Sri Lanka Military Tries To Quell the Reemergence of the Tamil Tigers

From DAWN.

Sri Lanka troops kill emerging Tiger leaders: official


COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's military on Friday shot dead three men they believed were trying to revive the separatist Tamil Tiger movement five years after its defeat, a spokesman said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said troops killed the three, including a man they identified as a local leader of the Tigers, as they tried to escape a military cordon in a jungle area of the former war zone to the south of Jaffna.

“They tried to break the cordon and we opened fire and killed three people,” Wanigasooriya said. He did not say if there were any troop casualties.

However, he said the military believed two of those killed were suspects wanted in connection with the shooting and injuring of a police officer last month in the island's north.

One of the men killed Friday was named as Kajadeepan Ponniah Selvanayagam, 31, who is better known as Gopi, Wanigasooriya told reporters in Colombo.

The government's information department separately described Gopi as a leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north of the island, confirming he was among the three killed on Friday.

Wanigasooriya said the army had been able to locate the men's jungle hideout after the recovery on Thursday of three backpacks with food rations and medicines that the trio had abandoned nearby.

He confirmed it was the first major shooting since government forces wiped out the Tiger leadership in May 2009 and declared an end to the 37-year-long war over a homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority.
Pre-dawn raid

The military carried out the pre-dawn operation in the sparsely populated jungles of Nedunkerni based on information from the police Terrorist Investigation Department, which was looking for the three men who were believed to be remnants of the Tamil Tigers, he said.

Wanigasooriya said that a soldier had also been killed in the island's north, but that death was unrelated to the jungle shootings.

Before the latest incidents, police had already appealed for information on Gopi who was accused of trying to reignite the Tigers movement.

They had offered a reward of a million rupees ($7,600) for information leading to his arrest.

He and another man identified as Nawaratnam Navaneethan, 36, had been accused of opening fire and injuring a police officer in the north of Sri Lanka last month. Navaneethan was also believed to be among those killed in Friday's army shooting.

The latest incident came a day after police announced they had detained 60 people, including 10 women, in connection with attempts to reactivate the Tiger movement.

The UN has estimated that at least 100,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist conflict between 1972 and 2009.

The UN rights body last month called for an international probe into allegations that thousands of civilians were killed by government forces as well as Tamil Tiger rebels.

Colombo has rejected the UN Human Rights Council resolution and made clear it will not cooperate with any probe after insisting that its troops did not kill a single civilian.

Sri Lanka is also under intense foreign pressure to scrap draconian anti-terror laws, but Colombo maintains that they need the extra ordinary powers to deal with a possible resurgence of terrorism.

Sri Lankan Cricket Team Ambushed By Terrorists In Pakistan

Pakistan...you really are becoming the gold standard of terror, now aren't you? In a brazen attack today, radical islamic terrorists attacked the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team killing 8 of its members and then fleeing. No one has claimed responsibility yet but I think the choices are pretty narrow as to who is responsible. Here's some of the details from Yahoo News:

Gunmen attacked Sri Lanka's cricket team in a gun and grenade assault Tuesday in the Pakistani city of Lahore that killed eight people and wounded seven members of the squad.
The attack sparked condemnation from around the world and threw a massive question mark over the future of the game in the troubled nation -- a co-host for the 2011 cricket World Cup.
"The plan was apparently to kill the Sri Lankan team but the police came in the way and forced the attackers to run away," Lahore's police chief Habib-ur Rehman said.
"They appeared to be well-trained terrorists," he told reporters.
Rehman said up to 12 gunmen ambushed the team's convoy close to the Gaddafi stadium with rockets, hand grenades and automatic weapons, unleashing a fierce gunbattle with security forces.
The gunmen fled after the ambush, triggering a giant manhunt.

I think that probably the most telling part of the article is this:

Pakistani officials said the attack bore all the hallmarks of the November 2008 assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, which was blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic militants.

Now, with that bit of information, most are going to turn the spotlight on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group of terrorists in Pakistan that was nailed for the Mumbai massacre. At the same time, one might argue that Lashkar-e-Taiba has been laying pretty low since Mumbai so this could quite possibly be more linked directly to al Qaeda - I know, there is a ton of grey area when you mention terror groups and al Qaeda but my thoughts are that this resembles Lashkar's doing more in the use of the small weapons. Al Qaeda is more of a bomb and awe operation.

The fact of the matter is that Pakistan continues down this path of no return - they are giving away their first born to pacify the Taliban in the northwest part of the country, they have al Qaeda growing in numbers by the day up in the northwest as well and they seemingly have no control of Lashkar-e-Taiba who is further south in the country. It's a bloody mess, pardon the pun.

Eight dead in attack on Sri Lanka cricketers in Pakistan

Witnesses said the upmarket district, home to many designer boutiques, was transformed into a battle zone as gunmen hidden behind trees opened fire in a sophisticated, coordinated attack.
"The bus came under attack as we were driving to the stadium," Sri Lanka's captain Mahela Jayawardene told Cricinfo.
"The gunmen targeted the wheels of the bus first, and then the bus. We all dived to the floor to take cover."
He said most of the injuries appeared to be minor and caused by debris.
It could have been worse -- Rehman said the attackers fired a rocket which missed the bus, then threw grenades underneath which failed to explode.
He said weapons recovered from the scene "suggest the terrorists were well prepared and organised."
A police official said two civilians and six policemen guarding the players were killed in the attack as the team was heading for the third day's play in the second Test against Pakistan.
Sri Lankan officials said seven team players and a coach were wounded.
Star batsman Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavithana were treated in hospital but out of danger, while Jayawardene, vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilina Thushara and Suranga Lokumal had minor injuries.
Assistant coach Paul Farbrace, a British national, was also hurt.
Samaraweera is one of Sri Lanka's leading players and earlier this week he became only the seventh batsmen in Test cricket to notch a double hundred in consecutive matches.
Sri Lanka said it was rushing its foreign minister to Pakistan in the wake of the assault, which Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse called a "cowardly terrorist attack."
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also strongly condemned the "terrorist" attack and ordered an inquiry.
Two air force helicopters evacuated the Sri Lankan team from the stadium to an air base, from where they were to be flown home immediately.
Experts defused two car bombs and recovered grenades, three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of explosives, a pistol and a detonating cable.
Blood stained the front seats of a vehicle used by Pakistan's elite force, the van raked with gunfire with its wheels shot up and radio system disabled.