiger Headquarters in Puthukuduiruppu at 1.10 p.m. The air attack was launched based on the ground intelligence reports and through other intelligence sources.

A fire raged for nearly two hours inside the Sea Tiger base which is located a few kilometres away from the Mullaitivu sea.

According to the still photographs taken from the site a fuel dump or a chemical storage site at the Sea Tiger base was blasted in the air raid thus destroying many vehicles parked there.

Through these attacks that continued during the past one week the SLAF proved that their fighting capability had not gone down at all.

Therefore, the air capabilities the LTTE developed for more than three decades will be of no use in the face of the SLAF fighter capabilities.

The development of the LTTE Air Wing

1983 - Wasanthan a childhood friend of Prabakaran who joined the LTTE after 1983 riots was the first pilot to be trained in UK and France

1985 - Wasanthan resigned from the LTTE upon his return

1985 - Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias Kittu, the then Jaffna commander of the LTTE initiated research to build an aircraft with a 200cc motorcycle engine

1986 - The prototype aircraft was manufactured but was a failure

1990/1991 - V. Swarnalingam alias Shankar, head of the LTTE leaders internal security and an aeronautical engineer who worked for Air Canada initiated a parallel programme

Setting up of training base to train Air Wing cadres

1993 - Three LTTE cadres received pilot training and two more received training in maintenance, overseas

1995 - First intelligence report about LTTE landing two microlight aircraft on the North Eastern coast

1998 - November 27 the LTTE officially announced the existence of an air wing by using microlight aircraft to drop flowers on the Vattrapali Amman Kovil during the heroes day commemoration

1999 - Declared as the year of the Air Tigers

2001 - September 20 death of Shankar at the hand of the Military deep penetration team.

Swarnam took over the Airwing and it was renamed as the Colonel Shankar Air Wing

2003 - Construction of the Iranamadu airstrip

2004 - April, intelligence reports reveal LTTE was in the possession of four fixed wing aircraft (probably Zlin 143L)

2005 - Eight trained pilots arrived in the Wanni subsequent to training in Europe

2005/2006 - Intelligence reports received that a Ukrainian national by the name Mikyola who is believed to have been a pilot or an engineer visiting Wanni

The LTTE Airwing is now commanded by a cadre named Ranjan whilst the responsibility of protecting air assets has been vested with Kennedy.