28.03.2007

 

An Assessment of the LTTE Air Strike

By B.Raman

The Sri Lankan Government has imposed a total black-out on the losses suffered by it from the conventional air strike launched by the Tamil Eelam Air Force (TAF) of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on the air base of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) at Katunayake outside Colombo on March 26,2007. The air base is located adjoining the international airport. The black-out is meant to hamper any damage assessment by the media and other analysts - from Sri Lanka as well as outside. One has to,therefore, depend on source reports.

2. The only information which the Government has given out is that two helicopters were damaged. It has tried to create an impression as if there was no damage to its fighter aircraft. Source reports, on the other hand, indicate that the TAF air strike has severely damaged, if not destroyed, at least a half of the aircraft holdings of the SLAF. The truth will be known only if and when the SLAF resumes its operations in the Tamil areas. If the Government’s contention that there was no damage to its fighter aircraft is correct, then there would be no impact on its air operations in the Tamil areas. If the source reports’ contention is correct, one would see a marked decrease in the SLAF’s air operations in the days to come.

3. The TAF’s air strike was well-planned and equally well-executed. It was a night operation taking advantage of the weak capability of the SLAF for night operations. It was a precision attack, which carefully avoided causing any casualty or damage in the international airport, which could have roused international ire. There were no civilian casualties—-targeted or collateral. As a result, it would not be possible to characterise the attack as an act of terrorism. It was pure and simple a conventional air strike. The bombs targeted the hangar or hangars at the base inside which the aircraft of the SLAF are normally parked at night. Three SLAF personnel were killed and about 20 injured. It is not yet known whether they were the maintenance people or whether any of them were pilots. Maintenance casualties can be easily replaced, but not pilot casualties.

4.Some worrisome questions arise. Even professional pilots of a State Air Force need regular flying practice. You can’t just assemble or take out an aircraft from a hide-out and fly out on a bombing mission. Where were the TAF pilots doing their flying practice? How come the Air Force intelligence set-ups of Sri Lanka as well as India missed detecting these training flights of the TAF? One needs fuel for the aircraft. From the way the LTTE has been warning of more air attacks, it seems to have an adequate reserve of fuel. Where from it got the fuel? Hopefully, not from India. Since April last year, when the Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse started using the SLAF, the latter has been claiming that it had repeatedly bombed the air strip of the TAF. When an air strip is bombed, it takes time to repair it. How did the LTTE manage to repair it without any problem? Or, does it have another air strip, which has not come to the notice of the Sri Lankan intelligence?

5. The air strike was a daring operation. The TAF aircraft were air-borne for a little over two hours.There was every danger of the aircraft being intercepted and destroyed by the SLAF. The fact that the LTTE leadership decided to face this risk speaks of a certain desperation behind the decision to launch the air strike. One could detect a similar desperation in its efforts to smuggle material required for improvised explosive devices (IEDS) from Tamil Nadu. Since November,2006, a number of consignments of ball bearings, aluminium and similar material intended for smuggling to the LTTE-controlled areas have been intercepted by the Tamil Nadu Police and the Coast Guard. “The Hindu” of March 24,2007, has reported that one of the arrested persons admitted during the interrogation that one consignment had managed to reach Sri Lanka. (see item titled ” Two Held in Iron Balls Seizure Case” on Page Eight). Two conclusions emerge: First, the LTTE is so desperate for replenishments from Tamil Nadu that it is prepared to face the risk of the arrest of some of its collaborators in Tamil Nadu. Second, if one consignment managed to avoid detection and interception and reach the LTTE, there is a strong possibility of more consignments having reached the LTTE. This reveals gaps in our counter-LTTE security measures.

