Tigers facing serious ammunition crisis

Leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Prabhakaran last week issued an unusual order to his area leaders instructing them to restrict using artillery rounds against military targets. This is the first time the LTTE Leadership issued such an order during the undeclared Eelam War IV.

According to the latest intelligence report, this instruction had been issued with immediate effect, days after the destruction of the three LTTE arms shipments off Dondra point by the Sri Lanka Navy last week. It is believed that this order was due to the organization facing a severe shortage of heavy arms including Artillery shells.

Following the order, the LTTE had reduced firing artillery at military targets by almost fifty percent. Even after losing the Eastern province and Silavaturai areas the LTTE had continued for a long period to fire heavy artillery and mortars almost on a daily basis at military targets. The LTTE continued firing artillery at Pompemadu area in Mannar North, the mortar and artillery locations at Omanthai and also towards Welioya. In Welioya the LTTE attacked villages including Janakapura as well. But with this latest development, firing artillery at these areas had been drastically reduced.Intercepted radio communications of the Tamil Tigers claimed that the LTTE leadership had ordered that launching offensives into military held areas should be stopped due to shortage of military hardware.

The LTTE’s international gun running network has also been partially paralyzed due to crackdowns by foreign governments. This in turn has hampered its procurement and fund raising activities which sustained the organization to a great extent. These efforts were complemented by the Navy which managed to intercept several LTTE weapons consignments, limiting its ability to retaliate against the military.

On September 10, Sri Lanka’s Navy Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) – Samudura, Sayura, Shakthi and Suranimala successfully engaged with three LTTE arm shipments some 1200 kilometres away and destroyed them with large stocks of arms onboard.Despite several allegations that there were less than 5000 artillery rounds on board these ships, the Navy Spokesman and Naval Deputy Director Operation Commander D.K.P. Dassanayake confirmed that there were at least nearly 30,000 artillery rounds alone with several other military hardware stocked in at least two ships belonging to the LTTE.

However, there is no doubt that by destroying these ships, whether they carried only 5000 or 30,000 rounds, the threat to the ground troops and properties had been eased by about fifty percent.

So far the Navy’s Offshore Patrol Vessels have been able to destroy at least nine LTTE arms shipments off the Sri Lankan waters during the last few years. Since last January the LTTE was not able to receive even a single weapon from abroad as the Navy tightened its surveillances around the country’s sea.

KP factor

With the alleged arrest of the head of LTTE’s overseas procurement section Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP, the organization faced its worst debacle as the entire arms smuggling operation was stopped.

He had an extensive network, especially in South East Asia, and had been living in Thailand after being forced to move operations from Malaysia in 1990.

Reliable sources confirmed that for a long period KP was ailing and was unable to walk. Since then the procurement of weapons was handled by its second in charge Eithavan.

However, Thai authorities denied that they had arrested KP. It is now learnt that KP, who had over a hundred different passports, was a high profile character in the international arms network, which has inter-connections with several notorious terrorist groups including the Al- Quida terrorist network.

Both the United States and India are demanding that the Thai authorities hand over KP to them. KP was one of the main accused in the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination.

Prabha’s son creates internal rift

Twenty-two year old Charles Anthony Seelan, an aeronautical engineer, who heads the LTTE’s air wing and computer section, is considered to be the successor to Velupllai Prabhakaran, the LTTE’s supreme leader.

This has led to a power struggle within the organization. The latest rift within the organization is reported to have occurred when Prabhakaran expressed his desire to appoint his own son as successor.

Already LTTE’s Political Wing Leader S.P. Thamilchelvan, Tigers’ Intelligence head Pottu Amman, Sea Tiger Leader Soosai, who had been removed from the position due to his health condition and several other senior Tiger Leaders have expressed their objection to this suggestion by Prabhakaran.

The latest power struggle was reported at a time there was a cold war between Thamilchelvan and Pottu Amman over the second position in the organization.

It is now learnt that Thamilchelvan will be removed from his position as the political leader of the organization and Charles Anthony and Pottu Amman will be appointed to handle the political activities of the organization.

However Thamilchelvam in order to stress to the membership his abilities in every sphere is currently reported to be present in Pooeryn to lead the next operation.

Prabha has three children, Charles Anthony, who got his degree from a University in Ireland joined his father last year and launched successful air raids against several strategically important locations in Colombo and Jaffna challenging the supersonic jets of the Airforce.

Prabhakaran’s other two children are: 21-year-old daughter, Dhuwraha, and 11-year-old son, Balachandran. Intelligence reports state that the daughter is studying abroad while the little son is in Kilinochchi.

The leadership of 52-year-old Prabhakaran, who is diabetic and suffers from hypertension, has been undisputed from the inception of the organization.

(www.dailymirror.lk)