Category: Defense

COLOMBO, July 12, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka Wednesday announced it is forming a special unit of 1,000 men to bolster already tight security arrangements in the main city of Colombo amid fears of Tamil Tiger suicide bombings. Defence ministry spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the army had begun enlisting 1,000 soldiers for the special Colombo […]

COLOMBO, July 12, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse urged the international community Wednesday to unite and fight terrorism following a series of bomb blasts in neighbouring India that killed more than 180 people. “Yesterday’s bomb attacks in India draw attention to the need for cooperation among all countries on the need to […]

July 12, 2006 (AFP) – A Tamil Tiger rebel spokesman suffered a heart attack and was being rushed to a hospital in the Sri Lankan capital Wednesday for urgent treatment, a government minister told AFP.Velayudam Dayanidi, better known as Daya Master, was being brought to Colombo from the northern rebel-held town of Kilinochchi to undergo […]

July 12, 2006 (AFP) – Two policemen were killed Wednesday in a landmine attack by suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna peninsula, defence officials here said.The constables were travelling in a pick-up truck when it hit a Claymore mine at Nallur in the Jaffna peninsula, the officials said. The attack came a […]

July 11, 2006 (AFP) – A government soldier was killed Tuesday in a powerful bomb explosion near a Tamil Tiger war cemetery in Sri Lanka’s northern peninsula of Jaffna, officials said.The soldier, on a routine patrol, was killed as the blast ripped through the area at Kodikamam, a military official in the area said when […]

COLOMBO, July 11, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president Tuesday offered 1.25 billion dollars to rebuild embattled regions and asked his advisors to come up with a power-sharing plan to end decades of ethnic bloodshed. President Mahinda Rajapakse told a 15-member multi-ethnic panel appointed by him last week to come up with a formula that […]

July 8, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan police have launched an investigation into the death of a man who was allegedly beaten up in prison after being falsely accused of a school bomb hoax, officials said Saturday.The death of the 55-year-old man, Sunil Perera, has sparked widespread public outrage in the tropical island nation. Police […]

MALLAVI, Sri Lanka, July 6, 2006 (AFP) – Former vegetable vendor Dharmaselan lost his leg and arm in an aerial bombing over strife-torn northern Sri Lanka several years ago.But he says government soldiers did not believe him when they began harassing him again earlier this year as violence escalated in the region. “The army kept […]

July 6, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s elusive Tamil Tiger supremo has paid tribute to 273 suicide bombers known as Black Tigers who have carried out devastating attacks in the past 19 years, the guerrillas said Thursday. Six photographs were released of Velupillai Prabhakaran, 51, meeting with his current band of suicide bombers and lighting […]

July 5, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels Wednesday marked “Black Tiger Day” to honour 261 suicide bombers, as security was stepped up across Sri Lanka amid fears of more bombings, witnesses and officials said.The already tight security in the capital Colombo was bolstered with the closure of several roads in front of key military […]

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, July 5, 2006 (AFP) – A tangle of fairy lights — reds, blues and greens — blink merrily around the photos of stern-faced Tamil Tiger cadre, staring grimly out into the world. These are the Tigers’ “martyrs”, young men and women, some of whom have blown themselves up, starved to death in […]

July 5, 2006 (AFP) – There is no military solution to Sri Lanka’s separatist conflict, outgoing US Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead said, as daily bloodshed has raised fears of renewed war.Lunstead, who is leaving the country after three years, also said in a statement released Wednesday that a solution to Sri Lanka’s civil strife would require […]