LRRP.Team

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“There are reports that a conspiracy is being hatched against Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Sarath Fonseka. According to the plot his position would be made a passive one by slashing the powers entitled for his position. Already, his staff and security have been reduced and the powers and facilities he had been promised when [...]

"Awi gaththo awiyenma nasithi - Those who live by the sword, die by the sword"



4th Vijayaba Infantry unit recovers Prabhakarans body and is positively Identified by Karuna Amman.



Prabhakaran's death is established primarily through circumstantial evidence. The remains of an individual with very similar physical structure to Prabhakaran has been discovered and tests are being performed to establish his identity beyond reasonable doubt.

The Army needs no testing to establish the LTTE leader's death. Certain sections of the media have misreported the circumstances surrounding Prabha's death. We wish to correct these records with the following account in chronological order with certain sections left-out for obvious reasons.

Prabhakaran's final hours

Only 3 LTTE leaders, other than Prabhakaran and his wife, knew of his whereabouts. Other than his son Charles Anthony, the only other LTTE leaders who knew where he was was Poddu Ammaan, the Intelligence Chief and the head of the LTTE's Medical Unit, Reagan.

The latter was taken in and detained for days until Military Intelligence got hold of him. Until then Regan had pretended he did not know Prabhakaran's whereabouts. Thanks to Reagan's information, MI officers had clearly identified Prabhakaran's lair by 16th evening/17th dawn.

They uncovered an elaborate plan by Prabhakaran and gang to breach the 53 FDL. The plan was to cross the lagoon to Mullaitivu-Weli Oya Jungles, from there to reach the Eastern Province (Batticaloa/Ampara) via Trincomalee, where 'Colonel' Ram's team was waiting.

Within hours of this warning, on 17th May at dawn, Tigers had started their final operation. A daring sea borne operation was launched. All Army Divisions, forewarned, reacted swiftly but the Tigers managed to breach the FDL of the 53 Division at its weakest and take-out several bunkers killing 15 SLA. They also seized an Army Ambulance.

Moments later, the 53 Division retaliated. A hail of RPG rockets were fired. Around 200 LTT

Heavy fighting ensued south of Chalai in general area Mulaitivu when a wave of LTTE infiltrators and attack teams targeted a weak point in the forward marching divisions last morning. The infiltrators were first spotted by the 55 Division as they targeted the boundary of two brigades of the 55 and 58 Divisions. The exact casualties to both sides will be revealed later.

During Oyatha Alaikal 1, 2 and 3, the Tigers successfully collapsed the Army's divisions by attacking them at the seam. This usually results in the two respective Divisions and their affected Brigades, Battalions all the way down to a platoon being split, thus opening up a gap through which the Tigers could flank the Divisions.

But this type of operation requires high morale, manpower and firepower on the part of the Tigers and weak leadership and morale and also inferior field tactics and strategies on the part of the Army, both of which were unavailable yesterday. A tactic like this will have little effect particularly on an Army which has 3 Divisions, 5 Task Forces and a Special Forces Brigade on reserve.

In many of the unfortunate occasions where this has happened to the Army, it happened due to low morale and inferior leadership on the part of some officers. Some Field Commanders-- from Platoon COs upto Brigade COs were concentrating on their own respective unit and not on the counter attack.

Meanwhile the LTTE has started another scam to discredit the Army and to give their fighters a fighting chance. The scam is to pose-off injured fighters as civilians who are handed over to the ICRC inside the civilian safety zone. From there these 'civilians' are registered by the ICRC and handed-over the the Sri Lanka Navy. The Navy will then transport them to Trincomalee Hospital.

Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence have so far identified 30-40 such fighters from among the 'civilians'. They cannot be arrested or detained nor can they be rehabilitated like surrendees. If they are resettled onc