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 least 24 people were arrested by the security forces for defying the ban on celebrations, officials said.
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.
A heavy gunbattle between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels left 28 militants and two security personnel dead in the island nation's embattled north, the defence ministry said on Monday.
The ICRC had pulled out last week following a stepping up of shelling by government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels.
"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.
The bomb, planted on a tree-top, exploded as the crowded bus passed by in the Vavuniya district, 250 km north of Colombo, a police official in the area said over telephone.
Sri Lanka on Tuesday shut down Menik Farm, one of the largest refugee camps in world which once housed 300,000 Tamils displaced during the country's decade-long ethnic war which ended in 2009.
India on Tuesday assured Tamils displaced by the 30-year-old civil war in Sri Lanka's north of all possible assistance in their resettlement process, as Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao visited the war-ravaged towns and interacted with locals.
Sri Lanka on Tuesday claimed to have found slain Tamil Tiger chief Vellupilai Prabhakaran's personal gun and body armour, seven months after overrunning the last Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam bastion in the decisive battle at Nanthaikadal lagoon off the northern coast.The arms used by Prabhakaran were found buried 15 feet under the ground at Vellamulliwaikkal area in Mulaittivu along with scores of suicide kits and several anti-aircraft guns.
Having spent months in refugee camps, the homecoming to northern Sri Lanka is turning bitter for nearly 1,500 war-displaced Tamil families, as their houses have been unlawfully occupied allegedly by Sinhalese people.
The Sri Lankan government on Tuesday allowed nearly 1.30 lakh Tamil civilians housed in refugees camps in northern part of the island country to visit their relatives, as authorities lifted restrictions on their movement.
The International Organisation for Migration has helped about 90,000 displaced Tamils, lodged in the Menik Farm camps in Vavuniya, to return to their towns and villages in northern Sri Lanka.
On a mission in Sri Lanka to ascertain the living conditions of displaced Tamils after the end of the war, a delegation of MPs from Tamil Nadu on Sunday visited them in camps, who expressed their keenness to return to their towns and villages during an 'emotional interaction.'
Asin on her trip to war-torn regions of Northern Sri Lanka, thus becoming the first celebrity to visit the area.
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.
The political wing leader of the LTTE women's force, who crossed into the government-held areas from the no-fire zone in northern Sri Lanka in the guise of a civilian, was arrested from a refugee camp. Subramaniam Shivathai alias Thamilini, who came to the refugee camp with other civilians from Mullaitivu, during the last phase of the military operation was arrested at a welfare village in Vavuniya, a media report said.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Saturday witnessed the conditions of tens of thousands of displaced Tamil civilians in northern Sri Lanka as he appealed to a triumphant government to 'heal the wounds' left by three decades of ethnic conflict. The Secretary General visited the camps in Vavuniya district today, where more than 300,000 people are staying, after escaping from the battle lines between government forces and Tamil Tigers.
Doctors treating displaced Tamils in the government-run welfare camps in Sri Lanka's north have written a letter to Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa complaining about the inadequate facilities and shortage of medical staff.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam attacked army defence lines between Mannar and Vavuniya districts since Saturday night inflicting heavy losses.
The UN says that if permission is granted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and if a lull in fighting permits, the convoy will cross the frontline on Thursday noon, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said.
At least 42 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres and one soldier were killed in running gun battles between the rebels and security forces in the embattled Northern Sri Lanka, the army said on Thursday
At least 38 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres, including a woman, and two soldiers were killed in fierce clashes in Sri Lanka's restive north amidst attack by the air force fighter aircrafts to support the ground forces.
The bomber, who came on a motorbike, triggered the explosion in front of the office of Senior Superintendent of Police in the embattled Vavuniya town, officials said.
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.
Two Tigers were killed in a ground attack on Monday evening in the Vavuniya region where two soldiers were also wounded.
A Sri Lanka state transport bus ferried a group of passengers, for first time in last 20 years, from the captured de facto LTTE capital of Kilinochchi.
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.
The Sri Lankan security forces could not avert the LTTE attack on Anuradhapura air base in spite of the Indian installed radar system providing timely warning about the light rebel aircraft hovering over the area, officials said. The attack had claimed over 30 lives earlier this week. Defence Ministry officials said that the LTTE's light aircraft was spotted by the radar system, installed by India in Vavuniya. No aircraft was able to intercept the two LTTE planes.
For the Lankan army, there are two questions involved -- defeating the LTTE conventionally, and destroying its capability for continuing its struggle for Tamil Eelam through acts of terrorism. The achievement of both these objectives will depend upon a critical weakening of the morale and motivation of the LTTE officers and cadres, leading to increasing desertions and splits in the organisation
The Tigers' air strike on the military base in Vavuniya came as part of a brazen counter-attack by the rebels that led to heavy fighting on the ground in which 22 people, including 10 soldiers and equal number of guerrillas were killed. Sources said the two Indians, identified as Roop and Thakur, were carrying out maintenance and training of Sri Lankan personnel manning an Indian-supplied radar at the northern airbase.
The elite Special Forces attacked LTTE formations in the northern district of Vavuniya on Saturday, killing 11 in one place and two in another.
According to a Pro-LTTE website, the rebels claimed they thwarted an attack from the Sri Lankan Armed Forces at Muhamalai in Jaffna peninsula on Saturday morning.
Subash Chandraboas, 32, editor of the Tamil monthly Nilam, was gunned down late Monday at his residence in Vavuniya, 260 kilometres north of Colombo, the rights group said.
Eight Tamil Tiger rebels and a soldier have been killed in a series of gun-battles in Sri Lanka's troubled northern region. While four Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels were killed in a confrontation with security forces in Mannar, two Tigers died in Jaffna, the Defence Ministry said in a statement. Vavuniya region also witnessed a clash on Monday in which a solider lost his life.
Solheim said the visits were an important part of preparations for a meeting in Tokyo next week of Sri Lanka's key international financial backers who are to review their support of a faltering peace process.
Elsewhere, the guerrillas abducted 21 students and later freed them.
The three men were blown up while rigging an explosive device in the northern Periyarkulam village in the district of Vavuniya.
Police and troops stepped up security on Sunday ahead of next week's traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
Sri Lankan Navy, assisted by helicopter gunships, on Saturday destroyed three Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam boats, killing at least 15 of its cadres, while rebels said they sank two naval vessels in a fierce sea battle.
