Sri Lanka’s army chief said yesterday his forces had wiped out two-thirds of the Tamil Tigers’ military capability, and that the decades-old conflict with the rebels was at its tail-end.
Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas’ capability had been depleted to a large extent, and would gradually start collapsing, the state-run Daily News paper said in its defense column.
“We are almost at the beginning of the end ... we are nearing the turning point now, through the way LTTE is reacting. In another three to four months time you would see very clearly how the things change,” he said.
He said security forces had already advanced 40km into rebel-controlled territories in the north during the latest military offensive that began in 2006.
During the period, the Tigers lost at least 9,000 fighters, Fonseka said, while revising upwards the rebels’ current strength to 5,000 combatants.
He said that previous military estimates of their strength had been too low.
The general said the guerrillas had also been able to recruit about 3,000 more fighters, while another 200,000 civilians provide logistic support.
“Now we hear that they are training anybody over 15 years and below 50 years. But they cannot be motivated to fight a battle,” Fonseka said.
The rebels have not released their estimate of casualties. Figures from either side cannot be independently verified.
Fonseka said the guerrillas were no longer able to resist security forces using conventional tactics and were resorting to hit-and-run attacks.
Since July last year, security forces have been trying to dismantle the de facto state in the north of the country.
Fonseka said progress had been deliberately slow.
“The tail-enders of a cricket team do not perform the same way, like the middle order batsmen and the opening batsmen do,” Fonseka said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS