Category: Defense

GENEVA, August 1, 2010 (AFP) – A landmark international treaty to ban cluster munitions took effect on Sunday, requiring signatories to stop the use, production and transfer of the deadly weapons. Pope Benedict XVI hailed the ban and joined calls for all countries to sign up to the deal that also obliges those that have […]

June 24, 2010 (AFP) – An explosion ripped through a commercial area of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo on Thursday, wounding at least nine people, police said. The blast in the Pettah area was believed to have been caused by a hand grenade or an improvised explosive device, a police official said, adding that an investigation […]

June 11, 2010 (LBO) – Ways to counter terrorism and terrorist financing which is becoming increasingly sophisticated were discussed at a meeting of South Asian police and prosecutors in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo this week, officials said. Closer co-operation between police and prosecutors in convicting terrorists and recognizing evidence was also taken up at […]

June 8, 2010 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels are re-emerging a year after their defeat, Sri Lanka’s prime minister said Tuesday, despite the once-powerful guerrilla force launching no attacks. D. M. Jayaratne told parliament that remnants of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were planning a comeback with financial backing from Tamils abroad. […]

June 7, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s top defence official has threatened to hang the country’s former army chief if he cooperates with any investigation into war crimes during the civil war that ended one year ago. Rajapakse repeated a promise by the president that the authorities would not allow any international investigation into the […]

May 25, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Tuesday closed a camp holding former Tamil Tiger child soldiers, but 52 of the youths will stay in government care to complete their education, an official said. More than 500 child soldiers were picked up after security forces defeated Tamil Tiger rebels in a bloody final battle […]

May 20, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka must strengthen its intelligence-gathering to stop Tamil Tiger rebels regrouping abroad a year after they were defeated, a top defence official said Thursday. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, who is President Mahinda Rajapakse’s younger brother, said Tiger sympathisers outside the country were trying to revive the Tamil separatist movement. […]

May 16, 2010 (AFP) – One year after Sri Lanka’s army wiped out the Tamil Tigers, there are no signs of the rebel group’s revival at home, but concerns remain about extremist fund-raisers abroad. The government has highlighted meetings abroad planned to coincide with the first anniversary of the LTTE’s military defeat as a fresh […]

May 4, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s foreign minister pledged Tuesday that the country’s tough emergency laws introduced in 1983 to fight a raging Tamil insurgency would be gradually withdrawn. France had led international calls to scrap the emergency laws soon after the defeat of the rebels. Since then, Sri Lanka’s parliament has kept extending […]

KUALA LUMPUR, April 23, 2010 (AFP) – Malaysia said it has arrested and deported several leaders of the Sri Lankan separatist Tamil Tiger rebels over the past few months to prevent them setting up a hub in the country. Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in a statement late Thursday he had informed Sri Lanka of […]

RAGAMA, April 18, 2010 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s leaders have hailed the end of the island’s long civil war as the start of a new era, but for soldiers injured in battle, the future is far from rosy. In a hospital outside the capital Colombo, Manju Lakshman, 32, lies on a bed staring at the […]

April 17, 2010 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s military and the US Navy and conducted joint exercises on disaster readiness and medical response in the Eastern port city area of Trincomalee, the US embassy in Colombo said. “The joint exercise helped members from our two militaries to exchange best practices on how to address complex humanitarian […]