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| Sri Lanka |
| Tamil Tiger head may have fled Sri Lanka says army chief |
| 2009-01-19 |
| The elusive leader of the Tamil Tigers may have already fled Sri Lanka with the army charging fast towards the separatist rebels' final strongholds, Sri Lanka's army commander said. Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka, commanding the most successful army offensive in the history of one of Asia's longest-running wars, also predicted victory in a matter of months as the Tigers' resistance was weaker than expected. "Prabhakaran is a man who loves food, a man who loves his family, so I don't think he would wait until the military got so close to him," Fonseka told reporters late on Saturday. "He must have already escaped through the sea." He declined to speculate on where the Tamil Tiger leader would have fled to. Fonseka said Tiger founder and leader Velupillai Prabhakaran would neither commit suicide as he exhorts his followers to do with cyanide capsules worn around their necks, nor allow himself to be captured like former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Fonseka said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) now hold an area of 30 km (18 miles) by 15 km (9 miles), and said troops had marched 17 km towards Mullaittivu in as many days. "When the war started, I used 50 map sheets to plan it. Now I only need one sheet to plan it," he said. Fonseka, who spoke at an annual dinner he hosts for defence correspondents at his residence, joked that he expected most of them "to be out of work by this time next year." He wore a black shirt, adorned with a dragon strangling a tiger. The Indian Ocean island nation has put its navy and air force on high alert, patrolling the 40 km (25 miles) of coast that the army has yet to secure in a multi-pronged assault gunning for the northeastern port of Mullaittivu. Local media this week reported that intelligence reports said Prabhakaran may have sought the help of foreign countries to rescue him via submarine. The Tigers are on U.S., Indian and E.U. terrorist lists. Prabhakaran is wanted by Interpol and India for the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 by a suicide bomber, plus other suicide attacks and killings of Sri Lankan civilians and politicians including Tamils. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 run, Mario! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-01-19 07:08 |