The Ceylon News

UNITED NATIONS The chief of U.N. humanitarian efforts urged Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday to let tens of thousands of civilians leave the war zone, saying there are "credible reports" that some people trying to flee have been shot.

A senior Tamil Tiger rebels' leader died in fighting between government troops and the rebels in the northeastern area of Sri Lanka on Thursday, military officials said Friday.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ground commander named Shankar was killed in the heavy fighting commenced around 7:30 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) and lasted till 5:30 p.m. (1200 GMT),the military said.

Shankar had led the rebel defense of Purthukudyiruppu, the last LTTE hold of less than 60 sq km.

At least 12 more rebels were killed while 30 more were injured in the fighting, the military said.

But the military did not mention the casualties of the troops.

Meanwhile, a pro-rebel website said a Sri Lanka Air Force bomber was shot down in Mullaittivu on Friday at 11:25 a.m. local time (0555 GMT), but the military denied the claim.

Sri Lankan troops are on the look out for Velupillai Prabakaran, the reclusive Tamil Tiger leader who had led the over three decade old fight in the north and east.

Prabakaran, 54, is still believed to be in Purthukudyiruppu waiting to flee the area in the face of a rapid military advance.

The rebels have lost one stronghold after another to the advancing military who are on throes of completely crushing the LTTE's fighting capability.

The LTTE sought to set up a separate homeland for the minority Tamil community in the north and east claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority ruling community.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in Asia's longest civil war since the LTTE launched their armed campaign in the mid-1980s.

Sri Lankan forces on Friday drove deeper into the remaining areas held by the beleaguered LTTE in the island's north and killed at least 19 Tamil Tigers, including its senior commander, even as the rebels put up a stiff resistance.

Intense fighting was reported in Ampalavanpokkanai and Puthukkudiyiruppu in Mullaittivu, as troops of 58 Division further gained control over more LTTE-held areas in the Wanni region, the defence ministry said.

Infantrymen of 10 Sri Lanka Light Infantry inflicted heavy damages to the Tamil Tigers in general area Ampalavanpokkani, it said. The LTTE is now confined to a small area in the Wanni jungles.

Intercepted LTTE communication channels confirmed that rebels suffered heavy losses, the ministry said.

In subsequent search operations conducted in the area, troops found two bodies of LTTE cadres, it said, adding that a huge cache of arms were also recovered from the area.

LTTE cadres, who put up stiff resistance on advancing troops for defending their last stronghold, suffered damages, it said.

An LTTE ground commander, known as Shankar, who led the battle against security forces in Puthukudiyiruppu area, was killed during the fighting, ground troops said.

UN says civilians in Vanni, many of whom are not allowed to leave by the LTTE, are facing a serious shortage of food and medicine

It is among many incidents of LTTE forcibly recruiting civilians and children as young as 14, the UN said in a statement.

"The LTTE continues to actively prevent people leaving, and reports indicate that a growing number of people trying to leave have been shot and sometimes killed," the statement added.

It said fifteen members of the UN staff and 75 of their dependents including children and women are among those prevented leaving by the LTTE.

Civilians killed

Meanwhile, a number of civilians were killed and injured in fighting within the safety zone designated by the government on Sunday, the UN added.

Another 400 sick and wounded were evacuated from Vanni to Trincomalee by the ICRC on Monday

Tamil websites said 134 civilians were killed in air raids on safety zone by Sri Lanka air force.

Sri Lanka military spokesman, Brig Udaya Nanayakkara, denied the accusation.

"The air force does not target safety zone," he told BBC Sandeshaya.

Urging the LTTE to immediately release their employee and stop all forceful recuritment, the UN also calls on both parties to refrain from fighting in areas of civilian concentration.

The tens of thousands of civilians caught in the conflict are facing a severe shortage of food and medicine, according to the United Nations.

No medicine

"Efforts to bring in more food and medicines have not yet been successful," the statement said.

It called on the government and the LTTE to find a solution so that the civilians can be spared of further bloodshed.

Meanwhile, Over 400 sick and injured civilians patients were transferred to Trincomalee by the ICRC on Monday, health authorities in the north said.

Doctors are helpless as the makeshift hospital in Pudumatalan has no medicines available, they added.

Authorities confirmed the UN statement saying that there were no medicine supplies for more than three months and.

Health officials said, that six to seven patients die daily due to lack of antibiotics.

Small injuries end up in amputation due to infection they further said.

ri Lanka may need a bailout from international donors to help pay its debts as the island’s 26- year civil war draws to a close.

Since August, the South Asian nation has spent half its foreign reserves, now $1.7 billion, on supporting its currency, paying debt and buying imports. That doesn’t leave much after the government shells out another $900 million due in 2009. The reserves aren’t getting replenished as the ailing world economy pummels exports and overseas investors flee emerging markets.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government is unwilling to turn to the International Monetary Fund, which requires austerity measures in return for loans. Securing financing from other countries may be challenging for a nation whose credit rating from Standard & Poor’s is the lowest apart from those of Bolivia, Pakistan, Grenada, Argentina and Lebanon. Fitch Ratings downgraded its outlook on Sri Lanka today.

“Sri Lankan authorities have to act fast to beef up the country’s reserves,” said Ashok Parameswaran, senior emerging markets analyst at Invesco Inc. in New York. “Otherwise, they may have to devalue their currency significantly.”

Since December, countries including Russia, Vietnam and Kazakhstan have weakened their currencies rather than use reserves to prop them up. That has made imports costlier, reducing demand for goods from overseas.

Neighboring Currencies

Sri Lanka kept its exchange rate at about 108 rupees per dollar between January and October 2008 to slow inflation, even as the currencies of neighboring India and Pakistan weakened. The Sri Lankan rupee has since dropped to 114.95.

“Sri Lanka has relaxed the rupee in stops and starts, but they need a controlled devaluation,” said Agost Benard, a Singapore-based sovereign analyst at S&P. “The implicit currency peg will have to change and that’s one of the long-term solutions to the nation’s foreign-exchange problems.”

S&P cut Sri Lanka’s rating by one level in December to B, five steps below investment grade. Fitch Ratings lowered the nation’s rating outlook to negative from stable because of “heightened concern” over a “marked” decline in the nation’s reserves. It affirmed Sri Lanka’s rating at B+, which is four levels below investment grade and unchanged since April 2008.

Sri Lanka is banking on currency swaps with central banks, sales of treasury bills and bonds and offering higher interest rates on deposits to citizens living abroad to boost reserves.

Tamil Tigers

Once the northern region of the country is recovered from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, peace will lead to more remittances and aid for construction of houses, schools and hospitals, said P. Nandalal Weerasinghe, chief economist at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. This will provide “some balance of payments support,” he said.

The Tamil Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate homeland, have retreated from most of the northern part of the island nation. They now control a pocket of only 87 square kilometers (34 square miles) in the Mullaitivu region in the northeast, the Sri Lankan Defense Ministry said Feb. 22.

John Keells Holdings Plc, Sri Lanka’s biggest diversified company, last week doubled its stake in Union Assurance Plc, a local insurer, to 74 percent. The company said it’s anticipating that the liberation of Tamil Tigers-occupied territories will spur demand for finance and insurance.

To be sure, the dispute hasn’t ended yet.

“Although there is the possibility of outright military defeat of the Tamil Tigers, a potentially different style and lower-intensity conflict will continue to pose a risk to growth prospects and public finances,” S&P’s Benard said.

Still Raiding

Tamil Tigers launched an air raid in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, on Feb. 20. Their two aircraft were shot down, one crashing into a building housing the Inland Revenue Department and the second north of the city.

Sri Lankan police yesterday arrested a Tamil newspaper editor in connection with the air raid, prompting a protest by media rights group Reporters Without Borders.

At the end of November, Sri Lanka had 1.4 trillion rupees ($12 billion) of foreign debt outstanding. Its total debt is 3.4 trillion rupees, or 75 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to S&P.

Liabilities increased as Sri Lanka, which spends a fifth of its annual budget on defense, borrowed from local and foreign sources to build roads and ports, among other spending. The nation’s budget deficit has averaged 8.7 percent of GDP in the past decade.

Debt ‘Distress’

Sri Lanka must reduce reliance on dollar-denominated short- term commercial borrowings to ease public debt “distress,” the IMF said in October. It called on the government to weaken the rupee as part of a “comprehensive policy package that would underpin confidence in the currency.”

The central bank said Jan. 19 that it will neither let the currency fall nor approach the IMF for a bailout to pay for imports and repay its debt.

On Feb. 19 Governor Nivard Cabraal said the central bank received $200 million from Malaysia, declining to reveal the terms of the deal or whether it was a swap or any other facility with Bank Negara Malaysia. Bank Negara didn’t respond to an e- mail sent by Bloomberg News for comment.

“It’s unlikely that Sri Lanka will go to the IMF for funds,” said Dushni Weerakoon, deputy director of the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo. “At whatever cost, they will try to raise small sums from other countries.”

VAVUNIYA, Sri Lanka, Feb 26 (Reuters) - The Tamil Tigers gave V. Rasamalar no choice in how she would die -- the separatist rebels told her she would die alongside them in Sri Lanka's war zone.

But the mother of two escaped heavy fighting and fled to an army-controlled area. She and her children are now living with about 1,000 other refugees in a military-run transit camp in the northern city of Vavuniya.

"The organisation said we were going to die anyway if we crossed to the army-controlled area and told us to die with them," said 48-year-old Rasamalar, who fled the northern town of Udayarkattu when soldiers fought their way into it.

More than 36,000 Tamils since Jan. 1 have fled to government-controlled areas, running from the final battles of a 25-year-old war and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels who tried to force them to stay.

"After a long time, at least me and my two children are relieved from hearing the sound of shells and life in a bunker," she told Reuters at a school converted into one of 15 temporary homes for Tamil refugees.

On the run for weeks or months, refugees say they faced the wrath of the rebels, constant combat, perpetual fear and little food or water.

"There is scarce food. Even 15-year-old youth are being forcibly recruited by the LTTE. We were not allowed to leave the war zone. This is the situation of over 200,000 Tamils in that area," S. Selvekumar told Reuters.

Formerly a security guard for an international aid agency, Selvekumar escaped at night in a boat that was rescued by the Sri Lankan navy. But he left his sister behind and still does not know now where she is.

"DON'T KNOW THEIR FATE"

Aid agencies estimate that 200,000 Tamils are now squeezed into a 12-km long stretch of land on the northeastern coast which the army has declared as a no-fire zone. The government says there are no more than 70,000 people there, along with the LTTE.

Soldiers are less than 5 km (2 miles) away, and commanders expect they will face a final showdown with the Tigers there -- one in which they will have to fight carefully to prevent any civilian casualties.

Ariyakutti Velayutham, a 72-year former manager of a Hindu temple who escaped on a Red Cross ship bringing out sick and wounded people, now spends his days fearing for the safety of his children and grandchildren.

"I do not know the fate of my two sons, a daughter, and a grandson who had been hiding from being forcibly recruited by the LTTE," he said in the presence of government officers.

He said the LTTE had fired artillery from populated areas, "compelling the army to target us". The military denies targeting civilians, but has acknowledged some may have been killed.

"There were radio messages by the LTTE saying that once we got into government-controlled areas, females would be raped and males would be tortured, but nothing has happened," he said.

Some refugees complained that life in the refugee camp is just as hard as life in LTTE territory.

"I sometimes feel that we are now imprisoned in this refugee camp, after being held as prisoners by LTTE for a long time," 42-year-old S. Babu told Reuters.

At one camp, Reuters saw more than 100 refugees trying to speak to relatives over a camp wall.

The government says the restrictions are temporary, to give them time to weed out LTTE infiltrators and to ensure the rebels do not try to repeat a suicide attack that killed 30 people on Feb. 9 at a refugee registration centre.

The government plans to transfer most refugees to temporary villages with schools and other facilities, with homes for each family. The government says people will be placed with others from their home areas. (Editing by Bryson Hull)

AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa received a threatening letter warning her of ‘serious consequences’ if she continued with her ‘opposition to the cause of Tamil Eelam and LTTE’.

The letter, purportedly sent by one Tamizhmaindan, organiser of the Canada headquartered Ulaga Tamizh Pathugappu Kazhagam, warned that Jaya would face a fate similar to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, AIADMK sources said.

The sources added that party functionary and MLA D Jayakumar lodged a complaint with the city Police Commissioner R Sekar over the issue.

However, Police Commissioner Sekar declined to comment on the issue.

Meanwhile, Jayalalithaa's advocate, Navaneetha Krishnan mentioned the matter before Justice M Jayachandran, judge of the Madras High Court and requested him to order the Tamil Nadu Government to increase the security cover to her in view of the threat.

The judge directed the registry to post the matter before him on Thursday.

The letter charged Jayalalithaa with being a hindrance to the creation of a Tamil Eelam, ‘which is the only solution to Sri Lankan Tamils' problems and LTTE is fighting for that’.

"You are working against them and if you continue your opposition to the LTTE, the day is not far off when your funeral procession will be held, you know very well we will say whatever we can do. You will meet the same fate as Benazir Bhutto did," the sources said quoting the text of the letter.

Colombo, Feb 25: The Sri Lankan Government on Wednesday claimed that LTTE has nearly 6,300 child soldiers under the age of 18.

"According to the latest figures, in December 2008, the total under age (below 18) recruitment by the LTTE was 6,287," an official release said adding, "of this 3,809 are boys and 2,478 are girls".

"There are claims that 2,059 such children or those recruited as children have been released, which requires verification," the statement by the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat said.

In a message on the eve of the Sri Lankan National Campaign against the Recruitment of Children for use of Armed Conflict, the country's President Mahinda Rajapaksa said this initiative was essential to prevent child recruitment.

"This special initiative is necessary because preventing child recruitment, in tandem with the freeing of all children already recruited and brutalised, is at the core of our final thrust to eradicate the scourge of terrorism from our nation," Rajapaksa said.

"We have watched our children suffer this terror, brutality and indignity for long enough," he added.

Washington, Feb 25: Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US Jaliya Wickramasuriya on Wednesday said Colombo is working towards a political solution to the present conflict in the country.

"President (Mahinda) Rajapaksa is working towards a political solution," the Ambassador said in a statement, a day after a Senate sub-committee hearing on Sri Lanka.

"He (Rajapaksa) has called upon all the Tamil political parties in the Parliament to begin planning for a post-conflict society. We realise that once terrorism has ended, the only way forward is to bring all the parties together," Wickramasuriya said.

Reaffirming the island nation's commitment to supporting all Sri Lankans, the Ambassador said, "It is the utmost priority of the President and the government to ensure the safety and security of all our civilians and to look after their welfare".

The official hearing record included a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs Rohitha Bogollagama which stated that in order to protect the remaining civilians, the Government of Sri Lanka has declared a zero civilian casualty policy for the military.

The letter also said the government has already declared a safe area for the protection of civilians but the LTTE has infiltrated the area and resorted to firing shots into it while taking cover behind innocent civilians.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the UN are also helping in evacuating the injured and attending to their medical needs, the letter said adding, the government continued to send food and other essential items even to the uncleared areas, with the assistance of the ICRC.

The Ambassador said "We are grateful to the US Senate for holding the hearing today and we appreciate the government's continued understanding of our mutual fight against global terrorism".

"Although there are challenges remaining in Sri Lanka, we are strongly committed to democracy and promoting peace in our country," he said.

He added that most of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka lived freely in peace and harmony with Sinhalese, Muslims and other communities across the country with equal representation of the three main ethnic groups in Colombo.

This conflict is not one of ethnicity, rather it is a struggle to rid Sri Lanka of a globally recognised terrorist organization- the LTTE- that has a history of oppressing portions of our society and endangering the lives of all the citizens, he said.

India asked neighboring war-torn Sri Lanka on Tuesday to allow evacuation of thousands of civilians from the war zone where the government forces and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are fighting in the northern part of the country.

Indian External Affairs Ministry said New Delhi wishes Colombo to work out "appropriate and credible procedures" to evacuate civilians from the war zone, while expressing India's readiness to provide medical help to the wounded civilians and transport to bring out civilians by both land and sea routes.

"India is ready to provide all necessary help to facilitate the process of bringing innocent civilians to safety and to meet their humanitarian needs for relief materials, medicines and medical care," foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.

Thousands of Tamil civilians are reportedly trapped in a small chunk of territory where the LTTE is holding out against advancing government forces.

The Sri Lanka government Monday rejected a LTTE truce proposal, days after two LTTE planes were shot down after staging a suicide attack upon Colombo.

"We have seen reports that the LTTE has declared its willingness to discuss international appeals to permit internally displaced persons (IDPs) caught in the zone of conflict to leave the area for safety," said the spokesman.

"In this context, India appeals to the Sri Lankan government and to all concerned to work out appropriate and credible procedures for the evacuation of IDPs to safety, which would include the international agencies being able to oversee the movement of the IDPs," said the spokesman, while appealing to the two warring sides to respect "the sanctity of the safe zones".

Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who is due to attend a meeting of South Asian nations' regional cooperation council in Colombo next we

Sri Lanka's military says troops have entered the last Tamil Tiger-held town in the country's north. [AFP] Sri Lankan soldiers have entered the last rebel-held town in the country's north after heavy fighting for full control of the territory, the military said. Defence officials said government troops swept into the town of Puthukudiyiruppu on Tuesday following fierce overnight clashes northeast of Colombo, the capital. The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels sustained heavy casualties in the fighting and lost a large cache of weapons in the area, the officials said. There was no immediate comment from the LTTE. Meanwhile, in the eastern port city of Trincomalee, the military said police recovered a surface-to-air missile suspected to have been hidden by the rebels. Ceasefire offer 'hilarious' Tuesday's offensive comes a day after the LTTE announced it would comply with international calls for a ceasefire, but would not surrender its weapons. The rebels issued a statement on Monday appealing to international powers to step in and broker a truce. "The international community must do everything in its power to bring a ceasefire so that the miseries of the Tamils ... are brought to an end," the statement said. The LTTE said "the international community should apply pressure on the Sri Lankan government to seek not a military, but a political, solution to the ethnic conflict". But in its statement, the LTTE rejected calls to disarm. Keheliya Rambukwella, a government spokesman, dismissed the ceasefire offer as "hilarious" and said it comes just as the LTTE is "on the verge of defeat militarily". The LTTE is fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north, claiming Tamils have suffered years of discrimination by the country's Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting since Sri Lanka's civil war began in 1983.

Sri Lankan soldiers have entered the last town held by the Tamil Tiger separatists and were battling to take full control of it on Tuesday, the military said.

Soldiers from the 58th Division entered Puthukudiyiruppu township after heavy fighting. That is the last actual town the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) still control; after that there are only a handful of small coastal villages left.

"They are inside Puthukudiyiruppu and fighting to take control," defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella, also a minister, said.

On Monday, Reuters was at the frontline just to the west of the town centre, where 58 Division commander, Brigadier Shavendra Silva, said: "It's the last objective." Silva at the time said he was measuring the war in days, and not weeks.

His soldiers now have less than 6 km to go before they reach a 12-km long no-fire zone the army established on the Indian Ocean island's northeast coast.

It is there that he and other commanders expect a final showdown with the LTTE, the final act in a war that began in earnest in 1983 and is now Asia's longest-running.

Slowing the offensive is the presence of tens of thousands of civilians there, the military said. Witnesses who have escaped have said the Tigers were shooting people who tried to flee and making others stay and fight.

The military says there are no more than 70,000 people inside the sliver of a war zone that is left, while aid agencies estimate it to be around 200,000.

Among those people are the commanders of the LTTE, the military says. The group is on U.S., E.U., Canadian and Indian terrorism lists for their widespread use of the suicide bomb to kill enemies, politicians and civilians alike.

Meanwhile, the military said police in the eastern port of Trincomalee said they had recovered an SAM-14 surface-to-air missile suspected to have been hidden by the LTTE.

Despite having an arsenal impressive even by formal military standards, that particular weapon has been noticeably missing from the battlefield amid repeated air force helicopter strikes that have helped propel the swift offensive.

The LTTE said on Monday it would accept a ceasefire, but not surrender and urged the international community to try and secure the former. The government has said the Tigers must surrender or be destroyed.

The LTTE say they are fighting to establish a separate state for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, which complains of decades of mistreatment by successive governments led by the Sinhalese ethnic majority since independence from Britain in 1948.

	The Sri Lankan group is accused of shooting dead a French policeman

Sugeeswara Senadheera, Minister Counsellor, Sri Lankan embassy in Paris, told BBC Sandeshaya that all arrested were members of the LTTE.

The French policeman was shot dead, Mr. Senadheera said, as he questioned the group collecting money for a banned organisation.

“The only banned organisation that Tamil people are collecting money in France is the LTTE,” he told BBC Sinhala service.

Leader of the group was identified as Kandaiyah, a man who has links with the LTTE, according to the official. A Tamil woman is also among the arrested.

Sri Lankan embassy in Paris, he said, is helping the French police with the investigations.

Mr. Senadheera added that the police have found police officer’s pistol, which was reported to be used for the murder, in the rubbish bin in front of the main suspect.

The French police have arrested 19 suspected LTTE members, last year.

“There is also a link between the two incidents as the shooting incident has happened in front of the LTTE Paris leader’s residence,” he said.

After being battered by Sri Lanka, a desperate LTTE may target India, the island nation’s Army Chief has warned. In an interview given to an Indian daily, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka on Monday said that the Tamil Tiger rebels could attack southern India’s economic and civilian targets in aerial strikes.

The Indian government has made it clear that it would not interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, reiterated that the LTTE is a banned organisation in India, and has only sought assurance for Tamil civilians’ safety from the island nation’s government.

According to the Sri Lankan Army Chief, the LTTE’s air wing – though its strength has now got depleted following the downing of two of its planes during the recent air attack on Colombo – still has the capability to attack targets in India.

