LTTE's toy submarines not a threat - Indian Navy Officer

By Walter Jayawardhana

Assistant Chief of Indian Naval Staff Rear Admiral Pradeep Chauhan called the reported submarines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as toy submarines and dismissed the suggestion that they could do any harm to the Indian Navy.

When reporters asked him whether there was any threat from those LTTE submersible vehicles he totally rejected any underwater threat from the Sri Lankan terrorist group and referring to the terrorist groups reported attempt to make a submarine said, You cannot develop submarines from do it yourself manuals.

He was obviously referring to the LTTE supporters trying to buy submarine manufacturing software last year in the United States before they got caught in a sting operation.

During the sting operation perhaps the most intriguing item sought was advanced submarine design software. The LTTE has always had a strong penchant for seafaring activities.

Submarines would allow them to expand their smuggling efforts and be a new mode of terror attack, it has been visualised, reportedly.

The Tamil Tiger midget submarines have been described as just slightly submersible only few feet under the surface of the water and extremely slow moving.

The senior Naval official did not show any sort of respect for the kind of submersible crude vehicles the LTTE was manufacturing and are called midget submarines.

He said, "With toy subs you can go for a kilometre and see coral reefs.

Nothing else is possible unless they are going to war with sea urchins." Rear Admiral Chauhan said the Indian navy couls easily frustrate any LTTE attempt to attack its ships.

But the LTTE's attempt is not to employ the crude submarines as attack vehicles but to use them as vehicles to transport weapons and narcotics drugs without being seen by any watchful eyes in the sea.

At a press briefing in New Delhi Chauhan also mentioned about the kind of patrols the Indian Navy is going to do with the Sri lankan Navy and said they are not going to be joint patrols but coordinated patrols.

In this kind of patroling both navies will patrol in their own waters but will cordinate and communicate each other regarding informations. But they would not be patroling together, he said. But in the Indian waters the Indian navy would do joint patrolling with the Indian Coast Guard, Chauhan said.

Such coordinated patrolling has been necessitated by the constant and illegal smuggling activities conducted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of weapons , warlike material and drugs during the last many months.