On August 14, 2006, a convoy carrying the PakistaniHigh Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Bashir Wali Mohamed, was attacked by a Claymore antipersonnel mine concealed within an auto rickshaw. The High Commissioner escaped unhurt, but seven people (including four Army commandoes) were killed and a further seventeen injured in the blast.[1]
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Sri Lankan government blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). High Commissioner Mohamed claimed that India had carried it out,[2] in order to intimidate Pakistan, which is one of the main suppliers of military equipment to the Sri Lankan government.[2] Pakistan had promised one shipload of the wherewithal every 10 days in coming months.
A Sri Lankan military spokesman said, "Definitely it's an LTTE attack to the Pakistan ambassador's car but they missed and the backup vehicle got caught." The Pakistani ambassador may be a target of the LTTE because Pakistan is a major backer of the Sri Lankan government.[3]
Several LTTE suspects were arrested following the attack.[4]
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.
The Black Tigers was an elite suicide commando unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant Tamil separatist organization in Sri Lanka.
The Vaharai bombing is a disputed event in the Sri Lankan civil war. It occurred on November 7, 2006 when, according to survivors of the incident interviewed by Reuters, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fired artillery at Sri Lankan military personnel from near a school where minority Sri Lankan Tamil refugees displaced by the current phase of the Sri Lankan civil war had taken shelter. The Sri Lankan Army returned fire and around 45 civilians were killed. Over 100 were injured and admitted to the local hospitals. However, people who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed that the LTTE did not fire artillery. Further, the rebel LTTE denies firing artillery from close to the school. The incident occurred at around 11.35 a.m close to Kathiraveli, a coastal village in Vaharai peninsula of the Batticaloa district in eastern Sri Lanka.
The Kebithigollewa massacre occurred on 15 June 2006 when 60 civilians were killed by an Claymore mine attack on a bus. The U.S and the SLMM claimed that LTTE was the perpetrator.
The Tamil Eelam Air Force or Sky Tigers was the air-wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who used it against the Government of Sri Lanka. They also called themselves the Tamileelam Air Force (TAF). Though the existence of the Sky Tigers had been the subject of speculation for many years, the existence of the wing was only revealed after an attack in March 2007, during Eelam War IV.
Eelam War IV is the name given to the fourth phase of armed conflict between the Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Renewed hostilities began on the 26 July 2006, when Sri Lanka Air Force fighter jets bombed several LTTE camps around Mavil Aru anicut. The government's casus belli was that the LTTE had cut off the water supply to surrounding paddy fields in the area. Shutting down the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru on July 21 depriving the water to over 15,000 people - Sinhalese and Muslim settlers under Sri Lankan state-sponsored colonisation schemes in Trincomalee district. They were denied of water for drinking and also cultivating over 30,000 acres of paddy and other crops. The fighting resumed after a four-year ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and LTTE. Continued fighting led to several territorial gains for the Sri Lankan Army, including the capture of Sampur, Vakarai and other parts of the east. The war took on an added dimension when the LTTE Air Tigers bombed Katunayake airbase on March 26, 2007, the first rebel air attack without external assistance in history.
The Eastern Theater of Eelam War IV started in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka on July 21, 2006 when the LTTE cut off the water supply to rice fields in eastern Trincomalee district. The government claimed total control of the Eastern province after capturing Thoppigala on July 11, 2007, after nearly a year of fighting. Major battles took place at Sampoor, Vakarai, Kanchikudicharu, Kokkadichloai and Thoppigala. Military and civilian deaths were relatively low on both sides. Government forces captured much military hardware from the LTTE during the conflict. The civilians managed to flee the combat zones, and this reduced civilian casualties, while swelling the number of internally displaced people (IDP). The world health organization (WHO) estimated ~200,300 IDPs, and claims that significant progress occurred in resettling them. The LTTE vowed to attack Sri Lanka's military and economic targets across the country to retaliate for the capture of the Eastern province from them. This was stated by the leader of the LTTE's political wing, S.P. Thamilchelvan, in a statement to Associated Press on July 12, 2007.
Operation Liberation also known as the Vadamarachchi Operation was the military offensive carried out by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in May and June 1987 to recapture the territory of Vadamarachchi in the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. At the time it was the largest combined services operation undertaken by the armed forces deploying multiple brigade size formation, becoming the first conventional warfare engagement on Sri Lankan soil after the end of British colonial rule. The operation involved nearly 4,000 troops, supported by ground-attack aircraft, helicopter gunships and naval gun boats. The offensive achieved its primary objective, however operations were suspended when the Indian government dropped food supplies over Jaffna in Operation Poomalai on June 4, 1987, which prompted the Sri Lankan government to accept the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord.
The Northern Theater of Eelam War IV refers to the fighting that took place in the northern province of Sri Lanka between July 2006 and May 18, 2009.
Major General Janaka Perera, RWP, RSP, VSV, USP, VSP was a Sri Lankan General and politician. He served as the Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army and is considered one of the most distinguished generals in Sri Lankan history. After retiring from the army he served as a Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia and Ambassador to Indonesia. He was the opposition leader of the North Central Provincial Council until he and his wife were killed on 6 October 2008 by a suicide bomber. The LTTE have been blamed for the bombing by Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The 2008–2009 SLA Northern offensive was an armed conflict in the northern Province of Sri Lanka between the military of Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The battle broke with the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive attempting to break through the LTTE defence lines in the north of the island, aiming to conclude the country's 25-year-old civil war by military victory.
The 2008 Piliyandala bombing was a bombing of a commuter bus carried out on April 25, 2008 in Piliyandala, Sri Lanka, a suburb of Colombo. The bombing killed 26 and injured at least 64, and was the first major attack against civilians on the island since the April 6 Weliveriya bombing that killed Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and national athletics coach Lakshman de Alwis. It was also the deadliest bus bombing since the January 16 attack on a civilian bus at Buttala.
The 2008 Dehiwala train bombing was a bombing of a commuter train, running from Colombo to Panadura on May 26, 2008, in Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, a suburb of Colombo. The bombing killed 9 people and injured at least 67. The Sri Lankan military blames the LTTE for the attack.
The Battle of Kilinochchi was a land battle fought between the Sri Lankan Military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for control of the town of Kilinochchi in the Northern Theater of Eelam War IV during the Sri Lankan civil war between November 2008 and January 2009. The town of Kilinochchi was the administrative center and de facto capital of the LTTE's proposed state of Tamil Eelam.
The Sri Lanka Armed Forces is the overall unified military of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka encompassing the Sri Lanka Army, the Sri Lanka Navy, and the Sri Lanka Air Force; they are governed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The three services have around 346,700 active personnel; conscription has never been imposed in Sri Lanka. As of 2021 it is the 14th largest military in the world, with 1.46% of the Sri Lankan population actively serving.
1998 Temple of the Tooth attack was an attack on the Temple of the Tooth Relic, located in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The shrine, which is considered to be important to the Buddhists in Sri Lanka, houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha, and is also a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. In 1998, it was attacked by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist militant organization which fought to create an independent Tamil state in Northern and Eastern parts of the country, from 1983 to 2009.
Freedom of the press in Sri Lanka is guaranteed by Article 14(1)(a) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka which gives every citizen "the freedom of speech and expression including publication". But under some government's there was widespread suppression of the media, particularly those critical of those governments. Sri Lanka is ranked 146 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders's Press Freedom Index for 2022
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Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (alleged)
