Tag: lbo

Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) – An elite Tamil Tiger suicide squad backed by light aircraft on Monday attacked a key Sri Lankan military base in an unprecedented ground and air assault, killing at least five soldiers. The rebels said 21 members of their “Black Tiger” unit and two light aircraft struck the Anuradhapura air base […]

Oct 22, 2007 (LBO) – Tamil Tiger rebels launched a pre-dawn air and ground assault on a Sri Lankan air force base on Monday, damaging at least two helicopter gunships, military officials and news agency reports said.An air force spokesman said two Mi-24 helicopter gunships were damaged in the Tiger attack. At least eight air […]

Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) – Five Sri Lankan airmen were killed as Tamil Tiger rebels launched an unprecedented air and land attack on a northern military base, officials and a pro-rebel website said on Monday.A 2002 truce brokered by Norway began to unravel in December 2005 and since then, thousands of people have killed and […]

Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said Monday they had used members of an elite suicide squad to stage their first-ever coordinated ground and air assault against a key military base.Military sources said the bigger loss for the security forces apart from the fatalities was the destruction of a Beechcraft aircraft […]

COLOMBO, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) – More than a dozen suspected Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in fresh fighting in the island’s embattled north, the defence ministry said Saturday.The military fired at a group of Tamil Tiger rebels who tried to break through the northern defence lines in Mannar on Saturday, killing eight, it said. […]

COLOMBO, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) – Experts on counter terrorism have urged Sri Lanka’s government to capitalise on recent victories against the Tamil Tigers and try to hammer out a political solution to the long-running ethnic war. Earlier this year, government forces managed to eject the ethnic rebels from their last stronghold in the east […]

Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) – An international counter-terrorism expert Thursday urged Sri Lanka’s warring parties to return to the negotiating table to end decades of bloodshed.Gerard Chaliand said Colombo’s military push was not the answer to the rebels’ violent campaign for autonomy for minority Tamils in the island’s north and east. “I believe generally, terrorist […]

Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military said Thursday its troops killed 41 suspected Tamil Tigers in renewed clashes in the island’s north, although the rebels said some of the victims were civilians.The Sri Lankan navy fired early Thursday at a cluster of Tamil Tiger boats off the northwest coast. They recovered an abandoned […]

Oct 18, 2007 (LBO) – The Free Media Movement (FMM), a Sri Lankan media watchdog, Thursday sharply criticised heavy-handed action by military personnel in censoring media coverage of an accident involving a truck carrying ammunition. It said in a statement that the state security forces had censored media and deleted photos taken by photojournalists on […]

COLOMBO, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s military said Thursday that its troops killed 27 suspected Tamil Tigers in renewed clashes in the island’s north, although the rebels dismissed some incidents as attacks on civilians.The Sri Lankan navy fired early Thursday at a cluster of Tamil Tiger boats off the northwest coast. They recovered […]

Oct 17, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has been ranked at the bottom of a world media freedom index prepared by Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based international non-governmental organization that advocates media freedom. The island is ranked 156th, ahead of Iraq and behind Libya, among 169 countries covered in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007. […]