6.This desperation has arisen from the LTTE’s fears that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces were planning to launch an offensive in the Northern Province after having ejected the LTTE from nearly 85 per cent of the total territory in the Eastern Province. If the SL Armed Forces score similar successes in the Northern Province, that could deal a severe blow to the LTTE’s political objectives. LTTE spokesmen have been repeatedly hinting that any offensive in the North would lead to a blood-bath in areas outside the Eastern and Northern Provinces.The Sri Lankan Armed Forces and their Foreign Office were treating these warnings casually as the dying gasp of the LTTE. Through its daring air strike, the LTTE has conveyed a credible message that it may be down, but not out. It still has a lot of daring, fight and innovative ability left in it.

7.The Sri Lankan Armed Forces would be stupid to over-estimate the significance of their successes in the Eastern Province and under-estimate the LTTE’s capabilities in the Northern Province. The successes in the Eastern Province were largely due to the role played by Karuna and his men, and the ruthless use of the SLAF and the heavy artillery of Pakistani origin. Karuna is a former commander of the LTTE from the Batticaloa District of the Eastern Province, who deserted from the LTTE in March 2004 due to differences with Prabakaran. The LTTE did not consider it necessary to use the TAF to prevent the set-backs in the Eastern Province. It is facing a serious shortage of anti-aircraft weapons and ammunition, but still has some, which have been kept in the reserve for use in the North and to prevent a decapitation strike against Prabakaran. The Sri Lankan Army will have to operate in the North without the support of Karuna and his men, who are detested there as Sinhalese quislings. Moreover, the LTTE’s soldiers will be fighting in their own area with which they are familiar. Any operations in the North will see the LTTE fighting ferociously—-possibly making full use of its air and anti-aircraft capability. It will hit out against the Sinhalese in the rest of Sri Lanka. It is not doing so presently due to fears of a backlash against the Tamils living in the Sinhalese majority areas, but a desperate LTTE will not be inhibited by such considerations.

8. The demonstrated air attack capability of the LTTE poses immediate, short, medium and long-term threats to Sri Lanka and medium and long-term threats to India. The first immediate threat is to the security of President Rajapakse and other VIPs. The ability to use an aircraft—either conventionally or through a suicide mission— will enable the LTTE to circumvent access control measures.Without effective access control, there is no effective VIP security. The second immediate threat is psychological—the negative impact on foreign tourists and investors. This impact will be enhanced if the TAF carries out attacks on economic targets.

9. The third immediate impact is also psychological on the minds of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Prabakaran is stated to be a voracious reader. He reads everything that is available on guerilla warfare, covert actions etc. A favourite quote of his from one of these books is:” Those, who dare, win”. It is said that this quote is exhibited in all training centres of the LTTE. The TAF dared on the morning of March 26 against tremendous odds. It succeeded. There was elation among the Sri Lankan Tamils all over the world. Many champagne bottles were broken by members of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. An added reason for this elation is stated to be the fact that all the TAF pilots are from the diaspora. One could see a fresh flow of volunteers to join the LTTE from Sri Lanka itself as well as from the diaspora. And a fresh flow of funds.

10. To neutralise these psychological impacts, the the SLAF has to demonstrate quickly that its capability and morale have not been affected. Can it do so? It is very important.

11.The short, medium and long-term threats to Sri Lanka will arise if as a result of this demonstrated air capability of the TAF, the SLAF loses its present air superiority. If that happens, the SL Armed Forces and the LTTE will be more evenly matched on the ground than they are today. That means continuing bloodshed and the danger of Tamil Eelam becoming a reality one day.The statements of the close advisers of Rajapakse before the air raid including those of his Foreign Minister show considerable naivete. They seem to think the LTTE can be defeated militarily. The only instances in recent history where terrorist organisations have collapsed without achieving any of their stated objectives are those of the Khalistanis and of the Western ideological groups such as the German Red Army Faction. They collapsed or withered away because they had no support from the people for whose cause they claimed to be fighting. The LTTE has considerable support from the Sri Lankan Tamils—in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. Unless they are weaned away from the LTTE through appropriate political measures, a military victory is doubtful. Repeated bombing raids by the SLAF on Sri Lankan Tamils in order to intimidate them are not the way of winning over the Tamils. Barring the US, which has been heavily using air strikes against the Neo Taliban in Afghanistan and the terrorists and resistance-fighters in Iraq, without any significant success, and Israel, which did so in the Lebanon in July last year,no other country in the world uses air strikes for counter-insurgency operations in such a ruthless manner as the Rajapakse Government has been doing. At the least the US and Israel have been bombing foreign people in foreign territory, but the Rajapakse Government has been bombing from air its own people in its own territory.

