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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Just a few months ago, Sri Lanka's president and its army chief were strong allies, working closely together to defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels and end the nation's 25-year civil war. Now the two men hailed as national heroes are bitter political opponents, as Gen. Sarath Fonseka works to unseat President Mahinda Rajapaksa in next month's presidential elections. Rajapaksa's allies brand Fonseka a potential dictator and say he is ungrateful to the man who promoted him to army chief and put him in charge of leading the fight against the rebels. Fonseka, who resigned from the...

More than 1,000 Buddhist extremists armed with clubs, swords and stones ferociously attacked a Catholic church in the town of Crooswatta, Sri Lanka on December 6, destroying the altar, statues and pews. L’Osservatore Romano reported that Father Jude Denzil Lakshman, pastor of Our Lady of the Mystical Rose, said “I still can hear their shouts in my ears, ‘Cut him to pieces, kill him’.” The attack took place after the 7 p.m., Sunday Mass, leaving several parishioners wounded. “It is obvious that the attack was well-planned and that the mob waited for us to come out after Mass,” Father Lakshman...

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday that it has sold 10 metric tons of gold to Sri Lanka, the third customer to acquire a portion of its gold holdings. The IMF in September finalized a plan to sell 403.3 metric tons of gold—an amount equivalent to about one-eighth of its total holdings. The IMF previously announced the sales of 200 metric tons of gold to India and 2 metric tons to Mauritius.

Wary of a Kosovo-type fate, Colombo wants to adopt a cautious approach to the issue of political settlement of Tamils, a senior Sri Lankan official told The Hindu here. “We need to move forward on the process of empowerment. But one problem with federalism in a small country is that it is more subject to splitting. Take Kosovo. They [The West] said give autonomy and we will guarantee unity. But two years later they supported independence. Clearly a promise should be a promise. We have to be careful,� said Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights Rajiva...

Sri Lanka is joining Israel as a country facing a war crimes investigation for effectively fighting back against terrorism.

AMBEPUSSA, Sri Lanka — Vinojan's boyhood ended when Sri Lanka's civil war reignited. Fifteen at the time, he says he joined the separatist Tamil Tigers to save his older brother from forcible conscription, and became a reluctant fighter as the rebels fought their last, desperate battles for survival. [snip] The rebels tied him to a tree and whipped him with a palm branch, he said. Then they gave him 10 days of training and a rifle and sent him and other child soldiers to the front.

SNIPPET: "Would-be migrants who were found aboard a vessel headed for British Columbia may have each paid $45,000 for the trip. The men, believed to be Tamils from Sri Lanka, remain in custody as Immigration Canada determines their identity. The ship, called the Ocean Lady, was seized by RCMP last Friday. Another vessel carrying Sir Lankans was caught off the coast of Australia last week, and the passengers said they had paid smugglers $15,000 to board the ship. One man told a reporter about the Ocean Lady, and said he had wanted to board that vessel instead, but it was...

OCTOBER 17, 2009 Rajaratnam Surfaced in U.S. Terrorism Probe By EVAN PEREZ and MATTHEW ROSENBERG WASHINGTON—The hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of a vast insider-trading case surfaced in an earlier, separate probe into U.S. fundraising by a Sri Lankan terrorist group, people familiar with the probe said. As part of that investigation, federal agents said they uncovered documents showing that Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the U.S. whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to people familiar with the probe. Raj...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The United States voiced grave concern on Wednesday about video footage that a Sri Lankan group says shows government soldiers summarily executing Tamil rebels in violation of international law. "These reports are very disturbing, they are of grave concern," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told reporters. "We'd like more information as we formulate our own national response." Rice was reacting to video footage aired last week on British television which, according to a Sri Lankan advocacy group, shows government forces executing unarmed, naked, bound and blindfolded Tamils during the army's final...

Here is a CNN video report showing graphic execution-style killings in Sri Lanka that reportedly may have taken place in January of this year. The Sri Lankan government claims the whole thing is faked, but human rights groups say othewise. CNN said it is impossible to verify exactly who is involved and where it may have taken place. . . . . (Watch Video)

A look at the country Rifqa Bary says her parents have threatened to take her back to. Although the Constitution of Sri Lanka provides for freedom of religion, the reality is totally different. The government discriminates against Christians through laws and taxation. In addition, with the growth of Christianity there has been an increase in violent persecution: "A Christian girl was beaten by her classmates after an anti-Christian meeting held in a mostly Buddhist school." "On July 3rd, a pastor, his wife and two children awoke when their house was set on fire after weeks of threats from vilagers." "On...

