Past the minefield-line paved road, down a sandy track hemmed in by coconut palms and thatch huts, the gate appears, a metal boom bookended by log-and-sandbag bunkers.
It's not visible until you're on top of it, and the lone sentry's tiger-striped camouflage is the only sign this is a Tamil Tiger rebel base.
"The people who need to know -- our soldiers, the villagers who aid us -- they know we are here," said Muttiah Jayanthy, 33, one of the base's top officers. "If there is war, the government will feel our presence."
The Tigers agreed to let the Associated Press make a rare visit to a front-line rebel base on the condition that its location not be revealed.
The trip was tightly controlled, and only a dozen of the 2,000 fighters said to operate out the base were made available to speak. But it provided a rare snapshot of how the Tigers think -- and what they are preparing for.
In interview after interview in the past week, the fighters talked of their readiness to die for a Tamil homeland. One said she had volunteered to become a suicide bomber, known as a Black Tiger; another admitted she was once a child soldier.
Much of what they said was stock rhetoric, with repeated references to "historic responsibility" and "occupation forces." How much they had been ordered to say, how much came from indoctrination and how much was heartfelt was hard to judge.
But none showed doubts.
"Only by war can we get our homeland back, our identity, our dignity," Jayanthy said.
Using a Tamil homeland as an inspiration -- along with a feared intelligence network -- the Tigers have shaped a cult-like force whose fighters carry cyanide to swallow if they are captured, an agonizing death that hundreds have chosen.
Only the top commanders are given ranks; soldiers must wait until death.
"It is a final judgment on how we lived and fought," Jayanthy said.
The rebels' secretive chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is reverently referred to as "The Leader." He's rarely seen by outsiders, although pictures of the chubby commander are omnipresent in Tiger territory.
The Tigers will not say how large their force is, but they are estimated to have 5,000 to 7,000 fighters, and as many as half are believed to be children pressed into service. Backed by artillery and small naval gunboats, the rebels have waged guerrilla campaigns and have bested Sri Lanka's 66,000-strong army in conventional battles.
Their battlefield discipline is matched by a puritanical streak -- tobacco and alcohol are banned, and they must wait until their mid-20s to marry, even then only with their commander's permission.
The Tigers have turned a half-century of alleged discrimination against Sri Lanka's 3.2 million Tamils into a well-developed narrative of oppression. Nearly all can rattle off the offenses -- the adoption of Singhala as the sole national language in 1956; decades of anti-Tamil riots; and the 1981 burning of the Jaffna library that destroyed ancient Tamil manuscripts and modern archives.
The Tigers took up arms in 1983. The resulting war on this tropical island of 19 million people left more than 65,000 people dead before the 2002 ceasefire.
By then, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as the rebels are officially known, had eliminated most competing Tamil militant groups and carved out wide swaths of the north and east, where they've created a functioning country.
These days in "Tamil Eelam," as the Tigers call the homeland they claim, there are schools, tax collectors and sports associations.
So why go back to war?
"Until all of Tamil Eelam is liberated, we have only war," said Kumaran Sivapathasundram, a 26-year-old fighter, explaining that many predominantly Tamil areas are still government-controlled, including the capital of an ancient Tamil kingdom, the city of Jaffna.
At the base -- really just a few cement buildings inside a perimeter of bunkers disguised as thatch shacks, with swaying palms masking it all -- capturing territory was the major topic.
One fighter said more suicide bombings were needed -- and she'd already volunteered.
"I would like to be a Black Tiger," 26-year-old Priya Selvachandran said with a smile. "Because as a Black Tiger I can kill more soldiers."
Female suicide bombers are not uncommon. Last month, a woman disguised to look pregnant tried to kill Sri Lanka's top general, who was wounded in the blast that killed eight people.
Selvachandran scoffed at the suggestion that such bombings, along with the Tigers' murderous suppression of dissent, had alien-ated many Tamils.
"It our responsibility to protect all Tamils from oppression, and we are supported in our efforts," Selvachandran said. "They understand our methods."
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The