A'pura Air base attack: More news and views

Key spy plane amongst SLAF’s $40m losses - reports
[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 October 2007, 02:17 GMT]

The Sri Lanka Air Force lost over $40m dollars worth of aircraft and equipment in the Tamil Tiger ground and air attack Monday, international press reports quoting Sri Lankan officials said. Amongst the losses was a specialized surveillance aircraft ordered by the UNP government just before its peace talks with the LTTE, the reports said.
Raytheon Beechcraft with distinctive underbelly radome
Twenty one soldiers from the LTTE’s elite ‘Black Tiger’ regiment stormed the SLAF airbase in Anuradhapuram in the early hours of Monday. The fighting continued for several hours after the attackers took control of key sections of the base.
The Tigers were supported by at least two aircraft of the Tamileelam Air Force (TAF) which bombed the airbase shortly after the attack began at 3a.m.
Citing the official government statements of two Mi-24 helicopter gunships damaged and one Bell 212 gunship crash landing, the British newspaper, ‘The Telegraph’ also quoted ‘well-placed sources in Colombo’ as saying the damage was on a far greater scale than had been admitted.
The LTTE attack had destroyed military planes and equipment worth more than £20 ($40m) million, the paper reported Tuesday.
“Among the planes allegedly damaged or destroyed was a Beechcraft surveillance plane worth £14 million, two Mi17 helicopters, two Mi24 helicopters, three unmanned aerial vehicles, a K-8 jet and eight PD6 propeller trainer aircraft,” the paper reported.
Earlier, press reports also quoted Sri Lanka’s best known defence correspondent, Iqbal Athas as saying the destruction of the propeller driven naval reconnaissance aircraft had “crippled” the Sri Lanka Navy's deep sea operations.
12 to 18 aircraft might have been damaged or destroyed, Athas told the Hindustan Times Monday.
The Beechcraft 200 HISAR surveillance aircraft is said to be equipped with a Hughes synthetic aperture radar system which the manufacturer, Raytheon, says can track low flying aircraft in addition to ground and sea targets.
In July 2002 Raytheon reported it had won a 10 million dollar plus order from an 'unspecified South Asian customer' to supply one of these surveillance aircraft.
Under that contract, Raytheon was to provide one Beech King Air 200 turboprop aircraft, a HISAR radar system, ground station, spares, training and technical support.
Raytheon had, at the time, only supplied 22 such aircraft.
The aircraft was delivered in late 2002 to the then United National Party (UNP) government, which was engaged in Norwegian facilitated peace negotiations with the LTTE.
Since then the Beechcraft has often been spotted patrolling over LTTE controlled Vanni, amongst other areas, earning itself the apt local nickname ‘Vandu’ (Bug or Beetle).

Tue, 23 October 2007 10:29:29
LBO >> Politics Airbase Attack 22 October 2007 11:41:22
Sri Lankan Tiger attack casualties mount Oct 22, 2007 (LBO) –

Up to nine Sri Lankan servicemen and 20 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed during the Tiger air and ground attack on the Anuradhapura Sri Lanka Air Force airbase in the early hours of Monday, military officials said Two Mi-24 air force attack helicopters were badly damaged in the Tiger attack along with a trainer aircraft while another helicopter called to support the defenders crash landed in Mihintale, east of Anuradhapura, killing four crewmen.
The authorities have imposed a local police curfew in Anuradhapura to enable the military to comb the surroundings for attackers.
The area was rocked by the sound of explosions and gunfire from early morning, residents said.
The bodies of 20 Tiger attackers were found in and around the air base.
The attack on the Anuradhapura air base, 212 kilometres (130 miles) north of the capital Colombo, started around 3 a.m. Monday morning when a group of Tiger infiltrated the base.
This was followed by two Tiger light aircraft dropping two bombs on the base and escaping despite anti-aircraft fire by the defenders.
The Tigers, fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the island's north and east, are believed to have a small fleet of Czech-made Zlin Z-143 single-engined light aircraft, the AFP news agency said.
Five servicemen were killed during the attack on the airbase.
A Bell 212 helicopter that was on a search operation after the attack made a forced landing in Mihintale, to the east of Anuradhapura, owing to bad weather killing the two pilots and two door gunners.
Military officials said at least 20 military personnel were wounded in the attack.
AFP quoted military officials as saying the two Mi-24 helicopter gunships were hit by the Tiger ground force which also destroyed an anti-aircraft gun position before rebel aircraft could bomb the base.
Meanwhile the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau said in a statement that the military had brought the situation under control and that there was no cause for worry among tourists.
"This is a terrorist and military engagement at an Air Force base limited to its perimeters," the statement said.
"There is no direct impact on tourists or tourism operations from this incident and there was no cause for alarm for the tourism industry."
The attack came in the run-up to the peak winter tourist season where the industry had been hoping for a recovery in arrivals.
The Sri Lanka Air Force Base at Anuradhapura is home to the No 1 Flying Training Wing, which carries out basic flying training of air force pilots.
It also acts as one of the main bases of forward operations for military activities in the north and sometimes attack aircraft are parked there for defence and also as it is a central location to launch air strikes from.
The Tiger attack came after a long lull in major rebel attacks and after Tiger positions had been pounded by air force bombers almost daily for several months in an unrelenting air campaign. Updated

New attacks complicate Sri Lanka's ethnic issue
2007-10-23 07:31:by Chen Zhanjie

COLOMBO, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels launched a surprise air and ground attack on a major Air Force base early Monday morning, destroying at least four aircraft and making the island country's peace prospect more difficult.
According to the government's defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella, 11 government troops were killed and about 20 ones were injured in the predawn attack launched by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels on the north central Anuradhapura Air Force Base.
The Air Force lost two MI24 helicopters, one K8 training craft and a Bell 212 helicopter gunship during the battle which lasted about three hours from 3:20 a.m. local time (2150 GMT).
The Bell 212 helicopter crashed with four airmen on board near the air base after it was called from the nearby Vavuniya district to assist the Armed Forces in the fighting.
Rambukwella said at least 20 LTTE rebels were killed by the Air Force and the Army in defending the air base, some 200 km north of the capital Colombo.
According to the peace secretariat of the LTTE, a special 21 LTTE Black Tigers (specially trained to carry out suicide attacks) attacked the air base and destroyed eight planes at about 3:30 a.m.
About an hour later, LTTE aircraft bombed the air base, causing further damage to the air base.
Commenting on the attack, Rambukwella said the LTTE was trying to ease the pressure on the organization in the north following a serious of "liberation operations" carried out by the troops in the rebel controlled Wanni area.
"It is very clear that they are now desperate because they have been losing heavily to the government," Rambukwella stressed.
The attack on the air base came about one week after several small-scale attacks on the Army in the south-eastern Yala area, with seven soldiers being killed and four injured.
Minister of Media and Information Anura Yapa said the attacks on the air base and Yala were face saving moves of the LTTE.
"The government would not be deterred or take its step back in its counter attack on terrorism," Yapa said, adding that "the government would clear the country of the LTTE menace."
However, he stressed that the government was still committed to a political settlement to the ethnic issue.
On the other hand, experts on counter terrorism have urged the government to capitalize on recent victories against the LTTE and try to hammer out a political solution to the long-running ethnic war with nearly 70,000 having been killed since the mid-1980s.
The government claimed in mid-July that the total Eastern Province had been free of LTTE rebels, and recently the Navy claimed it had sunk all of the Tigers' ships used for smuggling in war hardware.
"We need to invest military success into a viable peace deal," Shanaka Jayasekara of Australia's Macquarie University told delegates of an international conference on counter-terrorism in Colombo last week.
"There are no quick solutions to counter terrorism... the military can only create conditions wherein the adversary is inclined to or feel it necessary to come to the negotiating table," former Indian Army Chief V. P. Malik told the conference.
French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere said no military solution could solve the Tamil problem alone.
"Ultimately... the problem remains political," Bruguiere stressed.
The Sri Lankan government has said it will bring in its political package by the end of the year as means to end the island 's ethnic separatist conflict.
Palitha Kohona, the secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the government is mindful on the need to address the concerns of the island's minorities, particularly the Tamil community.
"The Sri Lankan government is of the view that this sort of problem (conflict with the Tiger rebels) cannot be resolved by military means alone," Kohona said.
Kohona defended the Sri Lankan government's military offensives against the LTTE, saying that military action is necessary to convince terrorist groups that their objectives cannot be met through violence.
An All Party Conference was convened by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse in January 2006 to try and achieve consensus among south based political parties to solve the ethnic issue through a political package.
However, the process has been dragging on due to the difficulty of achieving consensus mainly on the subject of the unit of devolution.
Experts say the LTTE's recent attacks have shown the difficulty in achieving a quick military solution to the ethnic issue and it's time for two sides to choose between continuing the civil war and restarting the peace process brokered by Norway in 2002. Editor: Wang Hongjiang


Desparate attempt!-ENB
Don't use attack to dispirit forces & portray LTTE as heroes - Yapa
[22-10-2007 4.50pm]
Certain persons may well likely use the latest LTTE attack to discourage the armed forces and portray terrorists as heroes, the government said, warning that all such action will be treated as attempts to assist the Tigers.
Speaking to the media today (Oct. 22nd) following a ground and air attack by Black Tigers on the Anurdhapura Air Force Base, Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa described the assault as an attempt by the LTTE to rebuild its fast dwindling image internationally.
Tigers continue to act true to its image as a terrorist organization, he said, pointing out that the LTTE had suffered massive defeats in recent times.
The Media Minister stressed that the government will not be deterred by attacks of this nature in its quest to defeat terrorism.
Incidents of this nature should not be given much publicity to discourage the security forces at a time when the government is making efforts to rescue civilians from the grip of terrorism.
Such actions in order to gain petty political objectives will disrupt the march to victory, Yapa added.

The Hindu version of Tiger attack.

LTTE launches aerial attack on Anuradhapura air base
B. Muralidhar Reddy

14 military personnel, 20 Tigers killed; four planes destroyed

COLOMBO: Fourteen personnel of the Sri Lanka military and 20 cadres of the LTTE were killed and four aircraft of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) destroyed in a pre-dawn ground and aerial attack by the Tamil Tigers on Monday on the Anuradhapura air base in the North Central Province, the Sri Lanka Defence Ministry said.
This is the first co-ordinated ground and air attack by the Tigers since the first strike by the so-called Tiger Air Force on the SLAF airbase near the only international airbase in Katunayaka in the last week of March. Though it is the fifth aerial strike by the Tigers since March, it is the first since the Sri Lanka Government revamped its air defence system in June/July in response to the Tiger aerial strikes with light aircraft.
Suicide squad
The attack on the Anuradhapura air base was initiated by a 21-member ‘Black Tiger’ suicide squad at 3.20 a.m. from two different directions and the death and destruction which followed were the result of fierce fighting between the military and suicide squad members.
Two light aircraft of the LTTE surfaced over the airport 40 minutes later and dropped two bombs, which according to the military caused no damage either to the aircraft or the air base.

Though the radars detected the approaching aircraft, they managed to sneak back into the Tiger controlled territory as the military helicopter deployed to intercept them developed a technical snag and crashed.

LTTE version
The LTTE version of the attack varied from the Government’s.
The Tigers claimed that eight aircraft of the SLAF were destroyed in the operation and maintained that their light aircraft joined the mission 70 minutes after the suicide squad struck.
The LTTE released two separate purported photographs of the suicide squad and its light aircraft posing with Velupillai Prabakaran.
‘Desperate attempt’
Defence spokesperson and Minister Keheliya Rambukwelle termed the Tiger attack as a ‘desperate attempt’ to avenge its debacle in the East. .
The incident would not deter the government from carrying out its “humanitarian operations to free the people of all areas from the clutches of terrorism,” he added.