The commander said that by looking at the pattern of operation and the places that the suspects travelled, there has to be some outside involvement of some leadership or instructions.
The Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy was manhandled and abused by a group of lawyers in a court room at the Madras High Court on Tuesday.
The LTTE has 'quite a resume' as a terrorist group, which is credited with perfecting the use of suicide bombers, inventing suicide belts and pioneering the use of women in suicide attacks, the top investigating agency said.
Despite claiming that it has freed all Tamil civilians this week, Sri Lanka is still holding over 11,000 Tamil prisoners, including children without charge in closely guarded 'rehabilitation centres'.
Human Rights Watch said that abductions of minors continued and children are continually being drafted as soldiers by both the Karuna faction and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Meanwhile, a three-member committee appointed to probe the attacks that killed 258 people, including 11 Indians, on Monday submitted its final report to President Maithripala Sirisena.
The Indian government extended the ban on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by another two years on Friday, following intelligence reports that remnants of the Sri Lankan Tamil terror outfit were trying to re-group in Tamil Nadu.
Mirza Himayat Baig, a suspected LeT operative arrested for his alleged role in Pune's German Bakery blast, had been to Colombo for training in bomb making for three weeks in 2008, a senior ATS official said on Thursday.
Sources said Prabhakaran could never have been captured alive because of care he took to have a cyanide capsule on his body 25 years ago. The slain LTTE supremo believed that it was better to commit suicide than to be captured alive and that is why the Sri Lankan army could only recover his body after smashing the LTTE completely.
Three Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam supporters who admitted providing over one million dollars in cash to the terror group were allowed to walk free on Wednesday by the Australian Supreme Court on bonds to be of good behaviour. The supreme court was told an Australian-based charity was used as a cover to collect and send money to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the Herald Sun reported.
Karuna Amman, a former lieutenant of slain Liberation Tiges of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and now a federal minister favours tapping of moderates among the Tamil Tigers who are "sincerely interested" in a just and peaceful solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.
The Centre may be open to talks with Maoists provided they abjure violence, but some senior police personnel in Naxal-hit regions feel it is a ruse to regroup and re-arm themselves.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam could be attempting to revive the organisation amid efforts by the defeated terror group to rescue hardcore cadres housed in government-run refugee camps for Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka's northern Vavuniya district, a top minister has said.Defence Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that though the LTTE had been military crushed, attempts were being made to rescue hardcore fighters, who are living in the refuge camps in the Vavuniya region.
Ruling out the possibility of any sudden fall of its last bastions of Killinochchi and Mulaitivu, Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran has said that his group still had thousands of fighters and was also working to "rebuild" relationship with India.
An Indo-Canadian was arrested and asked to leave the country after he allegedly gave an inflammatory speech in support of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at an event, where the flag of the outlawed Tamil rebel group was also hoisted.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran was captured alive and 'tortured' by the army before being shot dead in northern Wanni, a Jaffna-based human rights group has alleged in a report that has been dismissed as 'ridiculous' by the Sri Lankan government and military.
The Karuna factor is 'one of the main obstacles' to a negotiated settlement between the Government and the LTTE at the peace talks scheduled in Geneva Saturday,
Prabhakaran's body was found near Nandikadal lagoon in the No Fire Zone.
The LTTE certainly did not expect to fade into oblivion, their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran a fugitive. A couple of years ago, the Tigers were rampant, scoring victories on land and sea, and terrorising Colombo with their makeshift air force. What turned things around? Probably much covert aid from governments, including India's, wary of the Tigers' propensity for redrawing boundaries by force
P V Bakthavatchalam will be part of the international panel of lawyers being constituted to defend Saddam Hussein.
Targeting the 'support network' of the Tamil Tigers, the United States on Wednesday designated a US-based charity group as a 'front' of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and ordered freezing of its assets. The Tamil Foundation has been designated under 'Executive Order 13224', which "targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism," the US Department of Treasury said in a press statement.
Sri Lanka, which is poised to capture the remaining strongholds of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has rejected the plea of the United States-led donor countries for a temporary 'no-fire period' in the island's north, saying this would be detrimental in efforts to wipe out terrorism from its soil.