12. There is no immediate security threat to India. The medium and long-term threats will arise from the likelihood of copy-cat terrorism and the LTTE one day using it against an Indian target. India has any number of terrorist and insurgent organisations active in different parts of the country. Some of them might be tempted to emulate the LTTE. Successful development and use of an independent air strike capability by a terrorist organisation is largely conditional on its having territorial control over the rural areas. Purely urban terrorist organisations would find it difficult to develop an independent air capability. In India, the Naxalites (Maoists) have effective control over large parts of rural areas. One has to be careful about them.

13. India is no stranger to air terrorism. The plane hijackings by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Khalistanis, the blowing-up of the Kanishka aircraft of Air India by the Babbar Khalsa of Canada and the clandestine air drop of weapons by a plane manned by a mercenary crew in Purulia were instances of air terrorism. In the early 1990s, a member of the Babbar Khalsa trained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence had stated during his interrogation that the ISI had asked him to join the Mumbai Flyting Club, take a trainer aircraft up and crash it on the Bombay High Oil platform. Such instances of air terrorism can be prevented by effective physical security on the ground.

14. But when an insurgent or a terrorist organisation acquires an independent air strike capability, the task of countering it becomes much more difficult. Preventive intelligence is an effective way, but it totally failed in the case of the LTTE. It was able to hoodwink the intelligence agencies of many countries—including those of India, Sri Lanka and the European countries— get its pilots recruited from the diaspora and trained in foreign training institutions —like Al Qaeda did– and smuggle the aircraft in dismantled forms to the areas controlled by it.

15. The LTTE should not be allowed to retain its TAF. The matter should be taken up in the UN Security Council under Resolution 1373 and an ultimatum issued to the LTTE to surrender its planes to observers appointed by the UNSC. If it fails do so, the bank accounts of all members of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora suspected or known to be funding the LTTE should be frozen as a first step to make it see reason. If it continues to be defiant, other measures have to be considered like knocking them out. These measures have to be combined with pressure on the Rajapakse Government to initiate a political process towards a federal solution. Unilateral action only against the LTTE without simultaneous action against the Rajapakse Government or vice versa will prove counter-productive. [saag.org]

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. E-mail:itschen36@gmail.com )

Courtesy : Tamil Week

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LTTE air raid on Katunayake air base - An Analysis

By Col R Hariharan (retd)

The first ever raid by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) air force carried out on Katunayake military air base, 23 Km from Colombo in the early hours of Monday, 26 March 2007 was not unexpected. However, that does not minimize its importance.

According to the Sri Lanka air force spokesman, a light aircraft made a sneak raid around 12.45 am and lobbed two 'explosives' on a hangar killing three airmen and injuring 15 others. However, the LTTE had claimed two of its aircraft took part in the raid and dropped four bombs on the target.

The air base security opened fire, but evidently the LTTE aircraft managed to return safely to their base. The civilian airport close by did not suffer any damage indicating the attack was a light one of short duration.

Six photographs of the LTTE air force are carried in the pro-LTTE website Tamil Net (also in the Asian Tribune ) after the raid. In two photographs taken in daylight, seven LTTE airmen in blue uniform were shown with their leader Prabhakaran. Three photographs showed views of four bombs under slung on the aircraft. If this was the aircraft used for the raid, the photographs were taken prior to the mission because the four bombs were still held in tact. The finish of the undercarriage for holding the bombs showed it was probably fabricated. Similarly, the tailfin and the body of the bomb showed they were probably improvised locally. A sixth photograph showed two pilots sitting in the open cockpit of a four-seat aircraft. In the ND TV report on the air raid, the LTTE had claimed that it was a technical demonstrator of its air force capability. It also claimed that LTTE engineers had designed the electrical bomb release circuitry of the aircraft.