“The LTTE and their sympathisers in South India are angry that the Indian government is no longer toeing the LTTE line; it is now only talking about the plight of the civilians,” Fonseka was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

“They are capable of flying all the way from the north-east of Sri Lanka, attack targets in Colombo (more than 250 km one way) and fly back. They can do the same in India,” he added.

The threat to India seems credible as the Tigers were able to launch an air attack on Colombo even though all their seven airfields have been captured by the Sri Lankan Army in the ongoing offensive.

The Army Chief stated that the rebels’ low-flying aircraft, which are difficult to detect, could easily carry out attacks more than 150-170 km inside India.

“And if they are on a suicide mission, the aircraft could fly deeper and not come back at all,” he warned.

Asked whether targeting India would be of any use to the LTTE, especially in the wake of heightened criticism for allegedly not letting thousands of displaced Tamil civilians escape the warzone, Fonseka said: “The LTTE had the audacity or were stupid enough to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi on Indian soil. They do not believe in peace or talks. Now they are just confined to around 35 sq km on the main land and some 20 sq km of beach area in Mullaitivu. They are desperate.”

With regard to the whereabouts of LTTE chief V Prabhakaran, the Sri Lankan Army Chief believes he is still hiding in Mullaitivu.

Colombo, Feb 22: Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, facing an unprecedented military thrust into his very last stronghold in northeast Sri Lanka, has sent his wife and the younger son to an undisclosed location abroad, a media report said Sunday.

The state-run Sunday Observer, quoting the intelligence reports, said that Prabhakaran, 54, has sent his wife Madivadani and his younger son, 10-year-old Balachandran, abroad by sea.

"His elder son Charles (Antony) and Prabhakaran are still there in Puthukkudiyiruppu to launch more terror attacks against the security forces and also his own Tamil community going against their wish," it said.

Prabhakaran also has a daughter, who, according to some accounts, may be studying in Ireland.

Prabhakaran, who founded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1976, is known to have deep underground caves and bunkers in Mullaitivu district, from where he oversaw the war against Indian troops in Sri Lanka in 1987-90.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said that the troops advancing from several directions have stepped up pressure on the last strongholds of the LTTE and the territories held by them were shrinking day by day.

"The LTTE has now been confined to a land stretch of just 73 square kilometres. The LTTE is suffering heavy losses and the troops have recovered 65 bodies of the LTTE cadres in these areas during the past six days," Brig Nanayakkara told reporters Sunday.

He said the army's 55 and 58 Divisions troops and a Task Force were currently engaged in this offensive operation around Puthukkudiyiruppu areas, inflicting heavy losses on the rebels.

Defence spokesman and Minister of Foreign Employment Keheliya Rambukwella said the elusive rebel chief and his men "are now in total disarray" after his strategy to cause maximum destruction to the government and the armed forces using the light-wing aircraft ended up in failure Friday.

"We believe this (planes) is the last and the best weapon that the LTTE had. The abortive attempts made by these two planes Friday night prove one point - the LTTE is desperate and using its last resort," Rambukwella said, hailing the shooting down of the Tigers' planes as a major success to the country and its armed forces.

The LTTE's two improvised Czech-built Zlin-143 aircraft were shot down by the military Friday night as they tried to bomb targets in Colombo.

The government has rejected calls for a ceasefire despite repeated LTTE attacks in Colombo [AFP] Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger fighters have announced that they are ready to comply with international calls for a ceasefire but they would not lay down their arms, according to the AFP news agency. But the offer has been rejected by the government, according to the Sri Lankan military. The developments come amid calls for the protection of civilians trapped in the country's war zone as the government presses on with a military offensive to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government says it has the LTTE confined in an area of less than 100sq km along a coastal jungle stretch in the northeast. In the statement, issued on Monday in the name of its political wing leader B Nadesan, the LTTE appealed to foreign powers to step in and broker a truce. "The international community must do everything in its power to bring a ceasefire so that the miseries of the Tamils ... are brought to an end," it said. 'Apply pressure' The LTTE said "the international community should apply pressure on the Sri Lankan government to seek not a military, but a political, solution to the ethnic conflict". The statement said the LTTE had asked the UN and a quartet consisting of the US, the European Union, Japan and one-time mediator Norway to pressure the Sri Lankan government into accepting a ceasefire. The quartet had earlier asked the LTTE to negotiate terms of surrender, saying that the group was fast losing ground in the face of a major government military offensive. Focus: Sri Lanka Q&A: Sri Lanka's civil war The history of the Tamil Tigers Timeline: Conflict in Sri Lanka But in its statement, the LTTE rejected calls to disarm. "The world should take note that calls for the LTTE to lay down its arms and surrender is not helpful for resolving the conflict." The LTTE claimed that dozens of people were being killed and wounded daily in the ongoing heavy fighting in the northeast. "The protection of the Tamil people is dependent on the arms of the LTTE," the statement said. "When a permanent political solution is reached for the Tamil people with the support and the guarantee of the international community, the situation will arise where there will be no need for the arms of the LTTE." However, the statement also made it clear that the LTTE wanted a separate state for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority. "The international community, though it is hesitant to support the political aspirations of the Tamil people for an independent state, it must re-examine our point that an independent state is the only permanent solution to the Tamil-Sinhala conflict." Village stormed Meanwhile, on the ground, there has been no let-up in the violence. The defence ministry said on Sunday that the number of people killed in an LTTE attack on a Sinhalese village in the east of the country had risen to 21. Fighters stormed the village of Kirimetiya late on Saturday and opened fire on residents, the ministry said. IN VIDEO Sri Lanka disputes LTTE raid More videos ... The bodies of 14 people were brought to the main hospital in the district capital of Ampara, a hospital official told the AFP news agency. No independent reports about the attack were available from the remote village, which is located in an area that the LTTE controlled until 2007. The Sri Lankan military separately said security forces killed at least 65 Tamil Tigers in a week of intense fighting. Also on Sunday, defence officials released footage of Friday's raids by LTTE aircraft on Colombo, Sri Lanka's largest city. The LTTE has said the "suicide missions", during which one aircraft flew into a tax office building, were a success. But the government said that its footage, part of which shows a light aircraft flying into a building and exploding, proves the two aircraft were brought down by anti-aircraft fire. They probably intended to hit the country's air force headquarters and an air base during the attack on Friday night, government authorities said.

