Tamil Tiger Raids Push Sri Lanka Toward Civil War
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NEW DELHI, India – The Sri Lankan air force launched a second round of retaliatory strikes on Tamil Tiger rebel positions yesterday amid fears that the country was returning to civil war after a four-year truce.
At least 15,000 people – almost all ethnic minority Tamils – have fled the targeted areas in the island’s northeast, said a rebel official.
A military spokesman, Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, said fighter jets attacked coastal, rebel-controlled Trincomalee district after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam again fired on naval patrol boats.
The rebels said at least 12 civilians had died in the strikes, a claim that could not be verified as the government, fearing a resumption of hostilities, closed the only main road linking Sri Lanka’s south to LTTE-held areas.
Border crossings to rebel areas have been closed while aid workers involved in rebuilding efforts after the 2004 tsunami said they were evacuating from the north and east.
The LTTE has been fighting for an independent homeland for the minority Tamils in northern and eastern Sri Lanka for nearly 25 years. Nearly 70,000 people died in the civil war that erupted in 1983.
In retaliation for the air strikes the LTTE launched a mortar attack, killing two civilians and wounding eight, the military said.
“There will be coordinated retaliation by the armed forces if the LTTE continues to attack,” a government spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, said in Colombo.
The air strikes followed a suicide bombing of the motorcade of Sri Lankan army chief, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, at his headquarters in Colombo in which 10 people died.
A “Black Tiger” female suicide bomber, pretending to be pregnant, was reportedly responsible for the attack.
The LTTE said the air raids violated the Norwegian-brokered cease-fire between the government and the rebels and asked truce monitors if Colombo had declared full-scale war.
Last week, the Tigers pulled out of planned peace talks in Switzerland, accusing the government of attacking Tamil civilians and reneging on an agreement to facilitate internal rebel meetings.
