LTTE 'leopards' led the operation: report

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, JULY 29. The LTTE attack on the Katunayake airbase and the adjoining Bandaranaike International Airport was carried out after nearly a year of elaborate planning and intelligence gathering, a newspaper has reported.

The Sunday Leader, believed to have impeccable sources within the LTTE, today said the attack was carried out by its commando unit known as Chiruthaigal or leopards, along with cadres from its intelligence, anti-aircraft and air wings.

The team, handpicked by the top LTTE leadership, carried out mock attacks on models of the Katunayake complex constructed with the help of air force maps and a blueprint of the complex.

The newspaper claimed that 21 cadres - led by a senior cadre named Amman - were involved. One of the cadres is said to have had a pilot's licence, while another was an aeronautical engineer. While 14 cadres were killed in the operation, five of them by blasting themselves, seven escaped, including a videographer, who recorded the entire operation on his camera.

The entire team is reported to have arrived in southern Sri Lanka by sea, landing on the western coast, while the rest came to the capital in ones and twos.

The arsenal used in the attack was brought by sea and kept in a safe house outside the capital. On the day before the attack, the team assembled in the safe house and travelled in a mini-bus to the vicinity of the airport.

They parked their vehicle at a playground near the airbase and told suspicious villagers they had come to see off friends going to West Asia, and were planning to spend the night camping at the playground.

Using the cover of darkness during a routine power cut in the area that lasted from 9.45 p.m. to 11.15 p.m., the team moved out of the playground. The remains of a meal and several pairs of discarded footwear were found at the ground by investigators after the attack the next morning.

According to the newspaper, the team reached upto 400 yards behind the airbase. An advance party from the team then used an open canal to approach the fencing and cut an entry through the barbed wire, after which the rest of the team got in with its arms and ammunition.

Working with maps of the airbase that told them exactly where each installation was located, they first fixed explosives to the three transformers in the base, which blew up between 3.30 a.m. and 3.35 a.m., plunging the airbase into darkness.

Even at this point, the Air Force personnel at the base seemed to have sensed no danger, and while they tried to repair what they thought was a fault, the LTTE team fanned out in three directions to carry out the attack.

The commandant of the airbase and the ground defence officer have been transferred, and three airmen on sentry duty arrested for not taking seriously complaints by villagers about the campers in the playground. Two high-level investigations have been ordered into the attack.

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Section  : International
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