On the verge of total defeat, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Thursday said that nearly 165,000 civilians in the areas controlled by it were close to starvation and accused Sri Lankan authorities of blocking food and humanitarian supplies to the area. Comparing the humanitarian crisis in the 10 sq km swath of coastal land in Pudukudiyyiruppu to the Dafur crisis in Sudan, the LTTE in a statement asked the United Nations and other international aid groups to intervene.
The United Nations on Friday said that more than 50,000 civilians were still trapped in Sri Lanka's war zone and renewed its call to Colombo to allow an assessment mission into the area to facilitate relief operations and evacuation procedures. The Sri Lankan government had said that an estimated 15,000 people still remained in the war zone.
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.
The Bush administration's point man for South Asia, Richard Boucher, has said that while Washington fully recognises the terrorist threat Sri Lanka continues to face from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, it should continue acting like a democracy and protect all of its citizens. The senior diplomat feels that there is a need for a political solution "alongside whatever is going on militarily and we hope the Tamil Tigers will see that as well."
Tamil Tigers and their supremo V Prabhakaran are facing imminent defeat at Kilinochchi as the Sri Lankan army is on the verge of overrunning Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's defacto capital, former top LTTE commander Karuna Amman has said.In an interview to state owned Independent Television Network, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna Amman, once the second in command in the LTTE, said the rebel leader was about to be "punished for his insensate crimes".
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.
Making a final push to overrun the last patch of territory held by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lankan forces on Wednesday pushed deeper, capturing six kilometres of the 18 km 'No Fire Zone' as thousands of trapped Tamils civilians continued to flee the northern war zone.
Since major fighting between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam resumed in 2006, Sri Lankan security forces and pro-government armed groups have abducted hundreds of individuals, many of whom are feared dead. Under international law, a State commits an enforced disappearance when it takes a person into custody and denies holding them or disclosing their whereabouts.
The United States has said it is working with India to find a political solution in Sri Lanka now that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam "is now flat on its back having lost most of its leaders," but has no intention of putting pressure on New Delhi to change its policy toward Sri Lanka, which has been perceived by some Tamils to be favoring the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
More than 35,000 trapped Tamil civilians on Monday made a dramatic breakout from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-controlled areas in Sri Lanka's embattled north, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa handing out a last 24-hour deadline for Tiger supremo V Prabhakaran and his top aides to surrender. Proclaiming that the mass exodus indicated that a 'complete defeat' of the Tigers was imminent, Rajapaksa warned that after this, his forces would make an 'all out' bid.
Sri Lanka's former premier Ranil Wickremesinghe has rubbished the government's claim that the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam rebels are on the verge of being brought down to its knees saying there are still 15,000 armed Tamil tigers left.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has lost yet another strong bastion to the marauding Sri Lankan forces.
As suspense grows about the whereabouts of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran after the capture of the last bastion of the outfit, the Sri Lankan army chief on Monday said he believed the guerrilla leader could be in an underground bunker or in the no-fire zone.It is widely believed that both Prabhakaran and his son Charles Anthony could be in the 20 sq km no-fire zone, where the rebel remnants are said to be holed up after they were pushed out.
Stepping up the momentum of their advance to capture the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stronghold of Kilinochchi, the Lankan troops on Tuesday claimed to have killed scores of rebels after smashing through a string of LTTE bunkers. Government troops of the 53 Division, advancing from Kilaly village near Jaffna, carried out the ambush in the morning, a defence ministry official said
Fresh from their success in capturing the entire North-western coast, the Sri Lankan Air Force fighter jets on Sunday pounded bunkers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and seized hundreds of arms and ammunitions while recovering the bodies of two militants, officials said.
Sri Lankan security forces on Saturday captured the strategic northern town of Pooneryn, the last Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam bastion in the west coast, giving the forces a vital land link to Jaffna.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that he had never met slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and would have preferred to chat with him."I would have preferred to bring him here and have a chat with him. I have never seen this man," Rajapaksa said. The President also said he was not at all interested in knowing how the LTTE chief had been killed.
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 Human Rights Watch called on both the Government and LTTE to allow thousands of civilians to flee the war zone. The rights group said the civilians in the area were at garve risk from the fighting.
Vaiko, who was present in the court, said he never sought any leniency.
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko on Monday, dubbed the photographs released by the Sri Lankan army which shows him with Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran as old ones and said there is an "ulterior motive" behind it.
The Sri Lankan government on Thursday sought to assure India that its ongoing offensives on the Tamil Tiger stronghold of Kilinochchi was being carried out by following zero civilian casualty doctrine and all assistance was being provided to displaced Tamil civilians.
At least 52 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres and five soldiers were killed as heavy fighting raged today for control of the key Northern Sri Lankan city of Killinochchi, with government forces pressing fighter aircraft to pound Tiger bunkers on the outskirts
Sri Lankan security forces destroyed four Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam bunkers as they continued to lay siege to the crucial Kilinochchi town and 35 Tamil Tigers and six security personnel were killed in fierce clashes in the northern region, the army said on Monday.
Rahul Gandhi is neither Congress president, office-bearer nor Congress leader in Parliament. This technical leeway provides adequate cover for Shiv Sena-Congress ties taking a nosedive, says Rasheed Kidwai.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said on Friday said the air strikes carried out by it over capital Colombo killing two people and injuring 54 others were suicide attacks by its elite 'Black Air Tiger' squad.
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.
The ongoing war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cannot be a solution to the ethnic conflict in the island nation and only a negotiated settlement will bring lasting peace in the nation, former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga said in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The Tamil Tigers are ready for ceasefire if the Sri Lankan government is willing to halt its military offensive against them, a pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam political party said on Tuesday.
The Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy was manhandled and abused by a group of lawyers in a court room at the Madras High Court on Tuesday.
"By using this word they have helped the Tamil Tigers create genocide in Sri Lanka for many years. They have no right to do that because we are two friendly countries. But these MPs are doing it because of their vote banks. They want to get elected because of the votes of Sri Lankan Tamils in certain federal ridings. These MPs are in the pockets of those people (Tamils)."
Col Hariharan joins readers on Rediff Chat on February 5, 2009 to answer their queries on the crisis in Sri Lanka and about India's role in the conflict, if any.
He made every fighter of his guerrilla outfit wear a cyanide capsule, to be swallowed when they were facing arrest, but Vellupillai Prabhakaran himself did not carry one when he was killed by the Sri Lankan troops, in the last phase of the 30-year-old bloody civil war."Prabhakaran did not have a cyanide capsule on him. We did not find any such thing. Many other LTTE cadres had capsules with them, but not Prabhakaran," top defence sources said.
Army tanks and infantry moved deep into the sea Tiger base in Chalai region in Northern Mullaittivu after killing four top LTTE leaders, including Vinayagam, number three in the hierarchy list of sea tigers.
It is not advisable for India to be seen by large sections of the Sri Lankan Tamils as not only anti-LTTE -- rightly so -- but also as anti-Tamil.
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.
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 LTTE forgot that Eelam was a means to an end -- that is a place of honour for Tamils and preservation of their identity and culture. By obdurately focussing on 'all or nothing' strategy, the LTTE lost everything and has brought upon untold misery on the Tamil people of Jaffna.
In an interview, Sri Lankan Tamil writer Shobasakthi talks about his one-time leader Prabhakaran, the organisation, and how the Diaspora views the present situation.
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.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances