An Injured soldier escorted by medical staff

Medical staff escort a soldier who was injured by a Tamil Tiger rebel sniper, at hospital in Ampara, about 350 km (217 miles) east of Colombo, September 13, 2007.

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A military parade during an army dispersal ceremony in Ampara

Soldiers attend a military parade during an army dispersal ceremony in Ampara, about 350 km (217 miles) east of Colombo, September 13, 2007. The effect on the top right of the frame is caused by a coloured smoke bomb.

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Chandrika runs to India to lobby against Mahinda Rajapakse’s military campaign; Ranil to follow

After holding talks with Indian High Commissioner, Alok Prasad, on Monday the former President Chandrika Kumaratunga left for India yesterday (Tuesday). Officially it was announced that this was to be a private visit. Unofficially, it is known as the latest political mission of Chandrika Kumaratunga to stage a come back with the help of India.

Just before the talks began in Colombo she slammed the door on the media waiting at the entrance, virtually shooing them away.

Though her visit is billed as a private visit political observers maintain that her main mission would be to launch her anti-Mahinda Rajapakse campaign on Indian soil. Both have engaged in a running battle long before either of them became president and it was carried on when they occupied the Presidential chair.

Her new political ally, Ranil Wickremesinghe, whom she sacked when she was President, is expected to follow in her steps. He too is due in India shortly. Both are expected to take a long list of complaints against the Mahinda Rajapakse government and put pressure on India to halt the military campaign. They will claim that it will hinder any negotiated settlement but the political reason behind this anti-Mahinda Rajapakse campaign is to halt the successful military campaign that is adversely affecting their popularity. The latest poll held by NGOs revealed that 84% backed Mahinda Rajapakse’s military campaign, leaving a narrow margin of 16% for Ranil Wickremesinghe’s anti-war campaign.

The battle to win India’s support is turning it into a charade.

This battle makes India the stage for the theatre of the absurd where the Government and the Opposition are playing out their rivalries in front of Indian political leaders. Each time the Government makes a bid to mend fences and strengthen relations the Opposition runs to Delhi to undo what the Government has done.
Earlier a delegation led by President Mahinda Rajapakse’s brother, Gotabaya Rajapakse, flew to India to discuss ways and means of strengthening further cooperation between India and Sri Lanka.

The talks were successful but the Presidential Secretariat botched it up by issuing statement saying that a Defence Committee, consisting of key officials from India and Sri Lanka, had been formed. Later India and Sri Lanka both denied this.

In the meantime, airline officials were quite surprised to see Chandrika Kumaratunga arriving in time for departure. When she was in office she held up flights for hours inconveniencing passengers, some of whom had to catch connecting flights in time.

This has been one of her common abuses of power. When she was President she was always late with her side-kick, Mangala Samaraweera who was the Minister for Aviation holding up flight to suit her convenience. But she never failed to arrive in time for foreign airlines. Her delayed arrivals holding up Air Lanka flights invariably added to the mounting costs of Air Lanka.

One commentator said, tongue in cheek, that the best way to cut the costs of Air Lanka is to keep Chandrika Kumaratunga out of office.

(http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/7347)

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Three Tiger suspects among key Aussie operatives

Three men charged of being members of the LTTE were the principal Australian members of one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups, a Melbourne court was told yesterday.

Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, 33, of Mount Waverley; Sivarajah Yathavan, 36, of Vermont South; and Arumugam Rajeevan, 41, of Old Toongabbie in Sydney’s west, have each been charged with being members of a terrorist organisation and several other related charges.

They appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday for a committal hearing.

It is alleged they used the Melbourne-based Tamil Coordinating Committee to raise funds for Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as Tamil Tigers.

Commonwealth prosecutor Mark Dean SC told the court the three men were principal members of the Australian branch of the LTTE which he said carried out one of the most sophisticated and deadly terrorist insurgencies in the world.

He said the LTTE was involved in suicide bombings and political and military assassinations in Sri Lanka.

He alleged the defendents maintained constant contact with the LTTE in Sri Lanka and provided money collected in Australia for military and non-military uses. The hearing before magistrate Peter Reardon continues.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/14/news/05.asp)

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Sri Lanka’s Tigers take a big hit

If Tharmalingam Shanmughan alias Kumaran Pathmanathan was indeed detained in Bangkok on Monday evening, then the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have reason for alarm.

Kumaran Pathmanathan (or “KP” as he is widely known) has been in charge of the LTTE’s international arms-procurement network and was allegedly involved in the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. If he is in Thai custody as reported in the media and claimed by Indian and Sri Lankan officials, then the LTTE has suffered a deadly blow – one from which it will find it difficult to recover for a long time.

Reports of his arrest were generated by an allegation on Tuesday on the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry website (www.defence.lk) that “reliable sources from Thailand reveal that LTTE’s chief for cross-border terrorist activities, Kumaran Padmanadan, alias ‘KP’, has been arrested in Bangkok”.

However, Thai officials have denied arresting KP.

“I’ve checked with related police bureaus – the Immigration Police, the Metropolitan Police and the Special Branch. There has been no report of a Tiger rebel arrested in Bangkok,” national police spokesman Lieutenant-General Ronnarong Youngyuen told Reuters news agency. “If we’d arrested him, we would have made good publicity out of it.”

A Colombo-datelined report in the Indian daily Hindustan Times cited Indian and Sri Lankan officials as saying that KP might not have been arrested, but he could have been detained. It quotes D R Kaarthikeyan, the head of the special investigating team that probed Gandhi’s assassination, as saying: “It is certain that a person answering to the description of Kumaran Padmanathan has been detained by the Thai authorities.”

At a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, the director of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation “declined to use the term ‘arrest’, which is a legal act, and preferred to use ‘detention’ instead”.

Even as official confirmation of KP’s arrest or detention was yet to come, government officials in India and Sri Lanka were dreaming of his extradition.

KP is the second-most-wanted person – after LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran – in Sri Lanka. He is wanted in India for his alleged role in Gandhi’s assassination, for which he reportedly provided the explosive belt used by the suicide bomber and the gun that Sivarasan, the LTTE operative who oversaw Gandhi’s killing, used to kill himself to evade capture in Bangalore.

KP’s extradition would, of course, enable Sri Lanka and India to bring him to justice. More important, he could provide insight into the LTTE’s international network, information that they have been desperately seeking for more than two decades.

KP, now 52, built the LTTE’s formidable international arms and shipping network. If Prabhakaran was the brain behind the organization’s military strategy, it is KP who was responsible for arming it. He equipped the Tigers with state-of-the-art military hardware and ensured that it was shipped back to Sri Lanka. The LTTE’s weapons-procurement wing is in fact called the “KP department”.

Unlike other Tamil militant groups that depended on India for arms in the mid-1980s, the LTTE – wary of Indian pressure – developed its own multiple, international sources for funding and arms right from the start.

“It was KP who made LTTE International Inc happen,” recalled a retired operative of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s external intelligence agency, which was involved in the arming and training of Sri Lankan Tamil militants between 1984 and 1987.

“One of the earliest arms purchases KP organized was with an Australian arms dealer in 1984. By 1985-86, he was negotiating the purchase of ships, which would in the years to come be used for commercial purposes as well as gun-running,” the ex-RAW official told Asia Times Online.

Within years of starting the network, KP had an efficient international network to provide the Tigers with the deadliest modern arms.

KP was allegedly based in Thailand and Cambodia, but he has operated in dozens of countries. A few years ago, Indian intelligence sources claimed he was receiving medical treatment in Oslo. They alleged that KP, who is on Interpol’s most-wanted list, was being given “sanctuary” in Norway, which brokered a ceasefire in the Sri Lankan conflict. Norway claimed it was unaware of his whereabouts.

KP’s multiple identities, numerous passports and extensive contacts with people in positions of power have helped him slip across borders with ease and evade Interpol’s international manhunt.

Close on the heels of KP’s reported arrest or detention in Bangkok was more good news for Colombo.

On Tuesday, the Sri Lanka Navy sank three LTTE “arms-carrying ships” in the high seas southeast of Sri Lanka. According to the navy’s media spokesman, Commander D K P Dassanayake, the LTTE ships were carrying large stocks of military hardware, a bullet-proof vehicle for the LTTE chief, spare parts for three light aircraft, one high-speed boat, fuel and ammunition. Navy commander Rear Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda told the media that with the sinking of the war vessels, nine out of 10 ships believed to be owned by the LTTE have been destroyed.

If KP was indeed detained, then the arms consignment the Sri Lanka Navy sank would have been among the last he dispatched to Jaffna, and his capture would be similar in magnitude to the setback the LTTE suffered in 2004 when its eastern commander, Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan, alias “Colonel Karuna”, quit the organization and formed a rival outfit.

Since his defection, Karuna, who set up the Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (Tamileela People’s Liberation Tigers), has proved to be more than a thorn in the LTTE’s flesh. By emerging as the voice of the eastern Tamils, he has dealt a deadly blow to the LTTE’s claims to being representative of all of Sri Lanka’s Tamils. Karuna is said to be receiving protection from the Sri Lankan armed forces and is helping them hunt down and identify LTTE cadres in the Eastern Province. Karuna’s exit from the LTTE has weakened the organization immensely.

Over the past year, the LTTE has suffered a series of military reverses in the Eastern Province. It was driven out of Sampur and Maavil Aru in Trincomalee district last September, the first instance of territory transfer since the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE in 2002. Then Vaharai and other bases such as Thoppigala fell, clearing the way for the LTTE’s eviction from the east this July. The LTTE’s loss of the Eastern Province has been attributed in part to Karuna’s exit.

If Karuna’s exit resulted in the LTTE suffering reverses in the Eastern Province, “KP’s arrest could severely undermine the LTTE’s arms procurement, as he is likely to sing under questioning”, the ex-RAW operative said. “He will reveal at least some of his contacts and the network that he has built for the LTTE.”

KP is a close confidant of the LTTE chief. He discusses arms deals directly with Prabhakaran. The arms-procurement process, like much of the LTTE’s other operations, is highly centralized. Several operatives might be involved in the purchase and transport of weapons, but it is a select few who are involved in finalizing the deals.

“The arrest of the procurement chief in such a centralized operation is an immeasurable loss to the LTTE,” the ex-RAW operative said.

Rejecting reports of KP’s arrest, an LTTE sympathizer in Colombo told Asia Times Online that this is not the first time that the governments of India and Sri Lanka “were engaging in such propagation of lies”. Several times over the past two decades, including after the 2004 tsunami, media reports quoted government officials who claimed that the LTTE chief was dead. “The reported arrest of KP is just another instance of false propaganda. It is mere wishful thinking,” he said.

Sri Lankan and Indian officials will be hugely embarrassed should it turn out that KP is still a free man, but until Thai authorities confirm his status, they will keep their fingers crossed.

(http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/II14Df01.html)

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Police to record LTTEr’s statement in Thailand

A high level Sri Lankan defence delegation led by a Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police left for Thailand to record a statement from Kumaran Padmanathan, alias KP, the mastermind of the LTTE’s global arms network who was arrested in Thailand, sources said.

A top defence official told the Daily Mirror yesterday that a Foreign Ministry official had also accompanied the Sri Lankan delegation to Bangkok.

He also said that the Sri Lankan delegation, which left for Thailand on Tuesday evening, would meet the Thai defence authorities to negotiate the possible extradition of the top LTTE leader, who had been based in Thailand and Cambodia and controlled a global network that supplied weapons to the Tamil Tigers.

