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In May 2009, the army of the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka did what decades of UN diplomatic intervention and State Department pronouncements could not do. It ended its 26-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, more commonly known as the Tamil Tigers. The war not only extracted a tremendous economic cost, but had a massive human cost—the UN estimated that the death toll might exceed 100,000. In the end, Sri Lankan action was both merciless and effective. The army reconquered Tamil Tiger-held territory and slaughtered the group's leadership. The final battle was messy, but with...

Passengers revolt after being told to fly on jet with its wing tip missingBy DANIEL BOFFEY - More by this author » Last updated at 21:43pm on 3rd November 2007  An airline crew faced a rebellion when they told passengers they were going to fly on a jet that had lost its wing tip in a runway crash.  The SriLankan Airlines customers had been on the Airbus A340 a day earlier when it sliced through a wing of a stationary British Airways 747 at Heathrow, delaying departure by 24 hours. So they were amazed to be boarding the same...

Amherst, NY (WBEN) - Federal agents raided a home in Amherst, and arrested three people they say are linked to an overseas terror cell. The FBI raided a home on Shetland Drive over the weekend, and the three unidentified suspects were charged with raising and laundering money for the Tamil Tigers terror group in Sri Lanka. WBEN's Tom Puckett has more in the audio link above, including assurances from police that the local community was apparently not a target.

Sri Lanka's air force on Friday launched airstrikes on rebel positions in the north, an official said, and the government promised to send aid to the hundreds of thousands cut off there by the fighting... Hundreds of rebels and security forces have been killed in fighting in the Jaffna Peninsula since Aug. 11, when rebels made a major push to retake the Tamil-majority area... The United Nation's refugee agency said the closing of a key road to the north was preventing vital aid reaching the peninsula, where its 500,000 residents remain under a 22-hour curfew and food, water and other...

The three ambassadors who died violent deaths were Cleo Noel Jr.,killed in March 1973 when Palestinian terrorists struck an embassy in Sudan; Adolph Dubs, killed in 1973 when Afghan police stormed a hotel room where he was being held by terrorists; and Arnold Raphel, who died in 1988 when a plane crashed. Receiving waivers as longtime diplomats with military service were William Rivkin and Philip Crowe. Rivkin, who died in 1967, served as ambassador to Senegal, Gambia and Luxembourg and spent five years of in the Army during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Crowe, who...

A 38-year-old Sri Lankan man, whose wife died three months ago, appears to have the ability to breast feed his two infant children, doctors told a local newspaper Wednesday. B. Wijeratne from the central town of Walapone, 186 kilometres from the capital Colombo lost his wife when she died giving birth to their second child. "My eldest daughter refused to be fed on powdered milk liquid in the feeding bottle," he said according to the Sinhalese-language daily Lankadeepa. "I was so moved one evening and to stop her crying I offered my breast. I then realised that I was capable...

THE September 11 attacks on the United States have, ironically, proved to be a strategic bonus for Washington in extending its military presence across Asia. Through a complex web of alliances, ostensibly to fight the scourge of Islamic terrorism, and backed by economic sops and clever strategic agreements, the world's lone superpower has manoeuvred itself not only to exploit the vast energy resources of the Central Asian Republics (CARs), but also to encircle China, its potential economic and military rival. Ten months after 9/11, U.S. military presence is palpable not only in Kabul, Islamabad and strategically located CARs such as...