India also hinted its backing to the Sri Lankan Army's action against Tamil Tigers, saying any country is free to take action against terrorists within its legal system.
A consignment of 1700 tonnes of food and relief material from India reached Colombo as part of humanitarian aid for thousands of civilian Tamils caught in the war between the LTTE and the island nation's Army, officials said on Sunday.
"Apart from the way the Tiger leader got killed, the military is also still investigating intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman's death as they could not find his body among top level Tiger leaders," the State-run Sunday Observer said.
The newspaper said the defence cooperation between Sri Lanka and Pakistan had grown significantly in recent years as Islamabad, unlike New Delhi, had no problems supplying the state-of-the-art weaponry to Lankan army to accelerate its counter-insurgency operations against the LTTE which finally ended with the killing of Tamil chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran.
Rinku Hooda and Ajeet Singh finished third and fourth respectively in the men's F46 javelin throw final on Friday, but the result was put on hold after India lodged a protest that Herath was ineligible to compete in the category.
'It's like looking at your own child. Quite large numbers of the dead are under 16. They grab them from their parents and they try to pull them back they get shot. These children have the dog tags and cyanide capsules. The younger children (captured) go for rehabilitation programme,' Brig Priyantha, who commands an artillery division in the north, told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
The Indo-Sri Lanka joint statement issued at the conclusion of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's visit to India is "biased against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam," Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Vaiko said in Chennai Sun.
Former Sri Lankan army chief General Sarath Fonseka has said that he will lead an Arab Spring-style uprising in his country to force the government from office. Fonseka, who was jailed for running as an opposition candidate, launched a bitter attack on President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he accused of persecuting his family and terrorising opponents, and pledged a new campaign to topple his government.
While refusing to hazard a guess on the time frame for liberating the entire northern Sri Lanka from the rebels, Army Chief Sarath Fonseka said he had been given another one year extension beginning January 2009 and the period is enough to completely clear the LTTE held areas.
Dubbing as "unfortunate" the Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi's invite to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for his May 26 swearing-in, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today said the "ill-advised" move could have been avoided as it amounted to "rubbing salt into the wounds of the already deeply injured Tamil psyche."
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres, who escaped the final assault by the Lankan army in May, could give a new lease of life to the now vanquished outfit and are even trying to launch fresh attacks in Sri Lanka, according to a report.
Over 26 Tamil Tiger rebels and one soldier were killed in fresh clashes between government troops and the guerrillas in the restive northern Sri Lanka, the military said on Monday.
Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on Thursday said India should not support the United States-backed United Nations resolution for an inquiry into human rights violations by Sri Lankan army following alleged surfacing of video footage of the bullet-riddled body of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's chief V Pirabhakaran's son.
The LTTE has been conducting multi-pronged war exercises at the facility when it was hit by the jets, the defence ministry said. "The LTTE's Kilinochchi leadership is yet to reveal losses," the army said citing intercepted communication.
A protest has begun in front of the Trincomalee Naval Base after reports Mahinda Rajapaksa and some of his family members are there after leaving Temple Trees, the official residence of prime minister.
the Tamil film industry is lending its support to the efforts by the state parties to bring focus back on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils by calling for a protest rally on Sunday. Over 2,000 people, including top stars, directors and other film personalities, are expected to converge at Rameswaram island, which is in close proximity to Sri Lanka
'The food the Sri Lankans gave us was horrible. It used to stink. We used to throw most of it away... In the night my legs used to be in someone's face and his legs used to be in my lap. There was no space... There was no toilet... Both our bathing water and drinking water were salty. We had to beg the guards for clean drinking water.' Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar speaks to Indian fishermen just released from Sri Lankan custody.
The jets destroyed two camps of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Mullaitivu district
A leading Washington, DC-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notwithstanding the arrest of retired Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka who challenged President Mahinda Rajapakse at the recent elections, and the country's poor record on human rights and its treatment of several thousand internally displaced persons, has said that the United States cannot afford to disengage with the island nation.
