The US and India are in sync with their foreign policy toward Sri Lanka, particularly over the repatriation of the remaining 40,000 plus internally displaced persons after the government's victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the Tamil-populated northern province, said Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robert O Blake.
Passengers of the Tiruchirapalli-Chennai Rockfort Express had a narrow escape when suspected pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam elements blasted railway tracks at Perani railway station in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu in the wee hours on Saturday.
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".
'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.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday appealed to the Tamil civilians, still trapped in the No-fire Zone, to come over to the "cleared areas" and assured that the government will ensure their safety.
The Centre has allowed slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader Prabhakaran's mother Parvathi Ammal to visit Tamil Nadu for medical treatment on certain conditions, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said on Monday. The Union government's decision has been conveyed through a letter to the Indian mission in Kuala Lumpur where she is staying at present, Karunanidhi said in a suo motu statement in the state assembly.
Central intelligence agencies were aware of 'the presence of small LTTE pockets and their counterparts in the two states had been asked to closely monitor such activities,' Narayanan told media persons.
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday asked the Tamil Tigers to immediately surrender, renounce terrorism and join the political process through dialogue to put an end to the decades old ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. "We demand that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam immediately lay down arms, renounce terrorism, allow a UN assisted evacuation of the remaining civilians in the conflict area, and join the political process through dialogue," UNSC stated.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Monday appeared to soft-pedal his controversial remarks about Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Prabhakaran, by describing the LTTE as an 'extremist organisation'. A day after his remarks created a flutter, he told reporters that the "LTTE was not started as an extremist organisation like the Naxalite movement. It was started as a liberation movement but down the road it became an extremist organisation."
Forty-four Tamil Tigers and two soldiers were killed in fierce clashes between the rebels and security forces in the embattled northern Sri Lanka, where fighting has intensified since the government pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam this month.
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj will lead a fourteen-member Parliament delegation to Sri Lanka on Monday to study the alleged human rights violation during the operations against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the north eastern province of the island nation.
The situation in Sri Lanka, where thousands of Tamil civilians are trapped in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's strongholds, permeated the 45-minute discussion on Monday between United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon. This was the first high-level interaction between India and the Obama administration in Washington.
Against the backdrop of hawkish demands and street protests, the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam-led government on Friday lashed out at the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, for not responding to the two-day ceasefire by the Sri Lankan government in the northern areas, to enable the safe passage of ethnic Tamils caught in the conflict zone.DMK, which has been turning the heat on the Centre to talk to Colombo to stop innocent Tamils becoming victims in the crossfire.
The posters invite people to a show on Thai-Pongal day in January sponsored by an organisation allegedly close to the Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka's government-owned Daily News said.
Dismissing as 'hilarious' the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's ceasefire offer, the Sri Lankan government termed it a ploy, saying the Tamil Tigers call for a truce whenever they are on the verge of defeat.The LTTE has written a letter to the United Nations, Britain, Japan, Norway and the United States, indicating its readiness to agree to a ceasefire with the government, but refusing to lay down arms and surrender.
After uncovering attempts of Tamil Tigers to build crude submarines, Sri Lankan forces on Thursday said they had unearthed a possible rebel aircraft research wing that apparently studied ways to either repair planes or construct new ones.
Heavy gun battles on Wednesday left at least 17 Tamil Tigers dead, while rebels claimed they killed over two dozen soldiers in Sri Lanka's embattled north.
Suggestions surfacing in United States diplomatic cables leaked by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks that the Sri Lanka government precipitated in war crimes against the minority Tamil population at the height of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has prompted British Defence Secretary Liam Fox to abandon plans for a private visit to the island nation.
Highlighting its tough stand against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Congress on Friday asserted in the Tamil Nadu Assembly that it won't relent till the Tigers' Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, a proclaimed offender in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination case, was arrested, extradited and prosecuted in India.
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.
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.
Nearly 70 percent voters cast their franchise in Sri Lanka's first post-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam presidential election on Tuesday, expected to be a close finish between incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main challenger General Sarath Fonseka.
The elusive Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is still in Sri Lanka and leading his fighters on the battlefront in Mullaittivu, a top rebel leader has said.Describing as 'malicious propaganda' reports that Prabhkaran has fled the island, B Nadesan, the political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, said, "Prabhakaran is with our people. He is still leading the freedom struggle".Nadesan's comments came amidst reports about heavy fighting between Tigers & Army
Sri Lanka's presidential polls on January 26, between incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse and the combined opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka, may be surprisingly too close to call, even as it has emerged that Rajapakse did the Congress party a favour during the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu last year by withdrawing the use of heavy weaponry against pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels in the last days of the war.
About 300 protestors from parties like MDMK, Indian National League and Tamil National Movement courted arrest along with the two leaders near the Munroe statue in Chennai while trying to go ahead with the rally.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his former army chief Sarath Fonseka were responsible for alleged war crimes and killing of Tamil civilians during the last phase of the 30-year-old civil war, according to a secret United States cable made public by WikiLeaks.
Sri Lankan troops on Sunday entered a key town on the road to the last remaining Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stronghold Mullaittivu and were within striking distance of the vital Elephant Pass as the army said the operation to capture Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was on course. Fresh from their takeover of rebel 'capital' Kilinochchi, troops entered the strategically vital Oddusuddan town located along the Mankulam-Mullaittivu main road.
Sri Lankan fighter jets on Wednesday pounded Tamil Tigers position near the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam strongholds of Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu in the embattled north as the advancing forces killed at least 20 militants in fierce clashes near the de facto capital of rebels, officials said. Lankan security forces yesterday killed at least 20 rebels as troops captured a strategic area near the rebel headquarters of Kilinochchi, the defence ministry said.
The European Union on Tuesday stepped up pressure on Sri Lanka to probe alleged human rights abuses during the 25-year ethnic war that came to an end after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers.
He asked the India government and the people of India to be magnanimous to put the past behind and to approach the ethnic question in a different perspective.
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, seeking his urgent intervention in the Sri Lankan issue.
The Sri Lankan government has ruled out unregulated access to the Internally Displaced Persons' camps in the island nation, arguing that such a step may threaten 'peace and tranquility' in these camps.Thousands of Tamil civilians, who had fled their homes after the fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan army escalated after a decades-long civil war, are still living in these camps.
Chowdhury, the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, claimed that his account was hacked as he was delivering a speech at a party office in West Bengal's Murshidabad district when the social media post was made.
LTTE leaders has been barred by SL court to travel out of the country
About 1,400 people die every week due to water-borne diseases, particularly diarrhoea, at the vast "internment camp" set up in northern Sri Lanka to house Tamil war refugees in an indication of the poor state of affairs of the displaced people, a media report said on Friday.
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.
An international airport, a strategic port, communication satellites, road and railway links -- China is spreading its web in the island nation. India has to take decisive steps or else the tide could turn against it, note T E Narasimhan and Veenu Sandhu.
Sri Lanka on Tuesday described hacking of the ministry of media and information's website as an act of 'cyber terrorism'.
Disclosing that more than 5,000 LTTE cadres had surrendered before the gvernment, Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa made it clear that criminal elements among the surrendered Tiger cadres would be brought to book while others will be rehabilitated.
Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Karuna, who was the eastern commander of the LTTE before he fell out with Prabhakaran in 2004, and Daya Master, who surrendered to the army recently, were taken by the government to Puthumatalan to identify Prabhakaran's bullet-ridden body. "The body is of Prabhakaran's, there is no doubt about this," said Karuna, now a federal minister
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