Since 1998, the LTTE was known to be trying to build an air arm. However, the effort suffered a set back when Sornalingam alias Col Shankar, the brain behind the air arm was killed in a LRPP raid. LTTE built up its air arm during the ceasefire period from 2002.

Though the intelligence services had reported the build up of this capability in LTTE, the Sri Lanka Government perhaps chose to ignore the reports n order not to jeopardize its peace parleys with LTTE. Intelligence agencies had estimated present strength of the LTTE air wing as two light aircraft and two small helicopters. This was partly confirmed by the UAV reconnaissance flights over LTTE's airstrip at Iranamadu. After the LTTE walked out of the peace talks and continued with its unending violations of the ceasefire, Sri Lanka raised a lot of objections to the LTTE's development of the air arm in violation of ceasefire. India had also expressed its growing concern on this development. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission then took up the matter with the LTTE. Though LTTE acknowledged the existence of an air wing, it did not give any other information.

During the ceasefire period, LTTE also developed a second airstrip at Pudukuduiruppu (about 26 km northwest of Mullaitivu). When the Security Forces started hitting back at LTTE in December 2005, LTTE air asset was one of the earliest targets. The Sri Lanka Air Force had bombed both the airstrips and their infrastructure on more than one occasion during 2005-2006 in a bid to put both the airstrips out of action. However, the air raid carried out today has shown that the air strikes have not affected LTTE's ability to fly the aircraft for operation.

Air arm is a vital force multiplier in conventional warfare. Though the air strikes may not result always in high battlefield casualties, they are tremendous morale boosters for the land forces. Air strikes cripple the morale and fighting quality of the opponent. LTTE's high vulnerability to air strikes has been exposed during the Eelam War IV. LTTE had managed to procure surface to air missiles earlier from different sources (including Pakistan based terrorist group Harkat ul Mujahideen) and used them effectively between 1998 and 2001. Presumably, its stock of these missiles ran out by 2001. Thus now LTTE suffers from the lack of an effective anti aircraft weapons or defence system. For quite sometime now, LTTE had been scouting the global grey markets of weapon trade to buy anti aircraft missiles.

Only last month, a retired Indonesian Marine Corps General Erick Wotulo, trapped in Guam by the FBI in a sting operation, was convicted for his involvement in procuring arms for the LTTE.

LTTE's shopping list revealed in this operation anti-aircraft missiles. Moreover, the Sri Lanka Navy had been quite successful in bottling up LTTE from using its maritime resources to ship arms and weaponry to Wanni. Even as recently as last week the Navy intercepted and sank two ships off Arugam Bay. The two ships cargo destined for LTTE included spares for aircraft (according to one report parts of three light aircraft), a number anti-aircraft missiles, and artillery ammunition shipped from Southeast Asia.
Though the LTTE air raid did not cause too much damage to either the military airbase or the aircraft stationed there, it gives some useful pointers about its capability:

* Scope of operation: It is difficult to believe that LTTE risked their precious aircraft just to lob two bombs that caused little damage to Sri Lanka air force aircraft. There is a strong possibility that LTTE planned to carryout the air raid in coordination with a ground strike on the air base, which did not materialise. If that were so, LTTE's ground support in the vicinity of the airbase could have been in one or more forms: a mole in the airbase, a ground attack force of LTTE commandos, a diversionary effort elsewhere to prevent retaliatory action etc.

