‘Troops could take back all territory occupied by LTTE’

by Walter JAYAWARDHANA

The Vancouver Sun in a news feature said, that the Sri Lankan government at the year’s end can achieve its goal of capturing all territory occupied by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The newspaper said since 2006 the government troops have had, a steady succession of victories aiming at this target.

The news feature by Jonathan Manthorpe said the offensive launched two years ago by Sri Lankan government forces against Tamil Tiger rebels took on new momentum in the past few days with the capture of a key rebel naval base.

The Canadian newspaper said the government troops took the port town of Vidattaltivu on Sri Lanka’s northwest coast after heavy fighting. The port has been a base for the Tamil Tigers’ small boat navy and is an important entry point for arms and other supplies smuggled in by the rebels, mostly from India across the Palk Straits, the newspaper added.

It said, Government forces swiftly consolidated their hold on Vidattaltivu and pursued Tamil fighters northwards, attacking them with air force bombers and helicopter gunships.

Since the collapse of the 2002 ceasefire and peace process brokered by Norway, and the resumption of an all-out civil war in 2006, government forces have had a steady succession of victories, the newspaper said.

The Vancouver Sun quoted officers describing the capture of the port as a “fatal blow” to the Tigers, which is fighting the government of Sri Lanka since 1983. About 70,000 people have died in the fighting and terrorist attacks by Tigers, who have targeted politicians, officials, journalists and civilians, usually in the capital, Colombo, the newspaper reported.

Colombo’s military now controls northeastern Sri Lanka, in part because of the defection of a local renegade Tamil Tiger commander known as “Karuna.”

The Tamil Tigers invented the suicide bomb and have counted Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, among their victims.

Terrorist attacks by Tigers in the past few weeks include the machine-gunning of a civilian bus in which 24 people were killed and the assassination of the Highways Minister, it said.