Describing the slain head of LTTE political wing S P Thamilselvan as an extra-ordinary son of our nation, Tamil Tigers' reclusive supreme V Prabhakaran on Tuesday charged that the international community contributed to his killing by only paying "lip service to peace".
'Given that they are playing at home and will have full crowd support, India, who are in peak form and whose morale is high, will be the favourites.'
The fierce clashes got under way at a time when President Mahinda Rajapaksa unveiled the budget proposals for 2008 in Parliament and vowed to wipe out terrorism completely in the island nation.
Though the situation in Tamil Nadu is normal now, there is underlying tension about the possible reactions that will be evoked once Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's death is confirmed."Though the common man will not turn to violence, there are still fringe elements that are pro-LTTE, which will try to whip up the sentiments of the people. But this can be brought under control if the state is alert," security analyst B Raman said.
He clarified that the government is not going to help the LTTE "as it is a terrorist organisation responsible for assassination of an Indian Prime Minister and not even apologised for it."
This is the second time that Vaiko had been arrested for supporting the banned outfit. He was arrested under POTA by the previous All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government for speaking in support of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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.
In a major boost to the presidential campaign of former top Sri Lankan army general Sarath Fonseka, the dominant Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance on Wednesday announced support to him.
The demand for an independent war crimes investigations into the "massacre" during the final days of the civil war in Sri Lanka has been intensified amid outrage that Vijay Nambiar, a top aide to UN Secretary-General was aware that over 20,000 Tamils were killed by the army.
'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.
India on Monday denied a report in a Sri Lankan newspaper that 'terrorists' were being trained at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu, describing it "entirely erroneous".
Karuna Amman, a rebel Tamil Tigers leader, jailed in London for entering Britain on a forged visa and diplomatic passport, will not face further charges and be deported to Sri Lanka soon, the Crown Prosecution Service has said. The 45-year-old Karuna whose real name is Vinayagmoorthy Muralitharan, has been accused by human rights groups of forcing teenagers to serve as child soldiers, torturing prisoners and killing hundreds of civilians.
Military officials said they switched off electricity to the city as part of the air defence system that was activated following reports of the suspicious aircraft.
"Government troops have retaliated the LTTE attack using mortar and artillery guns," the ministry said adding that 20 LTTE cadres have been confirmed killed due to retaliatory firing.
Tamil Nationalist Movement leader, one of the most vocal supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, speaks on the civil war raging in Sri Lanka.
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".
In stepped-up fighting, Sri Lankan security forces gunned down at least 43 Tamil Tigers and lost seven soldiers in the island's restive north, where the Air Force jets today raided an LTTE transport base in the rebel-dominated Kilinochchi area.
In the wake of the arrival of MV Sun Sea in Canada on August 12 with 492 Sri Lankan Tamils -- including 63 women, and 49 children, about half-a-dozen of them unaccompanied -- there are reports that two more ships are heading towards Canada.
Sri Lankan Air Force jets on Thursday bombed and destroyed a key LTTE facility occupied by senior rebel leaders as a series of clashes in the island's embattled north left at least 40 Tamil Tigers dead.
With the Sri Lankan forces poised to capture the remaining strongholds of the Lankan Tigers of Tamil Eelam, India on Thursday told Colombo to ensure the safety of the Tamil civilians who are caught in the war zone in the north of the island. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee also asked the LTTE to allow civilians in the areas held by it to cross over to the safe zones of the Sri Lankan government
If the trailer is any indication, Ranbir Kapoor's Animal will be one of the most violent films of 2023.
Sri Lankan Estate Housing Infrastructure Minister Muthu Sivalingam has said that assassination of the country's foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, would not derail the peace process.
While 18 rebels were killed on Thursday, 20 LTTE cadre were shot dead yesterday, the defence ministry said, adding that seven soldiers were also injured during the operations.
"One of the military outposts at Thalgasmankada, located about 50 km south of Pottuvil, guarding the Yala national park came under the LTTE attack on Monday night. Six soldiers were killed and one more wounded," military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara told UNI over phone, adding that the military had repulsed the rebel attack.
The government has slammed peace broker Norway for 'misleading' the international community.
It was not immediately clear whether President Chandrika Kumaratunga wanted parliamentary approval of the plan before putting it into place.
'The struggle for Tamil equality and justice for Tamils did not start with the LTTE and will not end with LTTE. I am not saying that the LTTE has come to an end.'
Over 24 Tigers rebels are believed to have been killed on Sunday when the Sri Lankan Navy attacked and destroyed a ship carrying arms for the LTTE. "There were 24 to 25 people aboard the ship and we believe all of them have been killed," Defence Spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said. The Lankan naval task group comprising Off Shore Patrol vessels SLNS Sayura, SLNS Sagara, Fast Attack Vessel SLNS Suranimila and Rendezvous vessel 521 were engaged in the elite operation.
V V Ganeshananthan discusses her first book Love Marriage, a novel set in Sri Lanka, with Arthur J Pais.
His remarks followed National Security Advisor M K Narayanan's recent remarks in Chennai that Sri Lanka should not seek weapons from Pakistan or China, but should come to India for its requirements.
I don't remember Rajinikanth beheading anyone so brutally in any of his previous films. Or glamourising so much of blood and violence. This is an altogether different version of a brutal Ra1jinikanth, something you and I had probably never imagined before, observes Divya Nair.
The mine, planted near an electricity transformer, was targeted at a bus taking constables home on leave, a police official said.
Balasingham first met Prabhakaran in Tamil Nadu in the late 1970s and since then they had been close associates.
LTTE and the Tamil cause was a stepping stone that Vaiko used just as other Tamil leaders did. For his exertions, he was thrown out of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam where, he claims, he fell a victim to family politics: he came in the way of Karunanidhi's son Stalin's elevation.
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga on Saturday imposed a state of emergency to deal with the aftermath of the assassination of her foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.
Claiming that rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were 'receiving an unprecedented defeat,' Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday vowed that government troops would flush out the Tigers from their Wanni heartlands in the north.
'Children and their families need to return to their homes and put the pieces of their old lives back together again after the trauma of conflict,' says UNICEF official Sarah Crowe.
Over 29 Tamil Tigers have been killed and 36 injured in separate clashes with the security forces in Sri Lanka's embattled north. In a separate incident, two civilians were killed in a roadside bomb attack in northern Jaffna.
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