Sri Lankan security forces killed at least 65 Tamil Tigers in a week of intense fighting that further reduced the territory under rebel control, the military said on Sunday.

A foiled suicide attack by two rebel aircraft shook this seaside capital Friday, bringing what should be the final phase of a grinding civil war closer to home.

But the latest show of defiance by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has done little to change the facts on the ground in the north, where their dwindling forces are cornered and outgunned. Having overrun several rebel towns and bases, Sri Lankan troops are now pressing into a narrow strip of land on the northeast coast where the rebels are holed up.

At least 70,000 civilians trapped by the fighting have become pawns in the military endgame. In recent weeks, international pressure has mounted on the LTTE to allow them to leave. Tens of thousands have already fled the war zone and been put in military-run camps, but aid workers warn of a humanitarian crisis for those left behind unless they can be evacuated.

Uneasy fight to the end

As fears mount of a violent climax to a decisive battle in a 26-year war, few expect the LTTE to run up a white flag. A more likely scenario, say government officials, Western diplomats, and political analysts, is a messy fight to the death. Such an outcome runs the risk, they say, of creating potential martyrs for a future rebellion by minority Tamils, particularly if peace fails to bring justice to the war-torn north.

"Polarization and disaffection among Tamil people is enormous. This lays the seeds for continued conflict," says Jehan Perrera, executive director of the National Peace Council, a nongovernmental group in Colombo.

Government officials warn that the LTTE may turn to urban terrorism if they lose their last territorial stronghold in the Tamil-dominated north. Residents in Colombo, where even short drives already run a gantlet of military and police checkpoints, say they are wary of a return to suicide bombings, an LTTE hallmark.

But Friday's air attacks came as a surprise, particularly as the military had said earlier this month that it had overrun all the LTTE's northern airstrips.

Electricity was cut across the city as antiaircraft batteries fired at the incoming turbo-prop planes, which the military later said had been loaded with explosives and were intended to crash into two Air Force installations.

One downed plane instead ploughed through the 10th floor of a downtown tax office, from where rescuers pulled out mangled strips of metal painted gunmetal gray. Another plane was shot down near an Air Force base north of the city. Both pilots died, as well as two civilians apparently hit by antiaircraft shells. "I don't think it says the Tigers are any stronger on the ground. But it does say they have command and control capacity," says Alan Keenan, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Resistance in the east

In another reminder of the shifting threat, suspected LTTE gunmen killed at least 21 villagers in eastern Sri Lanka on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense said. The government declared victory in the east in 2007, but observers say new pockets of resistance may emerge in the aftermath of a defeat in the north.

With independent monitors barred from the area of fighting, there is wide disagreement on the number and fate of civilians there. UN officials last month said around 250,000 people were affected, but government officials say these figures are vastly inflated and have been further reduced by the escape of 36,000 people in recent weeks.

Human Rights Watch estimates that 2,000 people were killed and 5,000 injured in the latest month of fighting, and accused the military of shelling civilian areas, including hospitals. It also condemned the LTTE for shooting and intimidating those who try to leave and for forcibly recruiting children to fight.

Sri Lankan officials have poured scorn on these and other claims of widespread civilian casualties and accused the LTTE of shelling safe zones set up for fleeing civilians. They also say the military has taken care not to rely on heavy guns in populated areas and is taking greater casualties by engaging rebel fighters in close combat. Military officials have refused to release updated casualty lists, however.

UN head of humanitarian relief John Holmes told reporters Saturday at the end of the three-day trip here that he was concerned about the "significant number of people being killed and injured every day"; and urged both sides to exercise restraint. But he refused to be drawn on casualty figures or the discrepancy over the number of displaced people at risk.

UN officials and aid workers say privately that claims of large numbers of civilian deaths from Army bombardments are accurate. Some are also suspicious of the government's insistence on revising down the numbers of those affected, as it may blur any independent attempt in future to account for the missing and dead.

Any negotiated end to the war hinges on Prabakaran, the veteran leader of the Tigers whose personality cult and paranoia have eliminated all rivals. "The leadership is Prabakaran. It's a collective term for one person," says a Western diplomat.

Last month, the Army chief speculated that he had fled the country, but officials believe he is still here. A photo posted over the weekend on pro-rebel websites showed him posing with the two purported pilots of the suicide planes.

The Tamil Tigers' air attack on Colombo is unlikely to herald a return to fortune for them [Reuters]

It will be tempting to assume that the audacious air raid on Colombo by the Tamil Tigers signals the start of a dramatic revival of Sri Lanka's deadly separatist group after a string of losses.

But the bombing, in the centre of Colombo, Sri Lanka's largest city, which killed two people and wounded another 50, will not derail the military's relentless and ruthless push into rebel territory.

With just 100sq km of mostly rugged terrain still under its control, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) can expect only bleaker times as weeks and months roll by.

How all this happened is a remarkable story.

Seven years ago, the LTTE was on top, having scored spectacular military victories that forced Colombo to seek out a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire with the Tigers.

That was in February 2002, when Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE founder and leader, was the undeclared king of Sri Lanka's north and east.

Many Tamils argue today that Prabhakaran, now 55, should have used the favourable times to graduate from a military leader to a politician, for the sake of the Tamil community.

The safari suit that Prabhakaran traded for his military fatigues in order to address journalists in the northern town of Kilinochchi in April 2002 - his last press conference - gave an impression that he was ready to make a change.

But that did not happen - and with disastrous consequences.

Intransigence

As Colombo and the LTTE met around the world for six rounds of seemingly promising peace talks, Prabhakaran remained adamant that he would settle for nothing less than an independent state for the Tamils.

This amounted to political hara-kiri.

Ever since he stepped into the world of militancy as a young man in the 1970s, opportunity and luck helped Prabhakaran gain stature.

But by 2004, the good fortune appeared to be deserting him.

In March that year, Karuna, one of his closest lieutenants who commanded the entire eastern region of Sri Lanka for the LTTE, broke away with thousands of fighters to create a deep chasm in the otherwise regimented outfit.

Thousands of soldiers have been killed in the campaign Rajapaksa launched in 2006 [AFP]

Two months later, neighbouring India elected the Congress party, bringing to power the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, who Prabhakaran had widowed in 1991 when he ordered the suicide bombing of Rajiv Gandhi, her husband and former Indian prime minister.

No one realised then how the change in government in New Delhi would one day prove detrimental to the LTTE.

Prabhakaran refused to compromise, continued his use of assassinations to further his cause and moved to turn the LTTE territory in parts of the island's northeast into a de-facto state.

Lost efficacy

This undid the peace process, isolated its broker Norway (which many Sinhalese said was biased towards the LTTE), weakened the government that had signed a peace deal with him and eventually turned many countries against the rebel leader.

In the process, the LTTE's arguments about Colombo's political insincerity, some of them valid, lost efficacy.

The cold-blooded killing of Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's foreign minister, in August 2005 by a LTTE sniper, was a turning point.

Prabhakaran also told Tamils to boycott the presidential election in November 2005, thus ensuring the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has become the LTTE's nemesis.

Prabhakaran's reasoning was that a Sinhalese hardliner would help widen the ethnic divide and further the separatist drive.

Even Tamils sympathetic to the LTTE admit that the boycott decision was his biggest political blunder after the Gandhi assassination.

Aid agencies say 230,000 civilians, mostly ethnic Tamils, are trapped in Mullaitivu [AFP]

Within a month of Rajapaksa's victory, Prabhakaran began provoking the military, which by then had teamed up with the breakaway LTTE leader Karuna.

In April 2006, a female LTTE suicide bomber almost blew up Sri Lanka's army chief, Sarath Fonseka, leaving him badly wounded.

He returned to his post with a vengeance.

Within months, the LTTE tried to assassinate Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president's brother and the spearhead of Colombo's war against the Tigers. He also survived.

The end result was a hardened Sri Lanka, which decided to formally ditch the Norway-brokered peace process and go for the kill.

Provocations

LTTE's provocations sparked off a full-scale war in 2006 that the Tigers initially thought they would be able to win.

But luck was no longer with the man who had chased the dream of an independent Tamil state from his teenage years.

With crucial support from Karuna, the military won control of the entire eastern province in 2007 – after more than a decade.

The military went on the offensive in the north in 2008, spectacularly capturing territory after territory the Tigers had lorded over for 10 years and shattered the myth of LTTE's invincibility.

By the end of the year, Prabhakaran was on the run.

But the LTTE is not finished. It is down, but not out. Not yet.

Friday's bombing of Colombo by the LTTE air wing – it is the world's only insurgent group with planes - only proves that the Tigers will never give up.

Prabhakaran still has hundreds of guerrilla fighters, although cornered in a mainly forested region of the northern Mullaitivu district. While many are perhaps as fanatical as their chief, there are a significant number of child recruits.

No resurgence

It is apparent that the LTTE will never be able to bounce back to its golden days when it lorded over a large swath of land, commanding a state within a state.

In video

A look inside a camp for displaced Tamils

The military has made too many gains and seized massive quantities of arsenal, dealing crippling blows the LTTE will find it near impossible to recover from.

The global crackdown on the Tigers has also aided Colombo. It is now classified as a "terror group" in about 30 countries.

Even Norway has told the Tigers to sue for peace.

India, a key player in Sri Lanka, has gone to the extent of saying that LTTE has damaged the Tamil community and it should give up its weapons.

The LTTE does not have much of a choice.

Street protests by a section of political parties in India's Tamil Nadu state have not influenced New Delhi to lean on Colombo in support of a ceasefire, that most analysts feel would give breathing time to the gasping Tigers.

Sri Lanka is in no mood for any further talks with the LTTE and nor is it ready to halt its military onslaught.

So the LTTE will fight on with all its might.

In the process, the worst sufferers will be the mass of Tamil civilians still caught up in the war zone.

M.R. Narayan Swamy is Deputy Editor at IANS news agency based in New Delhi. He is the author of two books on the Tamil separatist fighting and writes regularly on Sri Lanka.

The daring but failed air raid on Colombo by Tamil Tiger's air wing appears to have given lie to the Sri Lankan army's lofty claims that
it has crushed the Tamil rebels and regained control of LTTE-held territory in northern Sri Lanka.

