Category: Defense

July 12, 2006 (AFP) – Two policemen were killed Wednesday in a landmine attack by suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna peninsula, defence officials here said.The constables were travelling in a pick-up truck when it hit a Claymore mine at Nallur in the Jaffna peninsula, the officials said. The attack came a […]

SINGAPORE, July 12, 2006 (AFP) – From Bali to Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Mumbai, Asian civilians are increasingly at risk of dying in bombings by militants, analysts said Wednesday. “Actually there has been a very significant shift in the terrorist strategy,” said Kusnanto Anggoro, researcher at Jakarta’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies.“They are […]

COLOMBO, July 12, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka Wednesday announced it is forming a special unit of 1,000 men to bolster already tight security arrangements in the main city of Colombo amid fears of Tamil Tiger suicide bombings. Defence ministry spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the army had begun enlisting 1,000 soldiers for the special Colombo […]

COLOMBO, July 12, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse urged the international community Wednesday to unite and fight terrorism following a series of bomb blasts in neighbouring India that killed more than 180 people. “Yesterday’s bomb attacks in India draw attention to the need for cooperation among all countries on the need to […]

July 11, 2006 (AFP) – A government soldier was killed Tuesday in a powerful bomb explosion near a Tamil Tiger war cemetery in Sri Lanka’s northern peninsula of Jaffna, officials said.The soldier, on a routine patrol, was killed as the blast ripped through the area at Kodikamam, a military official in the area said when […]

COLOMBO, July 11, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president Tuesday offered 1.25 billion dollars to rebuild embattled regions and asked his advisors to come up with a power-sharing plan to end decades of ethnic bloodshed. President Mahinda Rajapakse told a 15-member multi-ethnic panel appointed by him last week to come up with a formula that […]

July 8, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan police have launched an investigation into the death of a man who was allegedly beaten up in prison after being falsely accused of a school bomb hoax, officials said Saturday.The death of the 55-year-old man, Sunil Perera, has sparked widespread public outrage in the tropical island nation. Police […]

MALLAVI, Sri Lanka, July 6, 2006 (AFP) – Former vegetable vendor Dharmaselan lost his leg and arm in an aerial bombing over strife-torn northern Sri Lanka several years ago.But he says government soldiers did not believe him when they began harassing him again earlier this year as violence escalated in the region. “The army kept […]

July 6, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s elusive Tamil Tiger supremo has paid tribute to 273 suicide bombers known as Black Tigers who have carried out devastating attacks in the past 19 years, the guerrillas said Thursday. Six photographs were released of Velupillai Prabhakaran, 51, meeting with his current band of suicide bombers and lighting […]

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, July 5, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels run a de facto state in this northern town, but face increasing isolation and deadly battles with the Sri Lankan government which they contend is preparing for war.The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been stung by a ban slapped on them by […]

July 5, 2006 (AFP) – Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a mine in northern Sri Lanka on Wednesday, killing a soldier, the defence ministry said.The victim was on a routine patrol along a main road in the district of Vavuniya when he was hit by a Claymore mine, defence ministry spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said.The […]

Reporters Without Borders condemned the fourth murder of a media professional in Sri Lanka since the start of 2006 after freelance journalist Lakmal Silva, who specialised in defence questions was killed in a southern Colombo suburb.Reporters Without Borders voiced its fears on the subject, in June 2006, after pro-government media made threats against five Sri […]