* Objective of operation:If the raid was not a coordinated operation as discussed above, it could be only to assert that LTTE still remained a force to reckon with, despite the beating it has recently taken with the heavy loss of men and material. In the present operations so far, the Sea Tigers have not been able to outsmart the Sri Lanka Navy imposing further limitations on the LTTE capability. The Security Forces have flushed out LTTE from most of its strongholds in the east. They are now poised to launch offensive operations along the Mannar-Vavuniya area and along the frontlines in Jaffna. All these compulsions are perhaps forcing LTTE leadership to produce dramatic results to restore its rapidly dwindling credibility, particularly among the Tamils both at home and abroad. And probably a surprise air operation was chosen for achieving this objective.

* Results of the air raid: The LTTE air operation, despite the limited results it produced, has demonstrated a new dimension of LTTE capability under adverse circumstances. Thus it is sure to boost the sagging morale of LTTE cadres and its supporters. On the other hand, Sri Lankan planners would do well to understand that LTTE still retained the technical capability to maintain, arm and fly the aircraft. Perhaps, they would like to consider this aspect in planning future ground and air operations.

* Secondary effects of the raid: The raid could prove a further set back to the dwindling international tourist traffic.The tourism industry has already been crippled by adverse travel advisories from the West, particularly after LTTE Sea Tiger boats raided the Dakshina naval base near Galle in October 2006.

* Limitations of air base security: The raid has exposed the limitations of security of the air base from stealth raids. Airspace can never be sealed completely, particularly from light flying aircraft with its minute radar signature. Such aircraft flying low at tree top level below the air defence radar's horizon can manage to enter the airspace. Some years back, a light aircraft managed to penetrate the airspace above the White House despite its strong air defence systems some years back. So to defend an air base against terrorist threat conventional measures would not be adequate. An integrated strategy involving counter intelligence measures to eliminate moles, intelligence acquisition efforts directed to gain early warning on impending operations, a modern air defence system and physical security measures with a well-rehearsed operational readiness drill will have to be devised.

LTTE's military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan while confirming the raid had said "It is not only pre-emptive, it is a measure to protect Tamil civilians from the genocidal aerial bombardments by Sri Lankan armed forces." This would indicate that LTTE objective of the raid was to cripple the air force, and cause maximum damage to its aircraft. If this were so the mission had failed to achieve its objective. However, he has spoken of more attacks of the same nature to follow. With limited aircraft, it might not be so easy to carry out more such operations in the vicinity of Colombo.

Trincomalee airport, divisional and force headquarters at various places in the proximity of LTTE areas could become the scene of such actions in the future. Perforce LTTE air operation will be mounted in the nights for fear of Sri Lanakan air force fighters and anti aircraft defence shooting them down in daytime.

The Sri Lankan airlines lost most of its fleet of civilian aircraft while the air force also lost quite a few aircraft in an LTTE raid on Katunayake on July 24, 2001. That was a watershed event in Sri Lanka's war against LTTE. Viewed in that backgdrop, it is essential that Security Forces to reassure the public and civilian airlines operators of measures taken to ensure their security.

Can LTTE's minuscule air force of a few light aircraft pose a threat to any country? Hagrup Haukland, the head of the SLMM had clarified this aspect in February 2005. He said the skies over Sri Lanka were under the sovereign control of the Government of Sri Lanka. Any flying in Sri Lankan skies would have to have the express sanction of the Sri Lankan Government. (Or in other words, LTTE's air operation impinges upon the sovereignty of Sri Lankan skies.) International treaties and agreements govern the use of international airspace. Thus flying of aircraft at will by a non-state actor like LTTE, with its dubious record of killings and suicide bombings, is against international law. As Haukland said, "the acquisition of aircraft by an organisation like the LTTE means a lot. It is a serious matter, which impinges on Sri Lanka's security. India is concerned too."

As far as India is concerned the LTTE air raid has brought the potential threat from LTTE nearer. Whether LTTE has the intent to use its newly acquired capability against India or not, it does not matter. Despite LTTE's spokesman Daya Masters loud claim that the LTTE air arm was not directed against any country other than Sri Lanka, India should show no complacency in handling the matter.

