Tamil Tiger rebels had clear "inside information" ahead of a devastating attack that virtually wiped out the Sri Lankan government's fleet of spy planes, a report said yesterday.
In a report in the Sunday Times newspaper, defense analyst Iqbal Athas said up to 27 elite rebel fighters were able to stroll into the Anuradhapura base unchallenged before unleashing their assault.
Authorities had previously said the rebels had sneaked into the base by cutting through the barbed wire perimeter.
"Up to 27 Black Tiger suicide cadres were able to go unchecked right up to the aircraft hangar," the report said, adding that the guerrilla strike force had camped at a nearby abandoned house before entering the base.
"There is no doubt that the guerrillas have been receiving up-to-date intelligence on the lay out and goings on at the air base," the report said. "There was inside information."
The report said base security could have been compromised due to the use of casual laborers hired to carry out runway expansion work.
Athas said the government may have also played down the damage inflicted during last Monday's attack.
Officials have said eight aircraft, including a twin-turbo prop Beechcraft plane equipped with advanced surveillance equipment and Israeli-made drones, were destroyed at Anuradhapura.
But Athas said he compiled a list of 27 aircraft at the base, and added that only three of them had been spared.
Defense officials have said they believed 20 Tigers took part in the attack, three of whom were shot dead. The others blew themselves up using explosives strapped to their waists.
Fourteen military personnel killed and another 22 wounded in the attack.
Meanwhile, troops and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels clashed in in the Muhamalai area of Jaffna Peninsula yesterday, leaving four guerrillas dead, an official at the Defense Ministry information center said. The violence came a day after the military reported killing 11 guerrillas in four separate incidents in Vavuniya district, south of Muhamalai.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS