LTTE takes heavy beating: 24 terrorist bodies, weapons uncovered - Mullaittivu

As Mullaittivu battles reached its last phase LTTE terrorists made several desperate attempts in vain, to infiltrate the military forward defences which left over 100 terrorists killed and as many injured since Friday dawn (March 6).

LTTE terrorists were preparing for a large scale offensive towards the existing military defences at Palamathalan and North of Puthkkudiyirippu, inducting over 200 cadres including suicide bombers and sea tigers. Following the initial thrust terrorists had planned to send waves of 100 odd cadres to provide reinforcements. Bahnu, Lowrence, Soosai and few other high profile LTTE terrorists were directly involved in master minding the preemptive assault, security sources said. According to military, this is the first time during recent battles LTTE has inducted many of its 'high profiles' to the battlefront. Yet, timely detection and precise INTEL information received proved decisive as terrorist offensive waves were received with intense military counter attacks at the crack of dawn on Friday (6). Over 30 terrorists were killed during the initial thrust while the rest were hunted down by 2nd Commando Regiment troops, 12 GR, 12 GW and 8 GW troops during the past 48 hours.

Terrorists had taken the liberty of the military tolerance of not engaging LTTE positions within the declared No Fire Zone. The land stretch of about 4kms south of Pudumathalan, is been continuously used as a launching pad for LTTE attacks, who despite the high density of the civilian population have located its heavy mortars and artillery batteries to mount attacks towards advancing military troops, ground sources revealed. Reflecting upon the LTTE's crude tactic to trigger a civilian catastrophe a senior defence observer said that, security forces will continue with its 'Zero Civilian Casualty (ZCC)' policy despite continuation of LTTE provocations.

According to latest information received from the battlefront, over 50 terrorists were killed during fighting ensued in general areas North of Puthukkudiyirippu and South of Palamathalan, between troops and LTTE yesterday (March 7). Troops of the 58 Division have uncovered 24 LTTE bodies alone and seized weapons security sources said. 13 slain terrorists were identified to be from the 'Imranpandiyan' band of the LTTE who were killed following a heavy gunfire exchange with 8 Gemunu Watch (GW) infantrymen, the sources said.

20 x T-56 assault riffles, 02x Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) bombs, a grenade launcher, 03 x I-com sets and a vehicle with a mounted anti-air gun were also among the items seized, the sources further said.

Meanwhile, Task Force - 8 troops continued advancing North and Eastwardly after consolidating positions along the A - 35 road stretch leaving LTTE resistances in total disarray.

How US 'war on terror' emboldened Sri Lanka.

The Army appears on verge of crushing Tiger rebels.

In 1992, Lt. Col. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa retired from the Army after two decades in uniform. A year later, he moved to Los Angeles and began working in IT. In 2001, he heard President Bush declare that "you're either with us or against us" in the global war on terror.
Mr. Rajapaksa didn't need convincing. The decorated officer – today Sri Lanka's defense secretary – had long ago concluded that his own country's fight against extremism, which broke into civil war in 1983, required a military solution by a united front.

"The lesson that I have learned is that peace talks will never go anywhere.... Tell me a place where this has worked," he says.

After a massive buildup of troops and equipment, Sri Lanka appears on the verge of victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. If successful, It will have succeeded where others in the region, such as India and Pakistan, have failed in putting down an armed rebellion by force.

Behind Sri Lanka's war machine is Chinese military hardware, foreign intelligence sharing, and a focus on military professionalism. "They've insulated the way the Army operates. It's purely military logic," says a Western diplomat in Colombo.

The government has also tried to clamp down on LTTE overseas funding, with limited success. While the United States has frozen two Tamil charities as terrorist fronts, European countries have dragged their feet, say Sri Lankan officials.

To its supporters, including exiled Sri Lankan Tamils, the LTTE are freedom fighters. That view had sympathy in India, home to more than 60 million Tamils, and in the West, whose governments sought to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table, most recently in 2002.
But a hardening of global opinion against the kind of violent tactics used by the LTTE has emboldened Sri Lanka to revive its own war on terror. Its chief architect is Rajapaksa, who returned as defense secretary after his elder brother, Mahinda, won the presidency in 2005.
Sri Lanka's allies were skeptical that it could take on the Tigers, says foreign secretary Palitha Kohone. A Swedish general who had commanded NATO forces in Bosnia and who led a cease-fire monitoring mission to Sri Lanka told him they had no chance. Other diplomats here shared this gloomy view.