A power-struggle appears to be brewing among the remnants of the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam, with one faction claiming that the Tamil Tiger leadership, including its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is safe and will re-emerge when the "right time comes".
"We urge the government that the issue of security of our leaders has to be beyond partisan political considerations," said Anand Sharma in Rajya Sabha.
Prabhakaran strode in, wearing his trademark safari suit. Well built, very sure of himself. He put his hands on the table and looked around the hall scanning the entire area slowly. There was pin drop silence. We had been told not to get up but those on stage had risen.
The Indian elections in no way precluded the United States from working jointly with India to try to alleviate the lot of the affected Tamil civilians caught up in the crossfire between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan troops, the outgoing point man on South Asia for the Obama Administration has said.
On the verge of total defeat, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Thursday said that nearly 165,000 civilians in the areas controlled by it were close to starvation and accused Sri Lankan authorities of blocking food and humanitarian supplies to the area. Comparing the humanitarian crisis in the 10 sq km swath of coastal land in Pudukudiyyiruppu to the Dafur crisis in Sudan, the LTTE in a statement asked the United Nations and other international aid groups to intervene.
The LTTE has quietly established a presence in the United States as part of its global expansion plan to raise funds and procure anti-aircraft weapons and other military equipment on a massive scale, the Washington Times reported. The group's political wing has established 'branches' in at least 12 countries as part of a global expansion to purchase millions of dollars worth of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment.
One of the main missions of the key functionary of the banned LTTE, who was arrested along with seven Sri Lankan nationals in Chennai on Thursday, was to kidnap rival group member and Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) leader Varadaraja Perumal and his family next month.
LTTE's political wing chief, V Nadesan, on Thursday said that the group was ready for a ceasefire now, while accusing the Sri Lankan government of 'abrogating' the six-year-long ceasefire, which came to an end early this year.
Malaysia's Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan said recent investigations have revealed that the campaign group, Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), "has been actively canvassing for support and assistance from terrorist groups".
Citing terror threats from the outfit, Canada has banned the World Tamil Movement and freezed its assets. Two months ago, the federal police sought court nod to seize the WTM's bank accounts.
Hindu American Foundation: 'As an organisation that works on issues affecting Hindu minorities... in the civil war although all groups were affected, Hindu temples and Hindu institutions were disproportionately affected, and Hindus continue to be affected.' Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States Prasad Kariyawasam: 'Assume that Sri Lanka is referred to the ICC through the UN Security Council -- which will never happen because Sri Lanka has enough clout to block it. But assume it is. Still, the ICC cannot handle it because retrospectively they don't have jurisdiction.'
SPG Act tweaked to ensure that commandoes accompany protectees overseas as well.
As Sri Lankan troops advance towards the last Tiger bastion of Mullaittivu, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka has said he was not sure whether Velupillai Prabhakaran was on the island nation but felt that it was not possible for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo to find a shelter in India. The Lankan Air Force had destroyed a vessel carrying arms and ammunitions for the LTTE just when it was being offloaded in the rebel coastal area, Fonseka added.
Speculation was rife at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday about whether the wife of Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam supremo V Prabhakaran arrived here, along with a group of Sri Lankan refugees, in the face of escalating violence between the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan forces. Police and media personnel rushed to the Mandapam refugee camp in Rameswaram after rumours claimed that Prabhakaran's wife Madhivadhani had reached the camp early on Wednesday morning.
Vice-Admiral Damle said the LTTE, which was facing an 'almost impenetrable situation' on the Tamil Nadu coast, was now beginning to shift its drug trafficking, arms running and other activities to the Kerala coast, especially in the Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi stretch.
"Sri Lanka in its battle against terrorism has set examples and its successes has given other democracies hope that terrorism can be fought and overcome," Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said.
Navy Chief Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda said he believed the LTTE were bringing three light aircraft, artillery and a bullet-proof vehicle in the ships sunk some 600 km off the island's south-eastern coast.
Eight security force personnel were also killed in various incidents in Sri Lanka's north-western Mannar district.