LTTE's low credibility and record of double-dealings should make the Government sit up and tighten up its air security measures in the south. Already, LTTE efforts to smuggle supplies its war effort from Tamil Nadu is continuing relentlessly despite apprehension of a few boats in the Palk Strait. That should not happen in the air. As a nation we should not let our airspace be violated by groups acting outside the pale of international law, if we respect our sovereignty.

Col R Hariharan, an intelligence analyst of the South Asia Analysis Group, is a retired Military Intelligence officer who served as the head of intelligence with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90.

Courtesy: Asian Tribune

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The Tigers’ Air Terrorism: How To Respond

By Dayan Jayatilleka

28 March 2007

Let’s have some perspective here. Dramatic and skillful as it is, the Air Tiger attack was successful in psychological and symbolic terms, not in material ones. They could not hit the vital assets of the Sri Lankan air force, nor, more importantly, could they manage a decapitation strike on our political or military command centers and leadership.

Furthermore, the Air Tiger raid is not unprecedented in the annals of irregular warfare and terrorism, as some breathless Western reporters would have it. The Palestinians launched a successful hang-glider raid on an Israeli army camp some years back! In the late 1960s, the Biafran separatists of the Ibo tribe in Nigeria had some Western volunteer pilots flying light aircraft rigged with rockets under their wings. Of course Cuba has been attacked by air-terrorists flying light and sometimes not so light aircraft (except none of these emanated from Cuban soil, unlike the Air Tiger strike).

The capacity to launch dramatic terror raids from the air is no guarantee of success and not even an indication of it. As the above mentioned examples demonstrate, the formations that launched these attacks were all defeated.

The Nazis blitzed London, and in the latter stages of the war, launched V1 and V2 rockets against it - and yet, the Nazis lost the war.

The fundamental lessons of the Tiger air raid are quite the opposite of those that will be drawn by the appeasers and their patrons in the West. These elements will say that the raid proves that a military victory over the LTTE is impossible and that only a peaceful negotiated settlement is feasible. I would argue the exact opposite. The air raid demonstrates the utter impossibility of peaceful coexistence between a militarized Tiger-controlled territory and the Sri Lankan state.

The Tiger air force was the product of the Ranil Wickremesinghe- Erich Solheim CFA. It is the same CFA that Britain’s Tony Blair wants us to go back to. Such a restoration of the CFA would only enable the LTTE to build up its fledgling air arm into an even more dangerous parallel air force. It would be suicidal for Sri Lanka to re-enter such a trap.

The only desirable peace negotiation with the Tigers is one that allows their territory to be as transparent as ours is and, crucially, involves demilitarization under international verification. Would the Tigers wish to give up their precious air assets in such a settlement? Obviously not. Therefore, the only meaningful kind of peace is unacceptable to the Tigers, and the only kind of peace that is acceptable to the Tigers would be suicidal for us Sri Lankans.

On a small island, there is no defense in depth from air attacks originating in the Wanni. Two outcomes are therefore, existentially intolerable for Sri Lanka. We cannot afford a lopsided peace, which is the only kind the Tigers may accept, and we cannot entertain the prospect of military defeat. If we surrender to international pressure and retreat into a CFA /ISGA, we shall have to live in the knowledge that the Tigers are building up their air force which can attack us at will. Worse still, if we lose the war, we shall have to live under the shadow of a fascist Tiger Eelam which will be worse than an Israel carved out of our soil.

We have nowhere to run. The sea is to our back. The majority of our people speak Sinhala, which is spoken widely only in this little island. There is no choice but to fight and win. We cannot coexist with a Tiger state, de jure or de facto.

How do states react when threatened by air attack? The British RAF fought the Blitzkrieg, but more pertinently, it sent commando teams into Norway to destroy the launchers of the V1 rockets, and it bombed the dams which held the heavy water for the Nazis atomic experiments. The Vietnamese fought the US air force by using Soviet made anti aircraft rocketry and mobilizing its ground militia which were equipped with machine guns. The Cubans shot down the terrorist intruder aircraft. None of these states, nations or peoples sued for peace; surrendered.

