'With butterflies in our stomachs, but confident of our mission, we took off for Jaffna on the morning of 24 July 1987.' IAF Veteran Air Commodore Nitin Sathe recalls a conversation with Air Vice Marshal Harpal Singh Ahluwalia (retd), then a wing commander and mission leader for the clandestine operation.
On the night of July 5, the Tigers launched their first kamikaze operation. Miller took the wheels of the explosive-packed truck, smiled at everyone as he turned the ignition key and drove it slowly towards the Sri Lankan military camp. A few moments later all of Jaffna heard a thunderous explosion that brought the complex crashing down in clouds of dust. Miller had given birth to a deadly tactic that Prabhakaran would employ time and again with devastating consequences to Sri Lanka -- and India. A fascinating excerpt from M R Narayan Swamy's must read new book, The Rout Of Prabhakaran.
At an all party meet in Chennai on Tuesday chaired by Chief Minister K Karunanidhi a resolution was adopted that if the central government does not ensure a ceasefire in Sri Lanka within two weeks, all Members of Parliament from the state would resign. Leaders of the Congress, Communist Party of India and CPI-Marxist were also present at the meet. Opposition parties including the J Jayalalitha-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Vaiko-led MDMK.
Tamil Tigers, now virtually on the run, have claimed that they still retained the capability to seize back LTTE's de-facto capital of Killinochchi and said the Sri Lankan government's plans to hold elections in the northern areas "would be a futile exercise".
India considers the full implementation of the 13th Amendment in Sri Lanka "critical" for achieving reconciliation with the minority Tamil community, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, underlining that New Delhi has always supported both the political and economic stability in the island nation.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighters were dressed in Indian army uniforms during the final battles of the nearly three-decade long civil war, former Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka has said.
The pitched battles follow two days of air raids by government troops triggered by the killing of 64 bus passengers in a suspected rebel landmine attack on Thursday in Anuradhapura.
Nine Lankan soldiers were also killed.
You are hooked on The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case from the first episode, applauds Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Sri Lanka on Tuesday deployed military personnel at State-run petrol pumps to monitor and manage fuel distribution amidst a shortage that led to serpentine queues of consumers outside filling stations.
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.
The all-party meeting aimed at reconciliation and conferring full powers to Sri Lanka's provincial councils will be reconvened in a month after initial deliberations on Wednesday failed to yield any agreements, party officials said on Thursday.
The Sri Lankan troops on Monday stepped up their offensive in the northern region, encircling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam's last military stronghold of Puthyukkudiryirippu town, by overrunning its security bund and killing at least 9 rebels in fierce clashes, the army said on Monday.
As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
The Sri Lankan army is merely 1.2 miles away from Kilinochchi, the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam's headquarters in Northern Sri Lanka. The Lankan government believes that the quarter-century old militant movement of the LTTE is in its last phase.
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.
Seeking to give a fillip to bilateral military ties, army chief General V K Singh is set to undertake a five-day visit to Sri Lanka from Sunday to discuss defence cooperation.
In a significant move coinciding with the visit of a top United States official probing war crimes, the American embassy in Colombo on Thursday posted pictures of places where civilians had died allegedly during Sri Lanka's final war against rebel Tamil Tigers four years ago.
'This escalation was definitely not part of Gen Z's plan. It seems now that these external forces were keenly observing the initial developments from the sidelines and jumped into the fray, taking advantage of the situation, finding that the time was suitable for such acts'
So who will be the chief guest at this year's parade on Rajpath (no, it ain't Central Vista yet!)? Dominic Xavier ponders over the question
Thousands of irate anti-government protesters in Sri Lanka on Saturday stormed into embattled President Rajapaksa's official residence in central Colombo's high-security Fort area after breaking the barricades, as they demanded his resignation over the island nation's worst economic crisis in recent memory.
The High Commission said it was striving to return to its normal functioning soon.
Will Killinocchi prove a turning point in the battle being fought between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE? If the LTTE loses the battle, it could mark the beginning of its end as an insurgent force, but not as a terrorist organisation. If the Sri Lankan army wins, it will be a Pyrrhic victory, says B Raman
Proving the adage that true love will surmount all odds, the Indian Army has decided to relieve a Major in the Corps of Signals to enable him marry his Sri Lankan girlfriend subject to the condition that he refunds the entire cost of his training in IMA and furnish his marriage certificate.
At least 22 Tamil Tigers and a soldier were killed in separate clashes in restive northern Sri Lanka as government troops captured a key base of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam hours after taking control of two defence lines in the region, the army said on Sunday.
The United Nations believes that the civilian death toll in the final war between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam might have been exaggerated in the media reports and were 'not necessarily correct'. But the UN "does not think that the figure quoted in the press is necessarily correct," highly-placed sources said, adding that though the media had quoted UN as the source for the shocking figure, the UN had no idea where the figure had come from.
Sri Lanka has decided to impose a one-year moratorium in allowing foreign vessels to conduct research in the island nation's territorial waters, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry has said, amidst frequent docking requests from Chinese surveillance ships.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to devise a political solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict in the country.
Cornered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran, who is still holed up in a small strip of land in embattled north, may flee from the island using a submarine, a top Sri Lankan army official said on Friday."Prabhakaran, who is present in the no-fire zone along with his son Charles Anthony, Tigers' intelligence chief Pottu Amman and Sea Tiger chief Soosai, might have retained a submarine to escape from the island," said an army official.
'As I went around Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar, my mind went back to my visit in January 1990 at the fag end of the IPKFs mission in Sri Lanka,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Sri Lankan authorities on Wednesday deployed troops and military vehicles in the streets to ensure public security in the capital amidst nationwide protests over the government's failure to tackle the worst economic crisis.
According to observers, with pro-China Rajapaksa winning the election, the result will have a bearing on India's presence in the Indian Ocean region where Beijing is increasingly making inroads.
"Over 80 per cent of the war against the LTTE has been completed after regaining 80 per cent of the areas under them and killing over 12,000 of their cadres," Lieutenant General Fonseka said. Fonseka's remarks came on Monday as the troops reached about seven kilometres south of Kilali lagoon which separates the Jaffna peninsula from the mainland.
With the beleaguered Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam confined to a small area of 4.5 sq kms, Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka has said the troops are consolidating their positions despite heavy attacks from remnant rebel cadres in the north, where at least 21 guerrillas were killed in intense clashes.
The attack came a day after Tamil Tigers carried out their first ever air raid, bombing a military airbase near the international airport here killing three airmen and injuring 16.
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, seeking his urgent intervention in the Sri Lankan issue.
Former Sri Lankan army general General Sarath Fonseka, who was arrested on February 8, has said that the charges filed against him were false.
Under pressure following serious losses, the LTTE has asked India to "stop providing military assistance" to the Sri Lankan government and vowed to take back it de facto political headquarters Kilinochchi.
A pregnant Sri Lankan woman, who had been in a queue for two days to obtain a passport to leave the crisis-hit country for employment overseas, went into labour while waiting for her turn on Thursday and delivered a baby girl.
Swaraj saluted "brave Indian soldiers who gave up their lives protecting the cause of peace in Sri Lanka".
