"Sri Lanka the world's greatest learning lab for counter-terrorism" says Dr. Leitner

Dr. Peter Leitner, President Counter Terrorism Research Center and Professor National Center for Bio Defense of the George Mason University identified eight major sources from which the LTTE procures arms and explosives.

According to him the following are the sources for LTTE's arms consignments.

Explosives, weapons and other supplies have come from the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, 2. Bulgaria (SA14, LAW), 3. Ukraine (50 tons of TNT and 10 tons of RDX), 4. Cyprus (RPGS),5. Cambodia (small arms), 6. Thailand (small arms), 7. Burma (small arms), 8. Croatia (32,400 mortars)

He presented this list while delivering the keynote address in an event organized by the Sri Lanka Patriots at the Veteran's Memorial Auditorium in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles California.

Leitner said the amount of explosives and mortars transported by the LTTE remains the largest quantity of armaments ever transported by a non-state armed group. Most armaments he said have been obtained by using forged or adapted end-user certificates.

He said fortunately the group is now listed by the US and EU as a terrorist organization. He said the LTTE effectively wages PSYOPS against the West. Leitner reminded that the LTTE is engaged in the old semantic game of using "National Liberation Movement"for terrorists and the word "Homeland" for "fiefdom".

He said the recent LTTE interest in negotiations appear to have been a direct result of US effectiveness in stopping the flow of billions of dollars to the coffers of the LTTE.

Dr. Peter Leitner said terrorism should be called terrorism every where. If it is unacceptable when it is wielded against the US it should be unacceptable wherever it is wielded. He charged that certain inconsistencies in US counter terrorism policy create sanctuaries from which innocents are victimized. He said elimination of vagaries in definition, prosecution, and response should be a primary goal. He said the West need to pressure LTTE to engage in a negotiated settlement for their re-integration into a unitary Sri Lanka.

He said the West needs to overcome its tendency to create a romanticized moral equivalency between legitimate nation state and the terrorist who attack them. He categorically stated what happens in Sri Lanka does not stay there. It travels to other countries.

Leitner said the LTTE has become the world's most innovative terrorist organization. He said the suicide bombers known as black Tigers, boat-bombs, home-made mini submarines female combatants(30% of the Sea Tigers are women) , assassination of political officials, (it has killed two state heads) and claims that persist that some LTTE members have been trained in flying ultra-light aircraft are very good examples to that.

These techniques have been copied, he said, by other terrorist groups that later target other nations. He said Sri Lanka therefore has become the world's greatest learning lab for counter terrorism.

(http://www.defence.lk)