Our Air Force and Special Forces teams on the ground will have to seek out and destroy the Air Tigers. Radars and multi-barreled cannon or heavy machine guns such as the Russian ZSU 234 and 235 (or their newer generation) will have to be urgently purchased for air defense, while air defense alertness training and consciousness have to be imparted.

Unhappily all this means money, which imposes further strain on our economy, and in the medium term, our war fighting capacity itself. This is something that the Tigers know.

Right now the Air Tigers have the advantage of surprise, and therefore the initiative. This must be wrested from them.

The Tiger air raid proves conclusively the dimension of the threat we face: it is an existential one. There cannot be two air forces, two power centers on this small island. One has to prevail, the other has to be defeated, crushed. We have no other choice.

Whatever sermons the West and the UN agencies may preach, history, including the most recent history, shows that when those societies are faced with far less a threat, they react with great force, and when they have faced a threat such as we do - replete with attacks from the air - they react with total force and massive retaliation.

They do whatever it takes to protect their citizens. Do our citizens deserve less from our state? Is it because we are not white?

We can overcome the Air Tiger challenge only by taking the battle to the source; the Wanni. Yet not in haste; not prematurely: such haste is also what the Tigers are trying to provoke with yesterday’s raid. We must not fall into that trap. We have prepare the ground not only militarily but diplomatically and politically, which means a regionally and internationally credible power sharing arrangement with the Tamil democrats, and a summit level outreach to Putin’s Russia.

We must eventually obliterate all of the Tigers military assets and destroy them as a military force. This we have to do for our own survival, unless we want to live under the shadow of Tiger terror from our skies. Though we must desist from the equivalent of firebombing Dresden, in our response to the Tiger air raid we must absorb and emulate the resoluteness and determination of Winston Churchill.

Courtesy: The Island

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A new, perilous dimension

 

Editorial, The Hindu, 28 March 2007

The first-ever air raid by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam targeting the main Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) base near the Colombo International Airport is a dangerous development for the strife-torn country. It not only worsens the prevailing volatile security environment but also poses a new challenge in the fight against terrorism. Clearly, with the daring midnight attack, the ongoing undeclared war between the Sri Lanka military and the LTTE seems to have entered a perilous phase. At one level, the mission by the nascent air wing of the Tigers can be seen as no more than a spectacular psy-ops to bolster the sagging morale of the cadres in the face of a string of military setbacks in the East, notably the fall of Sampur in September and Vaharai in January. The more alarming dimension is that the dramatic raid by the Tigers speaks poorly of the defence preparedness of Colombo particularly at a juncture when it is engaged in an intensive campaign against the conventional and guerrilla strike capabilities of the LTTE. The fact that an aircraft or two — their make and capabilities would remain a matter of conjecture pending the outcome of the investigation ordered by the government — could take off from the jungles of Vanni in the North, travel 400 kilometres, drop bombs on the SLAF main base and, after being in the air for at least two hours, return unchallenged to the so-called Tiger Air Force base is disturbing to say the least. It is in this context that the world needs to pay attention to the changing military dynamics of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

The international community has repeatedly affirmed and demonstrated its full support to the Mahinda Rajapaksa government in its battle to defang the Tigers and no one has questioned the sovereign right of the regime to defend itself against any threat to its territorial integrity and unity. However, the government can ill-afford to delay addressing the root causes of the ethnic conflict, which has provided oxygen to the Tigers. Besides, it cannot be oblivious to the plight of the innocent citizens caught in the crossfire. The ground situation in Batticaloa, theatre of war for nearly three months now, best illustrates the point. Barely weeks after the assertion by the President that 95 per cent of people of the East had been liberated from the clutches of the Tigers, over 1.30 lakh people have been displaced in the eastern part of Batticaloa district alone. The tasks for the government are cut out. The challenges of taming the Tigers, tackling the humanitarian crisis and speeding up efforts to end the ethnic conflict call for military resolve, sensitivity, and creative statesmanship.