LTTE revisiting Tamil Nadu

Two Naval Inshore Patrol Craft, patrolling in the Kalpitiya lagoon had their radars indicating the presence of two suspicious boats, Thursday afternoon. The boats were heading towards Silavathurai, a known sea Tiger launching pad, five nautical miles from Battalangunduwa, having emerged from the Indian waters. The Naval IPCs, better known as Waterjets deployed in the patrol duties in shallow sea, fired warning shots. The boats proceeded unheeded, firing at the IPCs. One boat, fitted with a high calibre gun, was escorting what looked like a logistical craft frequently used by the Tigers for arms smuggling.

The crew on board, the IPCs opened fire. In the resultant fire fight, two sea Tiger boats were sunk. Navy divers yesterday looking for armaments in the two sunken boats, recovered one arrow type attack craft fitted with a 85 Horse Power Out Board Mortar along with a 14.5 mm cannon, a Multi Proposal Machine Gun and two bodies of the suspected Tiger cadres.

Thursday's incident was one in a string of sea Tiger attempts at arms smuggling from India's Southern Coast. The increasing number of Tiger craft intercepted by the Navy, crossing the Palk Strait and the reports of increasing LTTE activities in the Southern coast of India are a cause for concern as to whether the LTTE was revising its bases - and, indeed, revisiting its Tamil Nadu base.

In the early days of the ethnic insurgency, Tamil Nadu, home to 100 million Tamils, was the base for arms smuggling and fund raising. Are the Tigers back to Square one, after fighting the Government for two decades?

The answer will be in both the affirmative and negative. The loss of Vakarai and Sampur cost the Tigers much used launching pads in the East. The beefed up Naval patrol off Mullaitivu, had significantly reduced, the sea Tiger movements off their main launching pad, Challai. Added to this is the increasing vigilance of the international community to track down the network of arms smugglers who have formed an underground rail road of arms smuggling, of which the LTTE is playing a pivotal role.

The North Western seas of the island used to be loosely guarded as the Eastern coast had the greater focus of Naval patrol. With the East being cut off, the Tigers have been compelled to use the coast of Tamil Nadu as a landing port from where sea Tiger craft could sail towards Mannar.

But, it must be clear that despite the recent setbacks, the Tigers possess considerable operational capabilities. The long range artillery guns of the Tigers still pose a formidable threat to the security forces.

The chronology of the recent seizure of an alleged Tiger vessel engaged in arms smuggling across the Palk Strait are indicative of a growing danger of sea Tiger activities.

* November first week, 2006: Tamil Nadu Police seized a lathe machine (useful for making bomb shells) attached to a boat that goes fishing in the sea between Rameswaram and Sri Lanka.

* November 29, 2006: Tamil Nadu Police recovered 30 boxes of gelex boosters (used for increasing the velocity of bomb shrapnel) after a vehicle carrying them from Andhra Pradesh met with an accident in Manamadurai, 45 km from Madurai.

* December 5 and 11, 2006: Two batches of Rameswaram fishermen found in their fishing nets three live rockets with a striking range of more than 10 km.

* January 24, 2007: Tamil Nadu Police arrested eight people including five Sri Lankan Tamils trying to transport two tonnes of ball-bearings (useful for making bombs and mines) from Chennai to

Thoothukudi. The consignment, sourced from an automobile spare-parts shop in Dadar, Mumbai, was to leave Thoothukudi in southern Tamil Nadu for Sri Lanka. The consignment of ball bearings were alleged to be bound for Jaffna.

* February 12, 2007: An Indian Navy patrol recovered nearly three tonnes of material for making explosives from a small boat off the coast of Rameswaram. The cache included hundreds of anodes, metal rings, rubber washers and metal nails - all of which are used to make the lethal roadside bombs and landmines frequently used by the Tigers.

* February 13, 2007: Indian Coast Guard, which intercepted an LTTE boat with five men on board, including two indians, near the town of Point Calimere, about 450 km south of Chennai, recovered one AK-47 assault rifle, 124 rounds of ammunition, huge quantities of hand grenades, detonator and one suicide kit. There were also eight barrels containing a white chemical, which could be ammonia-based and usable in making explosives.

* Feb 16, 2007: Sri Lankan Navy sank two boats heading towards Silavathurai, after they were intercepted near Battalangunduwa. Navy divers later retrieved more than 1.5 million steel balls of suspected Indian origin from the sunken boat. Over 1.5 million steel balls used for claymore fragmentation mines were packed in 28 bags.

* Feb 20, 2007: Indian Police raided an aluminium plant at Pethaniapuram in Madurai on Tuesday and seized 70 sacks containing two tonnes of aluminium ingots used for Improvised Explosive Device (IED). Six arrests were made later and the suspects confessed that the consignment was meant to be sent to Sri Lanka.

According to the confessions of the suspects, the `modus operandi' had been to transport the ingots to the coastal hamlet of Mariyur. The suspects planned to store the consignment in the hamlet and to smuggle in small boats over time.

According to the local Police Chief, Superintendent of Police R. Thirugnanam of Ramanathapuram, nine persons were believed to have been involved in the scheme. Of them, the two prime suspects, Kannan and Velusamy were still at large.

