Sri Lankan separatists take fight to the air

For the second time in two days, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched a brazen attack on the Sri Lankan Army. The latest came after a suicide bomber killed seven by driving an explosives-laden tractor into an Army camp early Tuesday morning in Batticaloa district in eastern Sri Lanka.

But while the Tigers have launched several such assaults by land and sea, it was Monday's raid by two crude aircraft on a military base just outside Colombo that has left Sri Lankan military analysts worried.

For the first time in more than two decades of fighting, the separatist Tamil Tigers have launched an aerial attack, confirming that its military now includes a small air force, called the Tamileelam Air Force (TAF) or "Vaanpuliga."

These capabilities make the Tigers the first guerrilla group with the potential to carry out attacks by land, sea, and air, says N. Manoharan, a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) in New Delhi.

"This has added a new dimension" to the conflict, says Iqbal Athas, a columnist from Sri Lanka's Sunday Times. "The aerial capability of the Tigers has increased the threat perception for the Sri Lankan Army, which already has to deal with their formidable squad of suicide bombers and their sophisticated naval wing."

What worries Sri Lankan military analysts is the audacity with which two low-flying aircraft flew close to the nation's capital from an air base nearly 250 miles away and returned safely – all while avoiding radar detection and Sri Lankan Army antiaircraft missiles. The attack killed three Sri Lankan soldiers and injured 16.

While the Sri Lankan government maintains that only two helicopter gun-ships were slightly damaged in the raid, the Tigers say on their website,Tamilnet.com, that several Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) jet bombers, including the prized Israeli-made Kfir jets, were "put out of action" after being bombed by their aircraft.

"Up to 40 percent of the SLAF's strike capability has been knocked out," the site claims. Rasiah Ilanthirayan, the rebels' military spokesperson was quick to warn that "more attacks of the same nature will follow."

"Their air-raid capability is like a new jewel to their crown," says Ashok Mehta, a retired Indian Army general who led the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to assist the Sri Lankan Army in fighting the Tigers in the late 1980s.

However, Mr. Mehta is quick to point out that the aircraft owned by the Tigers – possibly up to three in number – are crude in nature and are no match to the Sri Lankan Air Force's MiG-27s and Kfir jets.

According to the Sri Lankan military, the Tigers' new planes are locally designed one- or two-seater light aircraft assembled in Tiger-held territory with parts smuggled, most likely, from Southeast Asia. Most Tamil Tiger military hardware, military experts say, is smuggled from that region.

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