Congress star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday said India as a nation cannot forgive Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi though personally she and her family harbours no "hatred or anger" against killers of her father.
The claim came a day after the Tiger rebels blew up an army bus in Colombo, killing one soldier, and overran a naval base where they claimed 35 sailors died.
On the brink of capturing the entire rebel-held territory, Sri Lankan troops killed at least 150 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres in the island's embattled north, where a ship carrying biggest-ever food supplies for displaced civilians was ambushed by suspected guerrillas, officials said on Sunday.
The LTTE said that the island's new president Mahindra Rajapakse had failed to grasp the fundamentals and basic concepts behind the decades-long war waged by the LTTE.\n\n
India would arrange for a dialogue between Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam to stop the hostilities in the island nation if the government suspended military operations against the Tigers and the outfit laid down arms, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said in Chennai on Sunday.
The disclosure came as police reported that five more bullet-riddled bodies were found in the north-central district of Anuradhapura on Tuesday, 3 days after 5 other bodies bearing bullet injuries were found near the capital.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam maintains a hostile approach towards the exodus of civilians from the Wanni region, and the casualties caused by it is under-reported, Sri Lankan government told a high-level United Nations delegation on Monday.
The fallout of the spat between two headstrong and powerful personalities like Mahinda Rajapakse and Sarath Fonseka does not augur well for this small and beautiful Island nation struggling to leave the ravages of war behind, writes Nitin Gokhale.
During the two-day visit, Mukherjee will meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and discuss the latest situation in the northern part of the island nation, sources said. Mukherjee is expected to impress upon Rajapaksa government the need for finding a political solution to the ethnic problem to ensure lasting peace.
Sri Lankan troops on Wednesday captured the last remaining Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-held area in Jaffna, establishing total government control over the strategic northern peninsula. A senior LTTE Sea Tiger leader identified only as 'Thiru' was killed during the battle to take over the Chundikulam area, Military spokesperson Uday Nanayakkara said.
Moving to retake the last remaining LTTE bastions in the north, Sri Lankan troops on Monday reached the southern outskirts of strategically vital Elephant Pass after capturing a key town on the road to the rebels' coastal stronghold Mullaittivu, the military said. If the troops recapture the corridor, which was lost to the Tigers in 2000, a vital land link to Jaffna peninsula will be re-established.
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.
The Sri Lankan government has formally communicated to India the proof and details of the death of Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, a move expected to help New Delhi to close the investigations into the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
"We will leave the government if the President does not withdraw the joint mechanism plan with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by June 15," the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or People's Liberation Front said.
the Navy exchanged fire with a flotilla of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after the rebels attacked naval gunboats.
The government claims that the tigers have two aircraft.
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.
Expressing reservations about Norway's engagement with the Sri Lankan government, Modi said it was aimed at gaining control of a deep sea ports in Sri Lanka.
The United States asked Sri Lanka to carry out credible probe on violations of human rights during the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam war, as it warned it of more international pressure on the issue.
Notwithstanding the demise of the mercurial leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Velupillai Prabakharan, who was killed by the Sri Lankan security forces over a year ago, , the pro-LTTE lobby in the United States has remained active, particularly in the US Congress.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the escalating violence between government forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels in northern Sri Lanka and reminded the two parties of their obligation to ensure the safety of civilians.Ban's statement comes in the wake of Sri Lankan government's request that United Nations relief workers relocate from conflict affected areas.
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.
'Sri Lankan army chief General Fonseka told me that 10 minutes before they were killed, ambassadors were calling up Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse to save Prabhakaran and top LTTE leaders. Fonseka said any fool would have known that a ceasefire appeal was to save Prabhakaran and not the people, because there were no people there,' reveals Nitin Gokhale, author of the new book, Sri Lanka: From War to Peace.
Airline officials contend that following the recent air-raids by the LTTE, Sri Lanka's air traffic controllers were no longer in full control of the country's airspace.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday said that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was the mastermind behind the attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3.
The Q Branch police, dealing with cases of extremism and terrorism, arrested a top functionary of the proscribed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Chennai on Wednesday night.
The Sri Lankan commission looking into the civil strife with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam will examine the documentary aired by Britain's Channel 4 that showed gruesome pictures of alleged war crimes during the last weeks of the war.
Publicly, India maintained it would not give Sri Lanka any offensive weapons. The Congress party obviously did not want the shadow of Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict to fall on the politics of Tamil Nadu and needlessly complicate matters during the election campaign. A fascinating exclusive excerpt from Nitin Gokhale's new book, Sri Lanka: From War to Peace.
In the first post war elections in Sri Lanka after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a pro-Tiger party on Sunday won the municipal poll in Vavuniya, an indication that the separatists still attract popular support, even as President Mahinda Rajapaksa's coalition won the prestigious Jaffna local elections.
Pathmanathan, better known as 'KP' or Kumaran Pathmanathan, was flown to Colombo on Thursday night following his arrest in Bangkok, the Thai capital, the Island newspaper reported on Friday.
The rebels said that the government was planning a large-scale military offensive against them.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran pays his last respects to senior LTTE strategist Balasegaram Kandiah alias Brigadier Balraj, who died after a cardiac arrest at an undislosed location on Tuesday. The LTTE has announced a three-day mourning for him.
In a no-holds barred address, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has dared Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran to a one-on-one clash with him. He said that he would challenge Prabhakaran to clash with him directly to avoid a killing spree targeting innocent civilians, Parliamentarians and Ministers.
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.
Vaiko and some others have charged with making pro-LTTE speeches. The LTTE is banned in India.
The "mild-mannered" Veerasamy Thiruvengadam Velupillai, the father of the slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Prabhakaran, never endorsed the militant ways of his son and was not even on talking terms with him for a long period, a media report said on Sunday.
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