COLOMBO: Sri Lanka said yesterday the air wing of the Tamil Tigers no longer posed a threat after the last two rebel planes crashed on suicide raids on Friday.
One small aircraft slammed into the main government tax office in central Colombo late on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding 53, the military said.
The other was shot down and crashed in a marsh outside the international airport, the site of the Tiger air wing’s first strike in 2007. The attack had set off volleys of anti-aircraft fire across Colombo.
Authorities said the two planes were the last aircraft at the disposal of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“It is a great victory in the fight against terrorism that we were able to bring down the two aircraft,” Defense spokesman and government minister Keheliya Rambukwella said. He said the rebels’ air force, the only air unit of a terrorist outfit in the world, had been a threat to the entire region. Neighboring India has nuclear facilities in its southern states.
The attack was proof of the Tigers’ ability to strike far from the war zone, where troops have rapidly encircled them in just 73 sq km of jungle and are within reach of ending a separatist war that began in 1983.
In a news release on Saturday, the rebels said the raid targeted Sri Lanka’s air force headquarters in Colombo and air base at the international airport, pro-rebel website www.TamilNet.com reported. TamilNet said the mission was flown by “Black Air Tigers,” or suicide pilots. Both planes came close to their targets. The tax office is near the air force headquarters and the crash site of the second plane was adjacent to the boundary of the air base.
The Tigers’ ramshackle air squadron had flown nine previous sorties since debuting in 2007. The military said it shot down one plane in September, but no wreckage was found.
“If they (the attacks) really worked, there wouldn't have been an air force,” Rambukwella told reporters.
The two planes were hit by anti-aircraft fire. One crashed into a tax office building near the air force headquarters and exploded, while the second plane was downed near the air force base north of Colombo, authorities said.
Air force spokesman Wing Cmdr. Janaka Nanayakkara said one of the planes was loaded with about 264 pounds of explosives, but the pilot could not detonate it because he had lost a hand to anti-aircraft fire.
In the northern war front, the government has captured or destroyed about 90 percent of the rebels’ facilities, Rambukwella said. The military says it has captured rebel bomb factories, submarines, diving equipment and large amounts of weapons.
Rambukwella said the two rebel aircraft destroyed Friday night are believed to be the last in the insurgents’ tiny air wing.
Meanwhile, a pro-rebel website published a letter reportedly written by one of the suicide pilots before he set off on the mission. It called on ethnic Tamil youths to join the Tigers in their fight for an independent state for the ethnic minority.
“We have enough armaments. We urgently need manpower,” pilot I. Rooban wrote, according to the TamilNet site.
“While we march with explosives inside the lion’s den, let's show the strength of Tamil people. I have never dreamed of wasting one's precious life,” he wrote.
“However, I feel privileged and proud that I can become a Black Tiger to earn respect for my people and my homeland.” Rebel suicide bombers known as Black Tigers have carried out hundreds of attacks against political, military and economic targets.
