India on Saturday expressed concern over the latest turn of events in Sri Lanka, particularly the air raids by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam aircraft over Colombo, and appealed to the government and the militant organisation to come to a peaceful negotiated settlement. "An LTTE plane has been shot down. This is of concern. Political solution has to be found to the LTTE issue and military action will not do," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukhjerjee told reporters.
For the LTTE to be able to stage a come-back one, it needs a beach-head out of the reach of the Sri Lankan armed forces where it can re-group, re-train and re-plan and wait for an opportunity to strike back.
In a daring attack, two LTTE aircrafts tonight carried out strikes in the heart of Colombo dropping bombs near the Army Headquarters ground and on a government building in the high security zone. At least 28 people have been injured, news reports indicate.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has charged the United Nations with not taking effective measures to protect the life of Tamil civilians fleeing the rebel held areas and denied killing the innocent people.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has done much damage to the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony is commanding a contingent of the Tamil Tigers, alongside other top rebel leaders like Banu and Lakshman, arrested black Tigers have revealed. Anthony, who returned from Ireland in 2006, is believed to have got a degree in aeronautical engineering and is heading the air wing and computer unit of the LTTE, according to the reports.
Targeting the 'support network' of the Tamil Tigers, the United States on Wednesday designated a US-based charity group as a 'front' of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and ordered freezing of its assets. The Tamil Foundation has been designated under 'Executive Order 13224', which "targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism," the US Department of Treasury said in a press statement.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has promised the United Nations that his forces would protect Tamil civilians as it pushes ahead with its offensive to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Rajapaksa gave this assurance over telephone to UN Secretary General Ban ki Moon, as his forces overran the last base of the sea Tigers near Mulaittivu, cutting off all their escape routes.
Sri Lanka, which is poised to capture the remaining strongholds of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has rejected the plea of the United States-led donor countries for a temporary 'no-fire period' in the island's north, saying this would be detrimental in efforts to wipe out terrorism from its soil.
Concerned over the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka, United States and Britain have asked both the island nation and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to agree to a 'temporary no-fire period' to allow civilians and the wounded to leave the conflict zone. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also called for a political resolution to the decades-old ethnic conflict in the country.
In the wake of the visit of India Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to Colombo for talks with the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Tamilnet, the English language web site associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has disseminated on January 30, 2009, an article attributed to "a political analyst in Vanni," which has accused "the present Indian establishment run by Congress of waging its own proxy war in the island of Sri Lanka, concurrent to Colombo's war
Continuing their string of successes against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lankan forces on Thursday gained total control over Visuamadu town, the nerve centre of the Tamil Tigers' artillery power, and captured a 35-feet submarine-type craft as well as other vessels. Initial search and clearing operations are being conducted in Visuamadu, one of the last bastions of the Tamil Tigers', they said.
"We are for fight against terrorists and all sorts of terrorism. Therefore, we have no sympathy for any terrorist activity indulged in by any organisation, particularly LTTE (which) is a banned organisation in India," he told media persons. He made the remarks hours before his departure to Sri Lanka, where the government has claimed to have captured Mullaithivu, the last bastion of LTTE.
Fresh from their success in capturing the last urban stronghold of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Mullaittivu, the Sri Lankan troops are training their guns on elusive Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran who, defence officials feel, is very much in the northern Wanni region, which comprises of Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu.
The Sri Lankan government has taken steps to ensure that the top Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leadership, including its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, from fleeing the country amidst fears that the Tamil Tigers could use their recently acquired aircraft to make their gateway.
Police chief Musa Hassan said he had ordered a nationwide alert following reports that Prabhakaran may have fled here or to Thailand, a media report said on Thursday.
The slain editor of a prominent Sri Lankan newspaper, known for its vocal anti-establishment stand on the war on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, was buried in Colombo on Monday as the government came under heavy flak, including from a senior ruling party leader, for failing to stop attacks on the media.Former president and ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party leader Chandrika Kumaratunga joined the growing number of opposition politicians and media watchdogs.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam today virtually conceded that its de-facto capital Kilinochchi has fallen to the Sri Lankan Army, saying that the security forces have entered a "virtual ghost town" as the whole infrastructure of Tamil Tigers have shifted to the northeast.
'If there is to be real peace in Sri Lanka, the end of Prabhakaran has to be brought about by the Tamils themselves and not by the Sinhalese army.'
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.
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".
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.
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.
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
The United Nations believes that the civilian death toll in the final war between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam might have been exaggerated in the media reports and were 'not necessarily correct'. But the UN "does not think that the figure quoted in the press is necessarily correct," highly-placed sources said, adding that though the media had quoted UN as the source for the shocking figure, the UN had no idea where the figure had come from.
"Apart from the way the Tiger leader got killed, the military is also still investigating intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman's death as they could not find his body among top level Tiger leaders," the State-run Sunday Observer 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.
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.
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.
The Times accessed confidential United Nations documents that record nearly 7000 civilian deaths in the no-fire zone up till the end of April. UN sources told the paper that the toll surged from this point onwards, and an average of 1000 civilians were killed each day till May 19, the day after the LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran himself was killed by the armed forces
Slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo V Prabhakaran's wife and teenage son had fled to Tamil Nadu last year, from where they were to fly to Singapore and then to an undisclosed location, a key aide of the rebel chief said, amid speculation that the entire family had been wiped out in the conflict.The newspaper did not reveal the name of Prabhakaran's aide in its report, while noting that there were rumours that the LTTE chief's family had been killed.
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".
Britain and Norway made a last minute bid to save the lives of two Tamil Tiger leaders but in vain as Sri Lankan troops closed in, the media reported on Saturday. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's political chief, B Nadesan, and peace secretariat head, S Pulidevan, had attempted to surrender, The Daily Telegraph said, in a report quoting Vijay Nambiar, the United Nation Secretary-General's envoy.The men were later found dead.
Arumugam (named changed) told a team of visiting journalists at a fortified building in Jaffna that houses the former LTTE cadres that the LTTE chief was quite regular in attending training camps and used to personally supervise their programmes. "I worked for the LTTE for almost six years and was classified as a Black Sea Tiger," Arumugam told the journalists.
The LTTE has quietly established a presence in the United States as part of its global expansion plan to raise funds and procure anti-aircraft weapons and other military equipment on a massive scale, the Washington Times reported. The group's political wing has established 'branches' in at least 12 countries as part of a global expansion to purchase millions of dollars worth of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment.
The news of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran's death has created ripples across the world, but it makes no difference to Muniyamma, the milk vendor who tipped off the Bangalore police about Rajiv Gandhi's assassins in 1991.What really matters to Muniyamma, 55, is that she is yet to receive the Rs 10 lakh promised to her by the police, for tipping them off about the whereabouts of LTTE operatives Shivarasan and Shubha.
The announcement of the death of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader V Prabhakaran by the Sri Lankan army has not created any flutter in the Lankan refugee camps in Rameswaram and Madurai, but most inmates dismissed the reports as false. "Prabhakaran is not dead. He will emerge stronger... nobody can touch even his shadow," Andrews, a refugee at Mandapam camp, said. "Prabhakaran has been fighting for us for more than 30 years, we know his strength," said another refugee.
Prabhakaran strode in, wearing his trademark safari suit. Well built, very sure of himself. He put his hands on the table and looked around the hall scanning the entire area slowly. There was pin drop silence. We had been told not to get up but those on stage had risen.
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.
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