Despite the killings of top LTTE leaders, including its chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, and the decimation of the rebels, the concept of Tamil Eelam has not died out amongst those harbouring it, the Sri Lankan Army chief has warned.
Official spokesman Lucien Rajakarunanayake said Rajapakse, who won re-election in presidential elections last month, signed a decree dissolving the national assembly with effect from midnight Tuesday.
Now under the custody of the Sri Lankan Army, the former LTTE weapons procurer spoke to VK Shashikumar about the mistakes the outfit made in the past and the need to bridge the gap between the Tamil and the Sinhalese races.
"The President in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces has confirmed the findings and the punishment handed down by the first court martial," a military official said.
A delegation of MPs from Tamil Nadu will be leaving for Sri Lanka tomorrow to get first hand account of the conditions prevailing in the camps housing Lankan Tamil refugees displaced by the war between the island army and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam.
Nitin Gokhale, Defence Editor, NDTV, recalls his encounter with then Sri Lankan army chief General Sarath Fonseka soon after the LTTE's defeat last year. A fascinating column on how Velupillai Prabhakaran finally met his nemesis.
A perfect strategist who undertook operations against the Sri Lankan army methodically, Velupillai Prabhakaran provided Tamil translations on English language books on war strategy to his cadres to take on the government forces.
Elusive LTTE leader Prabhakaran emerged from the jungle to pay homage to 365 members of the outfit's suicide squad who had been killed since 1987 at a ceremony at an undisclosed location on Saturday
According to an intelligence input, some cadres of the LTTE, who escaped the wrath of the Sri Lankan Army during the all-out operations in the island nation earlier this year, were trying to regroup in India and planning attacks on top political leaders, particularly when they travel in Tamil Nadu.
As the three-day Commonwealth Summit of 53 nations is in progress at Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, Canada has come out publicly that they are opposed to the next 2011 Commonwealth summit taking place in Sri Lanka.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, vanquished by the Sri Lankan Army in May after a three decade bloody civil war, procured most of their arms from the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine as well as China, a former rebel commander has said.
"A member of the LTTE is monitored from the moment he lands on Indian soil and is unaware that he is being tracked by the police. We allow him to wander for a while before catching him red-handed with the material as well as his contacts."
LTTE's head of International relations Selvarasa Pathmanathan told BBC that their 'incomparable leader had attained martyrdom'.
With a pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam web site raising questions over Velupillai Prabhakaran's death, the Sri Lankan army today released photographs of the guerilla's dead body
A pro-LTTE website, tamilnet.com, today claimed that the Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is still "alive and safe", a day after Sri Lankan army announced that it has killed the top rebel leader.
"The LTTE is still using innocent civilians as hostages. They don't let them go out of the areas controlled by them. 'Viduthalai Puligal' (LTTE cadres) have killed a number of people in Sudanthirapuram area when they tried to flee from them," Daya Master, who surrendered to the Army last week, told the Sri Lankan state television.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday spoke to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, who is on an indefinite fast in support of his demand for immediate ceasefire in the Sri Lankan army's offensive against the LTTE.
As the Sri Lankan army prepares for a final assault against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the United States on Monday expressed its deep concern over the humanitarian situation in the conflict zones there, saying 'it is in a terrible condition'."We are very concerned about the humanitarian situation there. It is dire," State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.
In a daring attack, two LTTE aircrafts tonight carried out strikes in the heart of Colombo dropping bombs near the Army Headquarters ground and on a government building in the high security zone. At least 28 people have been injured, news reports indicate.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam today virtually conceded that its de-facto capital Kilinochchi has fallen to the Sri Lankan Army, saying that the security forces have entered a "virtual ghost town" as the whole infrastructure of Tamil Tigers have shifted to the northeast.
Tamil Tigers and their supremo V Prabhakaran are facing imminent defeat at Kilinochchi as the Sri Lankan army is on the verge of overrunning Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's defacto capital, former top LTTE commander Karuna Amman has said.In an interview to state owned Independent Television Network, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, once the second in command in the LTTE, said the rebel leader was about to be "punished for his insensate crimes".