It is also learnt that the delegation has already held discussions with the Interpol representatives in Thailand who made the arrest. India has also indicated that it wants Thailand to extradite a top LTTEr to India.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/14/front/05.asp)

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LTTE’s financial nerve centre hit: Colombo

The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) on Thursday claimed to have pounded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) “financial nerve centre” located at Puthukuduiruppu in the Mullaithivu area in the north.A statement by the Defence Ministry said the target of SLAF fighter jets was a vital strategic location of the LTTE. It claimed that the centre was accurately hit by the Kfir and MiG 27 fighter jets around 8.20. a.m.

“Defence intelligence sources described the target as the operational base of the LTTE’s financial wing leader Thamilendi. The attack followed gathering of information through both ground and air surveillance carried out for a long period”, the Ministry said.

Quoting civilian sources in Wanni, the Ministry said Thamilendi is known to be one of the “most corrupt” LTTE leaders after its intelligence wing leader, Pottu Amman. The Ministry said since the LTTE’s global fund-raising mechanism was badly hit by counter-terror measures taken by various countries, the financial wing of the LTTE is said to have encountered a serious shortage of money to pay its cadre as well as to maintain the “luxurious lives” of its leaders. The Ministry said, to overcome the difficulties, the LTTE increased its illegal tax collections and set up gangs to rob civilians.

The Ministry, however, chose not to refer to its claim about the arrest of Kumaran Pathmanathan, considered to be chief of the LTTE’s overseas procurement, by the Bangkok authorities earlier in the week.

Separately, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Thursday handed over an aide memoir to Dominic Chilcott, British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, who is also currently representing the European Union (E.U.) Presidency in Sri Lanka in the absence of a resident embassy of Portugal which currently holds the E.U. Presidency. It made a strong case against any “proposed action” by the E.U. against Sri Lanka on human rights violations on the plea that such a development would not only undermine the position of the Government but also be abused by the LTTE for propaganda purposes.

Observers here are surprised over the decision of Colombo to hand over such an aide memoir to the E.U. considering that the E.U. has so far not indicated that it is contemplating action against Sri Lanka for human rights violations. The aide memoir has come at a juncture when human rights organisations are gathered in Geneva to take stock of the situation in different conflict zones, including Sri Lanka.

The aide memoir presented by Sri Lanka to the E.U. said, “As a founding member of the HRC, Sri Lanka will be ready to subject itself for the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the Council for a comprehensive review of its human rights obligations. Sri Lanka’s 2-year term in the Council will end in May 2008”.

It argued that in view of the improvement in the rights situation in the country, there is no rationale for the E.U. to initiate any action on Sri Lanka within the context of the Human Rights Council, at this stage. “Such action will go against the letter and spirit in which Sri Lanka has been cooperating with U.N. human rights mechanisms. This is also a counter-productive measure as it would negatively impact on the GOSL [government of Sri Lanka] position aimed at maintaining a constructive engagement with U.N. human rights mechanisms”.

It said the LTTE is a terrorist organisation and international agencies must avoid providing a lifeline to the organisation at a time when it is under pressure.

“Therefore, the proposed E.U. initiative cannot be regarded as an appropriate way to constructively engage a country, which has a long-standing policy of openness and cooperation with U.N. human rights mechanisms and ready to engage with the international community in further promotion and protection of human rights.

“With regard to the strengthening of the presence of the Senior Human Rights Adviser to the U.N. Country Team in Sri Lanka and her assistant, the GOSL is ready to discuss the views and recommendations of the High Commissioner on this subject during her visit to Sri Lanka”, it said.

(http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/14/stories/2007091454411800.htm)

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Air Force and Naval joint operation eliminated sea Tiger boats

Twenty LTTE cluster boats from Mulaitevu sea tiger base launched an attacked on the Sri Lanka Navy on Thursday evening. Fast attack crafts of the Navy advanced and engaged with the LTTE.At the same time Sri Lanka Air Force MI24 and Kfir and MIG 27ss were quickly air borne while Navy FAC boats were engaging the LTTE boats. Air Force MI24 attacked the boats from the air under heavy fire from Navy and Air force LTTE withdrew and try to beached their boats.

