{"id":97254,"date":"2020-01-03T15:51:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T22:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97254"},"modified":"2020-01-03T15:51:38","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T22:51:38","slug":"eelam-war-series-7-ltte-fights-the-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/03\/eelam-war-series-7-ltte-fights-the-army\/","title":{"rendered":"EELAM WAR SERIES 7. LTTE \u2018FIGHTS\u2019 THE ARMY"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The LTTE  knew\nthat it could not face the Sri\n Lanka army in regular conflict.  They were not a trained army. On the two\noccasions when the state army was allowed to fight them properly, they were\nsoundly defeated.( Vadamarachchi,1987 and \nEelam war IV 2009). Clashes with the LTTE had shown the Sri Lanka army  that the LTTE did not know how to fight. At\nMuhamalai, LTTE had come in a large group, attacking not tactically but from\nwhere they could . At Vakarai, a strong LTTE base, they had fled in disarray.  Even\nthe volunteer forces have been able to defeat the LTTE. When LTTE attacked Weli\nOya , volunteers under the direction of Brigadier Janaka Perera returned fire.\nLTTE dropped their weapons and ran.  LTTE\nlost almost 300 cadres. The army only lost two. \nLTTE had not known how to oppose the large scale assault at\nPuthumathalan in 2009. The army later found Tamil translations of\nEnglish language books on war strategy among the documents buried by the LTTE .\nThis showed that even at that time,\nthey were still learning  how to\nfight.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media had however, drilled into the minds\nof the public  the notion that the LTTE was invincible and\nthe Sri Lanka\narmy could not beat the LTTE. \u2018Taraki\u2019 said LTTE was the most ferocious and\nresilient fighting force in the world. Sri Lanka army cannot hope to match\nit. D.B.S. Jeyaraj said LTTE would deal a knockout blow to the army.This was contested by sceptics who\nsaid that the LTTE \u2018invincibility\u2019 was an invention of pro-Eelamists. LTTE was only a paper tiger   hyped up by the western media as \u2018ferocious\nand unbeatable\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE fighting power came from its powerful weapons,\nsent regularly from overseas.  When\n\u2018Diyakawa\u2019 intercepted a LTTE vessel in 1984, the LTTE were carrying 303\nrifles, Diyakawa only had semi automatic weapons.  The LTTE was never short of ammunition for\nits big guns whereas the military was always short of ammunition and spares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE knew that they could not defeat the Sri Lanka army\nin straight battle. So they tried other tactics. Their favorite method was to\nget the war stopped if the Sri\n Lanka army was winning and they were losing.\nThey succeeded in this at Vadamarachchi in 1987and hoped for this in Eelam War\nIV as well. LTTE   also wanted the army\nkept as far away from the north as possible. When the Saliyapura army base in Anuradhapura\nwas set up LTTE frantically agitated for its removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also agitated\nto get the army units in the north to leave. \nThey succeeded in getting the army to vacate two strategic bases,  Valvettiturai and Point Pedro. Further,\nthey said that the sight of\nairplanes fitted with guns upset the Tamils living in the north and got the\nguns removed from Air Force planes.  Each\ntime the Air Force went into battle, it had  \nfirst to get permission to mount the guns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LTTE fought a cowardly, contemptible war. They blasted Kalmadulukulam tank to drown\nadvancing troops from Vishvamadu. The troops\nconsisted of almost 50 battalions of Sri Lanka Light Infantry, Sinha, Gemunu\nwatch, Gajaba, and Vijayabahu.\n They\nblew up Nethali Aru Bridge.\nAt Dharmapuram, they tried to blow up a bridge near Pulathi aru.   At the\nend of Eelam War IV, LTTE cadres disguised as civilians had approached troops\nat Karayamullivaikkal on the banks of Nanthikadal lagoon on May 18, 2009. They\nwere not allowed in and when the army fired in the air about 200 LTTE including\nthe ones in civilian attire opened fire. A heavily armed LTTE group had been\nhiding in a nearby islet.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE used human shields, suicide bombers, and religious places to\nprevent the army from attacking them and also trap the army into committing war\ncrimes. Machinery for making claymore\nmines was located close to orphanages. Air Force couldn\u2019t bomb without harming\ncivilians.  When Air Force attacked\nSencholai LTTE alleged that they had hit an orphanage. Sencholai was a training\ncamp containing child soldiers. LTTE fired from places close to hospitals.  The army could not fire back. It is\nprohibited to direct\nan attack at an area which shelters the sick and wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE   \ntargeted the armed forces when they were off duty. This was despicable. A truck laden with explosives went into the army base in\nNelliady, Jaffna,\nkilling over 50 soldiers who were watching television.  A group of off duty navy personnel  were attacked at a transit point,\nDigampathana, killing\n103   and wounding over 150. The navy vowed to hit back.    \u2018Pride of South\u2019, a private vessel taking\n1300 military personnel to base was attacked. LTTE killed one soldier and\ninjured two other soldiers in the no fire zone in a 12 hour humanitarian pause.  Buses transporting army personnel were bombed\nin Colombo on two occasions   suicide bombers hit Sri Lanka Army<\/a> Headquarters, killing 16.  LTTE killed police as well. A truck carrying Sri Lanka Police<\/a> Special Task Force<\/a>\npersonnel were bombed in Ratmalana. A suicide bomber rammed into a bus in Colombo, carrying a\npolice riot squad, killing 11 police officers. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE did not want to meet the army in battle, so they\nerected barriers to keep them out. LTTE knew their territory well and used this\nto construct fortifications that created difficulties for the army. As the\nterrain and scenario changed so did their fortifications. In May 2009, LTTE hid\nbehind defenses consisting of deep ditches and strong bunds. One complex of fortifications was 800 meters\ndeep and 8 kilometers wide.As they retreated, LTTE cut the\nditches, so that lagoon water would flow in. These bunds and ditches posed a\nmassive challenge to the army and hindered operations.  The soldiers had not anticipated them  and had to struggle to demolish them. There\nwas an earth bund from Jaffna\nlagoon to Kilinochchiand another built across a 12 kilometer stretch from\nKilaly to Nagarkovil via Muhamalai. Army took four attempts to clear it, with\nthe loss of about 500 officers and men and hundreds injured.  ( continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS The LTTE  knew that it could not face the Sri Lanka army in regular conflict.  They were not a trained army. On the two occasions when the state army was allowed to fight them properly, they were soundly defeated.( Vadamarachchi,1987 and  Eelam war IV 2009). Clashes with the LTTE had shown the Sri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}