Tamil rebels demonstrate military might

Tamil Tiger guerrillas in green-striped camouflage assaulted a mock government fort with gunfire, rockets and explosives Friday at a secret training base in separatist-held territory in northern Sri Lanka.

Rebels escorted reporters along back roads to the live-fire exercise to demonstrate they are still a powerful military force despite the government's announcement Thursday that it had won full control of eastern Sri Lanka for the first time in 13 years.

The Tigers said they have simply switched from conventional warfare to guerrilla tactics in the east, noting they hold a swath of territory in the north that they run as a virtual state.

"Gaining territory is not victory, it is a false hope. We will again come out and attack," said Lt. Col. V. Nishaanthan, who led the drills Friday.

Rebel leaders said the early morning exercise was practice for coming attacks on nearby government positions. As fighters prepared for the drills, artillery shells fired by government troops exploded in the distance.

Many of the fighters were in the striped fatigues that have become a rebel trademark. Others had olive green uniforms with ammunition vests. Many wore flip flops, and when they ran in formation a loud thwacking sound followed them. A few went barefoot.

Reporters taken to the base had to agree to keep the location secret. The training ground was an expanse of white sand, dotted with patches of brush. Rusty bullet casings lay on the ground, showing the base had been used before, but not recently.

"We can't keep a training base for a long time in this area," said Rasiah Ilanthirayan, the Tamil guerrillas' military spokesman, pointing to the threat of government airstrikes.

The drills began with three female fighters charging a foxhole. When they reached the ditch, one shot point blank into it several times.

When asked what the fighters would have done if the soldiers inside had surrendered, officials at first said they would take them prisoner. But Ilanthirayan laughed: "It's a war. It's not kindergarten."

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been fighting for an independent homeland since 1983. The 3 million mainly Hindu Tamils have long faced discrimination from the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese majority in the nation of 19 million people.

The conflict has killed an estimated 70,000 people on the island, which lies off India's southern tip. A 2002 truce has all but collapsed because of fighting over the past 20 months that has left 5,000 people dead.

Rebels have waged conventional military operations against government troops, but have also attacked military and civilian targets in government-held areas and carried out more than 240 suicide bombings. They are listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union.

"We can easily change our tactics and strategy from a conventional army to more of a guerrilla unit," said S. Puleedevan, secretary-general of the movement's Peace Secretariat, who escorted reporters to the base.

The rebel force, a cult-like army whose fighters carry cyanide capsules to swallow in case of capture, is thought to number about 10,000. Human rights groups criticize them for recruiting child soldiers — a practice the rebels say they will phase out by year's end.

The group also maintains a large flotilla that it uses for naval attacks and to smuggle weapons and goods to its part of the island. In March, the guerrillas staged their first airstrike, using a single-propeller plane to bomb an air force base next to the international airport outside Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo.

Government and rebel artillery routinely shell each other along the lines divided rebel-held territory and the largely government-controlled Jaffna peninsula in the north. The Sri Lankan army also sends small units into rebel territory to lay mines and carry out guerrilla attacks, human rights groups say.

The exercises Friday were geared toward more conventional fighting. During the main drill, soldiers took positions behind brush about 100 yards from the mock fort made of logs and mud and ringed by concertina wire.

The attack — intended to be a nighttime operation — began with the launching of a rocket-propelled grenade, and then a cacophony of rifle fire rang out. Three female fighters in the distance — dressed in the Tamil Tiger uniform of checked shirts and black pants, their long hair braided and tied into buns — manned a .50-caliber machine gun that laid down covering fire.

Fighters approached the fort in single file. Two ran ahead and pushed a long white pipe containing explosives under the first circle of concertina wire, then blew it up. Rebels said the obstacle-clearing weapon, known as a Bangalore torpedo, had been newly designed to be lighter and more powerful.

The attackers then blew up a second and a third defensive wall, sending sand flying into the air and shaking the earth. The fighters then overran the fort.

"This is very crucial to first attack the enemies' front line, to make a gateway to enter into the nerve part of the military complex," said Nishaanthan, the training commander.

Puleedevan, the reporters' guide, said the guerrilla force learned about warfare by studying Napoleon, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, the two world wars and the more recent fighting in Bosnia and East Timor as well as from its fighters' firsthand experiences.

"We learn everything, whatever is available, and we are still learning," he said.

Commanders also show their fighters films like "Saving Private Ryan," "Black Hawk Down," and "Finding Nemo," he said, without explaining how such entertainment helps train troops.

In brief interviews, several fighters repeated the group's rhetoric and praised the movement's leader, the rarely seen Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Nishaanthan said he joined the rebels 19 years ago "to liberate our Tamil people from the oppressors." Of the 300 people he first trained with, he knows of only 10 to 15 who are still alive, he said.

Thambiraja Ravindran, 26, a platoon leader, said he joined two years ago because "the oppressive force is committing a lot of atrocities against our people."

"We are not running as (the government) says. We are prepared to fight against all its movements and operations," he said. "We strongly believe, under the guidance of our leader, that we will soon achieve our goals, and those running will be the forces of Sri Lanka."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070713/ap_on_re_as/sri_lanka_rebels_1&printer=1;
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