| Published on 27-03-2007 In World | | Viewed 2641 times | | LTTE 'air assets' enter the war |
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| Written by
K.Venkataramanan | 
The air raid on Colombo's Katunayake Air Force base by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam at 12.45 a.m. on March 26, 2007, perhaps the first ever aerial bombing by a non-State actor, has both symbolic value and strategic significance.
At the symbolic level, it may be the Tigers' way of lifting the spirits of the Tamil Diaspora, which is believed to be sceptical about the eternal demands for contributions to the 'final war' that the Tigers have been making for the last two decades. Many expatriate Tamils, who contribute dollars in hundreds and thousands every month to the Tiger's war coffers, were apparently uneasy about the fact that the LTTE had not launched any offensive since threatening to resume its war for a separate State last November.
At the strategic level, the LTTE may have succeeded in conveying to the world that its 'air assets' were not merely a light aircraft that could be used to swoop, Kamikaze or 9/11 style, on identified targets in a self-destruct mission. Pro-LTTE Tamilnet website said it gave a 'surprise' to military analysts by using 'payload carrying mechanisms' with 'automatic discharge circuitry'. The Tigers also released pictures of 'Air Tigers' that showed a light wing aircraft painted in military camouflage. Tamilnet described the payload mechanism as 'locally designed' and its fixtures as 'locally made'.
In its report on the air attack, Tamilnet quoted LTTE military spokesman Rasaiah Ilanthirayan as saying two aircraft were involved in the raid. In a related report describing the aircraft, the website claimed that the Tigers had not revealed the number or type of light wing aircraft in their possession.
The air attack's actual impact – three Sri Lankan Air Force personnel killed and 16 others wounded, and a consequent temporary closure of the Bandaranaike International Airport – was minimal, in comparison with the deadly suicide attack by the Tigers on the same airport and air base on July 24, 2001. The 2001 airport attack had destroyed a dozen military aircraft including Israeli-made Kfir combat jets, Mig-27s, and helicopters. It had also damaged a couple of civilian aircraft and left the island nation's import-intensive economy reeling, as international insurers levied a hefty risk surcharge on freight going to or through Sri Lanka.
The 2001 incident was a suicide mission by a group of LTTE cadres who had sneaked into the air force base under the cover of darkness, but the latest air raid is the first instance of the Tigers using the lightweight aircraft in their possession.
The existence of the 'Air Tigers' was first acknowledged by the LTTE in 1998, but analysts believed that it was just a nascent idea; and a long way away from developing into an 'air force'. The 'Sea Tigers', the 'naval' arm of the Tigers', was better known and more feared.
The 'Air Tigers' was primarily the brainchild of 'Colonel' Shankar, a close associate of LTTE leader V. Pirabhakharan, who had given up a job as an aeronautical engineer in Air Canada to join the Tigers and help them develop an air-borne attack force. The Tigers suffered a huge loss in December 2001, when a deep penetration unit of Sri Lanka's military intelligence, formally known in the Army as the 'Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol' (LRRP), killed him in a precision strike using a claymore mine.
Shankar, whose real name was Vythialingam Sornalingam, had picked up his degree in aeronautical engineering from the Hindustan College of Engineering near Chennai in the 1980's.
In the run-up to peace talks with the Ranil Wickremesinghe regime in 2002, it was revealed that the LTTE had some landing facilities, when a sea-plane landed in the Iranamadu tank near Kilinochchi to bring in late Anton Balasingham into Sri Lanka without using the country's only international airport or any of its seaports.
Later, Nordic monitors observing the now-defunct ceasefire confirmed the existence of an airstrip near Iranaimadu, and some time ago, the Sri Lanka Air Force had claimed to have bombed a runway in one of its many aerial strikes in LTTE-controlled territory since April 2006.
In September 2006, it was claimed that the Tigers had struck the Palaly air base of the Sri Lankan military in the Jaffna peninsula from an aircraft, but this piece of information was neither confirmed by the LTTE nor taken seriously.
It is not clear how much Colombo was alive to any threat from the air, but if there were any radar systems engaged in constant surveillance of its air space, they had obviously failed to prevent the daring midnight mission. An international wire agency has reported that military radars had picked up the movement of the aircraft some 40 minutes before the air raid, but it yet to be officially confirmed.
The LTTE's military spokesman announced the first ever mission by 'Vaan Puligal' (Air Tigers) and took some pride in underscoring that the aircraft had returned to their 'base' in the Vanni region. He said it was a pre-emptive attack on the Sri Lanka Air Force to make it stop its 'indiscriminate' air raids on Tamil areas and threatened that more military installations would be targeted.
The demonstration of the LTTE's air capability is primarily a major cause for concern within the Sri Lankan establishment. It now has to invest heavily in air defence, especially over Colombo, and also must put in place mechanisms for scrambling jets at short notice to pursue Tiger aircraft or neutralise them pre-emptively in the air. It must now activate its air surveillance over the Vanni further to identify possible hangars, air strips and facilities for aeronautical engineering.
If any proof was needed that the much-touted post-2001 international anti-terrorism measures on outlawed groups had failed, the first air raid by an organised armed group has provided it. The LTTE, banned in India, dubbed a 'foreign terrorist' organisation in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and European Union, has cocked a snook at the international security establishment by developing and operationalising an air arm in the teeth of purported curbs on movement of war-like materials at sea and so called tighter controls over financial and material transfers to north-eastern Sri Lanka.
India, as usual, will maintain silence over the development, even though its security establishment must understand the obvious threat that air assets in the hands of an outlawed group in its neighbourhood – which also has a network of supporters in Indian territory – poses to its own security. One may go on arguing that the 'Sea Tigers' and 'Air Tigers' would pose no threat to India or its interests, but it should ill-behove a large country like India to see an armed group operate ships and planes in close proximity to its maritime territory and air space.
In recent times, India had nothing to say about an act of piracy committed by the 'Sea Tigers' a few months ago, when it intercepted a Jordanian merchant vessel carrying many tonnes of rice from India to South Africa. Even though the Jordanian crew were released after being taken to the LTTE headquarters town of Kilinochchi, it is learnt that the rice stolen from the ship is being sold by the LTTE at a price of SL Rs. 17 per kg in areas controlled by it.
It is difficult to say what India should do to neutralise the 'Sea Tigers' and 'Air Tigers', but it would be a grave mistake to ignore them altogether. After all, nothing is easier in the contemporary world that technology transfer among armed groups or their acting solely in pursuit of their goals untrammelled by diplomatic niceties and responsibilities that burden sovereign states. If asked to choose between not antagonising India and pursuing its politico-military objectives, none can be in doubt as to what course the Tigers will pursue.
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