"We didn't expect the LTTE to collapse so soon. They'd built such a reputation for themselves as being invincible," says Mr. Kohone, a former UN diplomat.

That reputation was sustained by generous funding from Sri Lanka's Tamil diaspora, who live mostly in Canada and Britain and are estimated to number about 800,000. Many fled the country after anti-Tamil riots in 1983 and are loyal backers of the LTTE's fight for self-rule.
Exiles also show up in the opposite camp. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is a US citizen after 12 years there. Army Chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka holds a green card. Researchers point out that just as exiled Sri Lankan Tamils often cling to hard-line positions on homeland politics, so do those in the majority Sinhalese community, like Rajapaksa. And, in a mirror of the LTTE's fundraising, Sri Lanka's Central Bank has begun selling "Patriotic Diaspora Bonds" to support postwar reconstruction.

As defense secretary, Rajapaksa has equated criticism with treason, and he makes no apologies for silencing anyone who undermines the fight against terrorism. "You can't win a military campaign without the public support. You can be a genius or a hard person or whatever, but you can't win unless you have the public support," he says.

China and Pakistan are the military's largest suppliers of arms. In 2007, Congress halted US military aid to Sri Lanka over its human rights record. However, the US and India have supplied intelligence on LTTE ship movements, which has helped Sri Lanka choke off illegal arms imports.

South Asia is home to many insurgencies that have resisted military solutions, from communist rebels in India to Islamic militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Courtesy: Christian Science Monitor

Safe routes planned for evacuation of civilians

Sri Lanka plans to open two safe routes to let tens of thousands of civilians trapped in a war zone escape and has invited the Red Cross to help, a senior Sri Lankan official said on Thursday. Sri Lankan soldiers have cornered the Tamil Tiger separatists in an area of less than 45 square km (17 sq miles) in the Indian Ocean island's northeastern shore, aiming to deliver a final blow to a separatist war that has raged off and on since 1983. Aid agencies say tens of thousands of civilians are being kept at gunpoint by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) inside a military-demarcated no-fire zone on the coast, a sandy 12-km strip of coconut groves with water on both sides. "One route will lead north past Challai and the other south past Mullaittivu town. The ICRC has been invited to facilitate the movement along these routes," the official confirmed on condition of anonymity. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the only agency allowed a permanent presence in the war zone. It said one of its Sri Lankan workers was killed and his nine-year-old son wounded by shrapnel outside the no-fire zone on Wednesday. Two military officials and another senior government official also speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the plan, which was decided by the president's security council on Thursday. The military officials cautioned the announcement may not come for a day or two since troops are fighting heavy battles to secure the last parts of the areas they need to open the routes. The current no-fire zone is the second demarcated by the army. When troops reached the edge of the first one which was further inland, nearly all of the roughly 37,000 people who have successfully fled the fighting this year came out in a flood. RED CROSS STANDS READY The Red Cross in Geneva said the idea has been under discussion but a spokesman said he was unable to confirm whether the Sri Lankan government had made a formal request yet. "Should there be an agreement from all parties involved, the ICRC stands ready to facilitate the movement of civilians as long as these movements are voluntary," spokesman Simon Schorno said. The LTTE could not be reached for comment with most communication in the war zone severed. It has insisted that people are staying voluntarily despite accusations from witnesses, aid agencies and rights groups that they were shooting people trying to flee and forcibly recruiting people, including children as young as 15. The Red Cross has successfully negotiated the evacuation of 2,769 sick and wounded people from the no-fire zone by boat, and ferried in medicine and food on its return trips. A group of 356 was taken out on Wednesday, the ICRC said. The United Nations and others have said there are around 200,000 people trapped in the war zone, while the government says the number is no more than 70,000. The army's commander, Lt-Gen. Sarath Fonseka, has ordered commanders to take "maximum precautions keeping the civilian factor in mind at all times," the military's official web site www.nationalsecurity.lk quoted him as saying. The pro-rebel web site, www.TamilNet.com, said on Thursday artillery fire into the no-fire zone had killed 78 civilians, but it did not name its sources and had no pictures. The military denies firing inside the no-fire zone and has repeatedly accused the LTTE of trying to manufacture a civilian crisis to get international pressure for a ceasefire, which it has done in the past and used as a period to re-arm. The LTTE is on U.S., EU, Canadian and Indian terrorism lists after a 25-year civil war in which it fought to establish a separate state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils. (Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal in Colombo and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva) (Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Sugita Katyal) (Reuters)

bloggerDefence

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