While the LTTE declared the 9/11 type attack ^ which killed two people and injured more than 50 on Friday ^ a successful suicide mission, the country's air force chief said it was a total failure as both the aircraft that tried to bomb Colombo were shot down before they could inflict any significant damage.
Analysts, however, said the attack wasn't just meant to hit the targets. They said the suicide mission by two

LTTE aircraft showed that the guerrilla group still had significant fighting capability, as well as the audacity and nerve to take the battle into the rival camp with an element of surprise.

"A key aim seems to have been to demonstrate that this is no time to call upon the LTTE to surrender or disarm," said Col (retd) R Hariharan, an experienced analyst on Sri Lanka. Several countries, including the US, European Union, Norway and Japan, besides India, have spoken of the LTTE laying down arms as a way out of the worsening humanitarian crisis created by the latest Lankan scorched earth offensive.

A day after its two Zlin-143 aircraft were shot down by anti-aircraft fire, attention fell on LTTE's claim that the mission was carried out by the 'Black Air Tigers', a term it used for the first time with reference to its air wing. Pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website reported that the aircraft dived into the Air Force headquarters in Colombo and the main military airbase in Katunayake, adjacent to Sri Lanka's only international airport, 35 km from the capital.

The web site also carried a recent picture of the two pilots, identified as Colonel Roopan and Lt. Col Siriththiran, with the Eelam chief V Prabhakaran ^ an attempt to disprove theories of his death.

The choice of legitimate military targets rather than a civilian one shows that the LTTE is keen to shore up its image even while demonstrating its capabilities. It is also seen as a signal to the Tamil diaspora that the war is far from over.

However, Sri Lanka's air force chief described the mission as a "total failure" as neither aircraft could bomb or crash into their targets.

"They didn't deliver any bombs. They were hit by our anti-aircraft guns before they could," said Air marshal Roshan Goonatileke. Looking at the quantum of explosives in the aircraft that was downed at Katunayake, it seemed to be a suicide mission.

Asked if the aircraft may have taken off from outside the country as most of the northern territory is now under government control, he said they had come only from the "small stretch of land" still under LTTE domination.
It is not clear why the LTTE chose to lose two of its aircraft and two trained pilots. The army has said it has captured at least seven airstrips of the LTTE, and believed its air capability had been largely neutralised. The Tigers use Czech Zlin-143 light aircraft, but the exact number of their fleet is not known. Sri Lanka feels they had three, and all have now been shot down. All missions have been undertaken at night. The planes fly low to avoid radar detection and maintain radio silence. They have an improvised delivery mechanism to drop bombs. The Tiger air raids have not inflicted any significant damage so far, but have served to inspire awe among their followers and fear among foes.

The government says that the planes were shot down before reaching their targets [AFP] Footage of raids by Tamil Tiger aircraft on Colombo, Sri Lanka's largest city, have been released by defence officials. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have declared the "suicide missions", during which one plane flew into a tax office building, were a success. But the government said on Sunday that its footage, part of which shows a light aircraft flying into a building and exploding, proves the two planes were brought down by anti-aircraft fire. The planes probably intended to hit the country's air force headquarters and an air base during the attack on Friday night, government authorities said. "If they [the attacks] really worked, there wouldn't have been an air force," Keheliya Rambukwella, a government spokesman, said. Aircraft crash Officials said both aircraft were hit by fire and one crashed into the tax office building near the air force headquarters and exploded, while the second was shot down near the same base north of Colombo. Focus: Sri Lanka Q&A: Sri Lanka's civil war The history of the Tamil Tigers Timeline: Conflict in Sri Lanka Four people died in the attack, including the two pilots, and 51 people were injured. David Hawkins, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Sri Lanka, said: "It was a very embarrassing attack on the nation's capital, that two planes were able to cross most of the island without being intercepted along the way." He said the military confirmed it was aware that the LTTE aircraft had taken off, but was unable to locate them before they reached Colombo "because they flew so low and so slowly". The Sri Lankan government has stepped up its air defences, with police and military officials saying they expect more LTTE attacks as the group appears to be steadily losing territory to advancing government forces in the north. "This particular air raid has not come as a big surprise," Murali Reddy, a Sri Lankan journalist, told Al Jazeera. "The surprise element is only that the government, or the military, was not able to intercept these two aircraft between the north and the capital, but everybody was expecting some kind of action from the Tigers as they cling on to their last bastion in Mullaitivu." Defiant attack The government says it has the Tigers confined in an area of less than 100sq km along a coastal jungle stretch in the northeast. In video A look inside a camp for displaced Tamils But the Tiger's defiant air attack showed the fighters retain the ability to launch raids across the country, even while their ground forces are under attack. Reports of high civilian casualties in the conflict have prompted criticisms from human rights groups and the UN. Human Rights Watch has said that up to 2,000 non-combatants have been killed and has accused both sides of war crimes, calling on them to immediately stop "the ongoing slaughter of civilians". The UN also said that it was deeply concerned for thousands of people trapped in the island's northeast. Tamil video Al Jazeera also received footage from a pro-Tamil group that said it showed Sri Lankan government forces bombing a civilian safe zone. The group claimed the images, which showed dead bodies and distraught people, were scenes of the aftermath of a government raid in the country's northeast. The group's claim could not be independently verified. Government officials have told Al Jazeera that they stopped carrying out air attacks one week ago in order to protect civilians. Speaking at the end of a three-day visit to Sri Lanka on Saturday, John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, expressed concern about the heavy military presence at refugee camps set up for the more than 30,000 civilians who have fled the war zone. "I fear the reality is that significant numbers of people are still killed and injured every day in that pocket," he said. The LTTE is fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north, claiming Tamils have suffered years of discrimination by the country's Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting since Sri Lanka's civil war began in 1983.