WHY LTTE ATTACKED DELFT NAVAL BASE?

Till March 26,2007, the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) enjoyed the command of the skies. There was no opposition to its punitive strikes against the positions held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTW) in the Eastern and Northern Provinces and to its intimidatory strikes against the Sri Lankan Tamil population, inflicting a large number of civilian casualties. The LTTE faced difficulty in countering the punitive and intimidatory air strikes of the SLAF. This was due to a serious depletion of its anti-aircraft capability and the difficulties faced by it in procuring anti-aircraft guns and ammunition and surface-to-air missiles.

2. As a result of this, the Sri Lankan authorities did not consider it necessary to provide strengthened anti-aircraft defences to their army, naval and air force stations in the Tamil areas. They feared only land-based threats to them. They did not anticipate any threat from the air.

3. The position has since changed as a result of the LTTE's Tamil Eelam Air Force (TAF) going into action since March 26,2007, and demonstrating its capability for conventional air operations on ground-based targets and to evade the anti-aircraft defences. The TAF has already carried out three successful air strikes on ground targets of a strategic significance----two in the Colombo area and one in the Jaffna area.

4. The psychological and economic impact of these strikes has unnerved the Sri Lankan authorities. The psychological impact has been in denting the self-confidence of the Sri Lankan security forces and affecting their credibility in the eyes of the public. The economic impact has been on tourism. Flights of nervous international airlines were affected and there was a decline in tourist arrivals.

5. The expected operations of the armed forces to recover territory under the control of the LTTE in the Northern Province have not yet materialised. The SLAF has not been as active as it used to be before the TAF went into action. Fearing more strikes by the TAF, the Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse has given priority to strengthening the anti-aircraft defences in Colombo and Jaffna. Apart from taking conventional measures such as providing anti-aircraft guns and ammunition to all major military posts in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, it has also entered into negotiations with Pakistan and China for the purchase of surface-to-air missiles.

6. Taking advantage of this, the LTTE has embarked on a policy of identifying military posts where anti-aircraft defences have been set up, raiding them and capturing the anti-aircraft weapons supplied to them. It was in pursuance of this tactics that the LTTE raided a strategic naval base at Delft, an islet off the northern Jaffna peninsula, shortly after midnight on May 24,2007, dismantled its anti-aircraft defences and took away two anti-aircraft guns with ammunition, two Israeli machine guns, one rocket-propelled grenade launcher and eight assault rifles. They badly damaged the base infrastructure and withdrew after killing over 20 sailors of the Sri Lankan Navy. The raid lasted about two hours. The officers at the base frantically kept asking for an air strike against the raiding Sea Tigers and their boats, but the SLAF did not come to their help. Later, it claimed that the SLAF went into action and attacked the Sea Tiger boats as they were withdrawing and inflicted casualties and damage. There has been no corroboration of this so far.

7.The Government has not yet been able to remove the nervousness caused in Sri Lankan and foreign business circles----particularly among those in the civil aviation and tourism sectors---in the wake of the TAF's air raids in the Colombo area. Fear of an LTTE retaliation from the air continues to have a negative impact on the Government and the Security Forces.

(http://saag.org/%5Cpapers23%5Cpaper2255.html)