* Feb 22, 2007: The Sri Lankan Navy destroyed two Tiger craft approaching Silavathurai from Indian waters.

The repeated interception of sea Tiger boats both by the Sri Lankan and Indian naval forces and growing evidence of Tiger activities busted by Tamil Nadu Police are a cause for major concern. The evidence points to an LTTE attempt to re-activate its links in Tamil Nadu.

The surprise recovery of gelex boosters in Madurai led to the shocking rediscovery of an increasingly active underground network of arms suppliers of the LTTE. However, as sources well versed with intricate local politics in Tamil Nadu told the Sunday Observer, the perceived reluctance of the provincial government to act tough has provided more room for its coastal belt to be used as a supply ground for Tiger armoury, mainly the explosives and possibly light and medium calibre weapons.

The Hindu newspaper in an editorial this week came down hard on what it described as official complacency and political collusion, which had enabled Tamil Nadu to be used as a base of operations for arms smuggling activities of the Tigers.

"The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a designated terrorist organisation, is banned in India. Nevertheless, a deeply worrying mix of political collusion, official complacency, mercenary considerations, and corruption has enabled it to exploit Tamil Nadu both as a source of supply and a base of operations," The Hindu said.

"The chain of seizures by the Indian Navy, Coast Guard, and the State police over the past three months points strongly to the LTTE's use of Tamil Nadu coastal locations, especially landing points in the

Rameswaram-Tuticorin-Cuddalore stretch, for two-way terrorist traffic across the Palk Strait," it added.

"...It is a matter of concern that, instead of facing realities, the State's Director General of Police sought to downplay the significance of the Coast Guard's major catch by asserting (even before the investigation got under way) that the vessel was not heading for Tamil Nadu coast and pleaded virtual helplessness in dealing with a porous coast".

"The Central and Tamil Nadu governments need to shake themselves out of their complacency and respond urgently to the extremist menace," editorialised the Chennai based newspaper.

However, the "lurking danger" at the shore of the Southern Indian coast, of the Tiger activities as described by Indian Defence Ministry A. K. Antony, had forced the Centre to order stepped up naval patrol in the Palk Strait and an increased vigilance in the coastal belt.

Aboard the Coast Guard vessel ICGS Sagar, conducting the maiden review of the Indian Coast Guard, the Defence Minister described the seizure of LTTE boat on February 13 as the "tip of the iceberg".

"There can be several such instances in the vast sea," he said.

He promised bigger ships and reconnaissance airplanes for an expanded role in policing India's 2.01 million sq km large Exclusive Economic Zone.

The expansion plan includes the acquisition

of 15 new ships and 23 aircraft. This includes multi-mission maritime aircraft, twin-engine helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enhance the capability to carry out surface and aerial surveillance.

Minister Antony spoke the truth when he described the arrests as the "tip of the iceberg". The suspects taken into custody during the raid in Madurai on February 20 were alleged to have confessed that they despatched three previous consignments of ingot to Sri Lanka. Little doubt, that the recipient was the LTTE.

The South Indian coast is poorly guarded, understandably due to its geographic expansion. There are only 60 coast checkpoints along the 1,076-km Tamil Nadu state coastline which is dotted with over 400 identified landing points.

However what brought the Indian Defence authorities to their heels was the discovery of a large quantum of explosives, a mixture of TNT and RDX, concealed in the haul of the LTTE boat seized on February 13. The fatal mixture of TNT and RDX was expected to create multiple explosions, which could blow up warships, according to Indian sources.

The quantity of the detected explosives were varying, some sources put it at half a tonne while an Indian coastguard official was quoted putting the figure at two tonnes.

The Indian authorities acted swiftly, following the shocking discovery of explosives and blew up the boat in a mid sea explosion.

According to the latest information the five suspects had confessed that they were awaiting instructions for a suicide mission. This was contrary to the earlier claim by the Tamil Nadu Police that the LTTE boat had entered Indian waters to sneak away from Sri Lankan Naval patrol.

In a further twist, investigators on Friday said the target of the suicide boat could have been the Kankesanthurai Port.

A senior Sri Lankan Navy official dismissed the notion of a lone suicide boat fitted with 10 HP engine attacking the KKS port.

The KKS is a high security area and approaching it stealthily, especially from the direction of the Indian waters is a task almost impossible, he said.

The Sri Lankan Navy requested the extradition of three Sri Lankans for interrogation, but is yet to receive a response.

It is also open to question what two Indians had to do in the mid sea in what was now described by the Indian officials as a suicide boat.

The Hindu on Friday quoted unnamed intelligence sources who said that 15 suicide mission boats of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are `hibernating' in the waters between India and Sri Lanka.

"They are of the opinion that these are not aimed at India; the LTTE, perhaps, hopes a repeat of the Katunayake airport strike, this time at a major seaport," it added.

Senior Naval officials, whom I spoke to were not sure of the credibility of this revelation. However, they all were perturbed that the Tigers' revisiting its one time operational base in the face of official complacency in Tamil Nadu.

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