Sri Lanka is to train Pakistan army officers to fight the Taliban insurgency with lessons from its devastating defeat of the Tamil Tigers. By Dean Nelson in Islamabad Published: 6:56PM BST 21 Aug 2009 Colombo has been inundated with training requests since it finally put down the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam's (LTTE) 26-year rebellion in a final onslaught which claimed the lives of more than 10,000 civilians and left 300,000 displaced by the fighting. The apparent accolade for the Sri Lankan forces will cause alarm among human rights groups which have accused the government in Colombo of war crimes...

Sri Lanka's army has said it will be happy to give training to members of the Pakistani military. It says Islamabad has requested the training because of the country's success in defeating the Tamil Tigers. In May, the government announced the end to a decades-long war with the rebel group. The army's new commander told the BBC that Pakistan had already asked if it could send its military cadets to train in counter-insurgency operations. "We'll give a favourable response," Lt Gen Jagath Jayasuriya said of the request..

In pictures: Pilgrimage unites Sri Lankans The church sits on a site where there has been a shrine to the Virgin Mary for hundreds of years. Catholics, both Tamil and Sinhalese, and members of other faiths revere it.

"Face -to-face with a human bomb A Sri Lankan journalist tries to find out why a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber would want to blow himself up" SNIPPET: "Earlier this year, I found myself seated face-to-face with a would-be suicide bomber, the most dreaded weapon in the arsenal of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) -- better known as the Tamil Tigers. Until their battlefield defeat earlier this year, the LTTE dreamed that their long campaign of terrorism would help them carve an independent Tamil homeland out of northern and eastern Sri Lanka. As we talked, I felt comfortable in...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's defeated Tamil Tiger rebels have named a man accused of running a vast arms smuggling operation as their new leader, two months after government forces crushed the separatist movement. The new leader has pledged to remake the insurgents into a nonviolent separatist movement. Selvarasa Pathmanathan was the rebels' chief of international relations and allegedly ran an international weapons smuggling ring. The Sri Lankan government has appealed to foreign governments to find and arrest him. Pathmanathan "will lead us into the next steps of our freedom struggle according to the vision of our esteemed leader,"...

NEW DELHI–Sri Lanka's government spent much of the past quarter-century on the hunt for Velupillai Prabhakaran, the short, stocky leader of the Tamil Tigers whose death last month seemed to herald an end to the island country's on-again, off-again civil war. Yet weeks after his shattered corpse was shown on TV, Sri Lankan authorities remain on the prowl, searching for Prabhakaran's shadowy successor, a man of whom there are few photographs and who has been on Interpol's most wanted list. His name: Kumaran Pathmanathan. The Sri Lankan government is pressing Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Laos to...

Bangkok, Thailand - Over two months after the bloody finale of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, a lingering row over civilian casualties continues to roil a fractured society. Sri Lankan authorities have insisted that their final military push against Tamil Tiger rebels didn't target hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind enemy lines. But aid workers, church officials, and government doctors reported that heavy shelling had caused mass casualties. A preliminary United Nations report estimated that 7,000 had died between January and May. On Wednesday, however, a group of doctors who had provided dramatic firsthand accounts of civilian suffering in...

There are few places in the world Robert D. Kaplan has not visited and written about in his books and magazine articles. He travels to countries hardly anyone else even considers – to Turkmenistan, for instance, during the time of the lunatic "Turkmenbashi" who transformed his post-Soviet republic into the North Korea of Central Asia. He has an uncanny ability to see conflicts looming on the horizon well in advance and – reversing the standard relationship between journalists and officials – U.S. defense policy professionals often ask him for briefings about what he has seen.His regular dispatches in the...

Mi 24s role in eelam war IV emphasised by Shamindra Ferdinando The Hingurakgoda-based Mi 24 helicopter gunship squadron played a critical role in the recently concluded eelam war IV with nearly 400 missions in the Northern and Eastern theatres. Known as the No 09 squadron, it had caused devastating losses in coordinated attacks directed at fortified LTTE positions situated close to what Wing Commander Sampath Thuycontha, Commanding Officer of the squadron called forward location of own troops.’ In an interview with The Island, the veteran flyer said that despite having a range of weapons, including dedicated anti-aircraft guns the LTTE...

It is very sad to hear but the statement "Indians are latest Global 'HATE' Targets" is 100% true.. In Australia, we face racism.. In USA, sort of it too.. In Srilanka, 'Tamils will be looking forward for a day'.. In Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanisthan, Talibans and most of the Pakis have venemous feleings about us. Recent Mumbai attacks is a clear example and apart from that the attack on Parliament, Bombings in the major cities like Hyderabad, etc., etc., China, is never a friend of India.. Palestines, Of course they will hate us too because of our diplomatic relations with...

This week the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Wednesday celebrating Sri Lanka's victory over Tamil terrorists. The resolution condemned that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for attacks on civilians and for “its practice of using civilians as human shields.” The resolution welcomed "the liberation by the government of Sri Lanka of tens of thousands of its citizens that were kept by the LTTE against their will as hostages," and appealed for financial support for the country's post-war reconstruction. Now compare that resolution to this one passed in January: Title: The grave violations of human rights in...

If more proof were needed that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a feckless, biased, intellectually corrupt haven for dictators and Islamofascists, the evidence was clearly on display this week. The UNHRC voted to affirm Sri Lanka’s right to self-defence from terror attacks launched against its citizens and territory by the Tamil Tigers. Indeed, the council went further, “condemning all attacks that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) launched on the civilian population and its practice of using civilians as human shields.” Sri Lanka had every right to protect itself, the council concluded, even at the cost...

With Gaza quiet and the civil war ended in Sri Lanka, the United Nations has put its investigators on the job, assigning them to produce official reports that will almost certainly add to the world’s store of duplicity and hypocrisy. Next month a team from the UN Human Rights Council will hold hearings in Gaza on war crimes possibly committed during the Israel-Hamas fighting. In Geneva on Monday the Council will begin studying Sri Lanka because (as its typically pompous statement declares), “The international community must strive to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations wherever they occur and...

At different times Velupillai Prabhakaran’s admirers made absurd attempts to compare VP with George Washington, Mao Ze Dong and other great historical leaders. Many of his enemies however were calling this despicable gangster him another Hitler. But by doing so they gave this cowardly criminal undue recognition – even though in a negative sense. But VP is far more conceited than the Nazi dictator ever was. While the latter merely called himself the `Fuehrer’ (Leader), Prabhakaran has become the self-styled ‘Sooriyathevan’ (Sun God). So the despot who is closest to Velupillai P is not Hitler or any other dictator but...

This is the fate that befell the World’s Most Ruthless Terrorist Leader, LTTE’s VELUPILLAI PRABHAKARAN at the hands of heroic troops of the Sri Lanka Army who had just brought the entire country under one banner after ridding terrorists of their last hold in VELLAMULLIVAIKKAL in MULLAITTIVU. PRABHAKARAN who was No.1 in the organization was with his LTTE ID card at the time he was gunned down close to NANTHI KANDAL lagoon. He was wearing his camouflage uniform and had taken a clean shave, thinking perhaps of his last few hours and the imminent danger. It took a little more...

... Mr. Rajapaksa, elected in 2005, finally put an end to the "peace process" with Prabhakaran and focused on winning the military fight. In 2007, with the help of a Tiger splinter group, the government subdued the Eastern Province; the first elections were held there last year. The fighting then moved to the North. It has not been cheap or easy. Military spending in the 2009 budget is $1.7 billion, 5% of GDP and 20% of the government's budget. ...

A pro-LTTE website, Tamilnet.com, on Tuesday claimed that the Tamil Tigers supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is still "alive and safe", a day after Sri Lankan army announced that it has killed the top rebel leader. "I wish to inform the global Tamil community distressed witnessing the final events of the war that our beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe," LTTE's international relations head S Pathmanathan was quoted as saying by the website, which usually puts out the rebels' version on the battle with the Sri Lankan armed forces. "He (Prabhakaran) will continue to lead the quest for dignity and...

Rajiv: The Tiger chief's big mistake Seema Guha Tuesday, May 19, 2009 1:22 IST New Delhi: Prabhakaran made two fatal mistakes which brought about his downfall. One was his complete isolation from the rest of the world and the decision to eliminate former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. In 1991, Indian reporters visiting Jaffna were flooded with questions from LTTE leaders about the chances of the Congress returning to power. The thinking was: If Rajiv is elected, his first priority would be to avenge the humiliation suffered by the IPKF -- when ex-president Premadasa and Prabhakaran got together to throw...

Tiger dead, a secret spills SUJAN DUTTA New Delhi, May 18: Sri Lanka’s military triumph over the LTTE that peaked with the announcement of Prabhakaran’s death today was possible with active assistance — including a defined naval deployment against the Sea Tigers — from India. The aid increased steadily this year but New Delhi asked Colombo to keep it quiet till the election was over. The Indian military assistance came on a specific request from the Sri Lankan government. The first military medical mission was despatched in April. But far more significant than that benign assistance was the deployment of...

The pitiless success of Sri Lanka's military offensive delivers one salutary lesson: if you have China as an ally, you can afford to ignore pressure from anywhere else. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government has won China's financial, military and diplomatic support – along with the confidence to brush off Western protests about its behaviour. In the closing stages of the assault on the Tamil Tigers, the army surrounded about 50,000 civilians inside a tiny enclave. Other governments would have found it difficult to resist outside calls for a unilateral ceasefire, at least to allow the evacuation of wounded innocents. If the...

Sri Lanka declares war over, Tamil Tiger leader dead by Amal Jayasinghe Mon May 18, 4:09 pm ET COLOMBO (AFP) – The Sri Lankan government on Monday declared an end to its decades-old conflict with the Tamil Tigers, after routing the remnants of the rebel army and killing its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The army said its commandos overran the last sliver of Tiger territory, killing the last 300 fighters and decimating the rebel leadership. It said Prabhakaran and two deputies were shot dead trying to flee in a van and ambulance. "We have successfully ended the war," the island's powerful...

Tamil protesters block the Gardiner Expressway, a major freeway going through the middle of downtown Toronto May 10, 2009, to protest the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE).

"The leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was shot dead today while trying to flee advancing troops, defence officials told AFP. Prabhakaran was with several close aides in a small convoy of a van and ambulance which tried to drive out of the battle zone when it was ambushed by commandos, the senior defence ministry official said. The news came as the military said that the entire island was now under government control, after decades of conflict with the rebels that left more than 70,000 people dead. Prabhakaran was "killed with two others inside the vehicle. There...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The Tamil Tigers admitted defeat Sunday in their fierce quarter-century war for a separate homeland as government forces raced to clear the last pockets of rebel resistance from the war zone in the north. Far from the battlefield, thousands of Sri Lankans danced in the streets of Colombo, celebrating the stunning collapse of one of the world's most sophisticated insurgencies. But with rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran still at large, the threat of renewed guerrilla warfare remained. Several rebel fighters committed suicide when they were surrounded, but it wasn't clear whether Prabhakaran or other leaders were...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday called the use of innocent civilians by rebels in Sri Lanka fighting government troops "deplorable" and asked both sides to help prevent the "humanitarian crisis" in the South Asian nation from becoming a catastrophe. Hundreds of civilians trapped in the conflict zone died over the weekend, and thousands are still caught in the crossfire, according to the United Nations. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Obama said, "Without urgent action, this humanitarian crisis could turn into a catastrophe. Now is the time, I believe, to put aside some of...

On the southern coast of Sri Lanka, ten miles from one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, a vast construction site is engulfing the once sleepy fishing town of Hambantota. This poor community of 21,000 people is about as far as one can get on the island from the fighting between the army and the Tamil Tiger rebels on the northeastern coast. The sudden spurt of construction helps, however, to explain why the army is poised to defeat the Tigers and why Western governments are so powerless to negotiate a ceasefire to help civilians trapped on the front line. This...

The Tamil Tigers, one of the world's most violent terrorist outfits, are surrounded in northern Sri Lanka and about to be destroyed - but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and European self-styled peacemakers are getting in the way of victory.