At the same time Air Force jets bombed a sea tiger base as well as boats which were beached.

D.K.P.Dasanayake and Air force spokesperson Group Captain Ajantha de Silva said LTTE suffered heavy damages

In the meantime on Thursday morning, in Mulaitievu Puthukuduiruppu, an LTTE base including training, stores and an admin base was bombed by the Air Force. A senior Air force official said this target was given by ground intelligence. Pilots confirmed that those targets were hit accurately.

Separately, in between Vavuniya and Madu, the Army had a confrontation with the LTTE and killed 7 LTTE terrorists including their leader.

(http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/7371)

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Sri Lanka claims ‘severe losses’ in attack on Tiger flotilla

Sri Lanka’s military Thursday said it caused “severe losses” in a combined sea and air attack against suspected Tamil Tiger boats off the island’s northeastern waters, but gave no details of casualties.

The military in a statement said that a flotilla of 20 boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was left in flames after being attacked by aircraft following an exchange of fire with the navy.

“The targeted Sea Tiger base was in flames, the air force confirmed,” the statement said. “The navy and the air force believes that the LTTE would have suffered severe losses in the combined attack.”

It said naval fast attack craft called in supersonic jets and helicopter gunships to “neutralise” the Tiger flotilla. The statement did not say if security forces suffered any casualties or damage.

There was no immediate word from the Tigers and claims by both sides of intense fighting cannot be independently verified.

The latest report came after the defence ministry said its aircraft had bombed suspected Tamil Tiger facilities in the same region earlier in the day.

The LTTE said there were no casualties in the earlier attack.

“Two Sri Lankan air force jets have bombed the populated area at Puthukudiriruppu (village),” Tiger spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said in a statement.

“Twelve bombs were dropped. School children panicked and scattered. Two fainted.”

The guerrillas meanwhile said they had killed two police commandos in the east of the island Thursday, but there was no immediate word from the military about the Tiger claim.

More than 5,400 people have been killed in fighting in the past 21 months following the breakdown of a Norwegian-brokered truce.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/srilankaunrest&printer=1;_ylt=AieMoUbb.
_Eh9GUy6m1zp8zuOrgF)

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Defence leak cause for ‘KP’ arrest denial

The Defence Ministry “leak” of the arrest of LTTE’s arms procurement Chief Kumaran Padmanathan and the wide media publicity it generated led to Thailand authorities denying the reports until he was deported to Sri Lanka owing to its sensitivity, well informed government sources told the Daily Mirror yesterday.

While insisting that the LTTE frontliner, also known as ‘KP’ was under Thai custody and moves were afoot to seek his deportation to Sri Lanka the source said that

Thailand wanted to ensure his identity was verified before going public but at the same time was also concerned the publicity over his arrest could hamper further investigations. “He has multiple passports including a Thai one so Thailand can easily deny they don’t have a Sri Lankan in their custody under that name. The fact is that this story should not have come out until he was deported to Sri Lanka,” the source said.

The Defence Ministry website, earlier this week, quoted reliable sources from Thailand as saying that the LTTE’s chief for cross border terrorist activities had been arrested in Bangkok. Thailand was however quick to deny the reports while the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry refused to comment.

Meanwhile the Indian Express reported that the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had approached authorities in Thailand to confirm the arrest of Pathmanathan, who was allegedly involved in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The Indian Embassy in Bangkok said it was awaiting a response from the Thai Government on its request for confirmation of the reports of arrest of Padmanathan on charges of gun-running. In 2003 three LTTE operatives were arrested in the Ranong province in Thailand together with 10 Glock pistols and three HK Mark 23 pistols. The LTTE operatives, who were recently deported to Sri Lanka, pleaded guilty and received five year jail sentences in November 2003.

Following the arrest 14 Thais were also arrested, and among them were 8 from the police and the military. They were believed to be in the same gun smuggling ring.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/14/front/06.asp)

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