EDITORIAL: Tigers at bay By | Sunday, April 26, 2009 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 Avg. Rating: 0 Print[-][+] Font Size E-Mail AlertsTell a FriendGot a Question?You ReportYahoo! Buzz The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, one of the world's most violent terrorist outfits, are surrounded in northern Sri Lanka and about to be destroyed - but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and European self-styled peacemakers are getting in the way of victory. The meddlers should let Colombo finish off this menace. In desperation, the Tamil Tigers are using tens of thousands of locals as human shields....

Reporting from New Delhi -- In a sign of its growing confidence, Sri Lanka on Monday issued an ultimatum calling on Tamil rebels to surrender or perish after the army reportedly breached a major defensive barrier, paving the way for tens of thousands of civilians to make a run for it. Troops captured an additional square-mile area of the rebels' shrinking terrain Monday, freeing about 19,000 civilians trapped by the fighting, while the navy freed 2,165 people as more fled in other directions, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. By some reports, as many as 35,000 noncombatants fled the hotly...

January 27, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/nyfo012709b.htm FOUR DEFENDANTS PLEAD GUILTY TO ALL CHARGES, INCLUDING CONSPIRING TO ACQUIRE ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILES AND PROVIDE MATERIAL SUPPORT TO THE LTTE, A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION Defendants Were Caught in an FBI Undercover Sting Operation Attempting to Purchase Surface-to-Air Missiles, Missile Launchers, and Hundreds of AK-47 Automatic Rifles Earlier today, in the midst of jury selection at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, defendants Thiruthanikan Thanigasalam and Sahilal Sabaratnam pled guilty to conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a designated foreign terrorist organization,...

Marine archaeologists have just discovered evidence of a large submerged landmass southeast of Sri Lanka. They believe it could be a legendary lost island closely linked to the culture and history of Sri Lankan people. The landmass is estimated to be between 450,000 and 475,000 square kilometres, which is about seven times the total land area of Sri Lanka. "This could well be the long lost island of Irisiyawa, which is euphemistically mentioned in our chronicles and hinted at in the writings of Greek historians," said Dr Godwin Samarawickrama, a maritime historian at the Indian Ocean Institute based in Melacca,...

Pakistan came under new criticism about its security forces Thursday as dramatic footage emerged of the cricket attackers making a leisurely getaway from the scene of their deadly assault. The images of the gunmen calmly walking off, without police or security forces chasing them, will add to speculation swirling around Tuesday's brazen daytime attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team that left eight people dead. Pakistan is steeped in political violence, and suspicion has fallen mainly on Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Police have brought in around two dozen people for questioning but so far have no...

Five-minute gap fuels conspiracy theory over Lahore terror attack Jeremy Page in Lahore and Anne Barrowclough in Sydney An unexplained five-minute delay in the Pakistani cricket team schedule has fuelled speculation that the gunmen who launched a terror attack against the Sri Lankan Test team this week were acting on inside information. After a furious tirade by the English match referee, Chris Broad, yesterday, both an Australian umpire and Sri Lanka's star spin bowler fed the conspiracy theory today, questioning the level of security and the timing of events. "You tell me why supposedly 20 armed commandos were in our...

Former England cricketer Chris Broad has been hailed a hero of the terrorist ambush in Lahore after throwing himself on top of a critically injured umpire Ahsan Raza during the attack. The 51-year-old former batsman was travelling in a motorcade carrying players and officials which came under fire outside the Gaddafi Stadium. Eight people were killed and seven members of the Sri Lankan squad, including its English assistant coach Paul Farbrace were wounded. The attack cast the future of the game in Pakistan, one of the co-hosts for the 2011 World Cup, into serious doubt. Mr Broad, who was to...

In a commando-style operation, a dozen gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore, Pakistan's cultural and political hub, at 8:45 Tuesday morning. The attackers fired rockets, grenades and multiple rounds of ammunition at the team's bus and the police escorting it, killing eight people and injuring six. To some eyewitnesses, it was last November's Mumbai attacks replayed on Pakistani soil. Amid thick morning traffic in Lahore's Liberty Square, the gunmen ambushed the bus as it approached the Gaddaffi cricket stadium. "I heard the attack and spun around," recalls Abdul Ghani Butt, 30, a foreign-currency dealer...

Sorry for the vanity- I am just monitoring the news Channels here in India and this is on all of them - The Sri Lankan Cricket team, playing a test series against Pakistan has just been attacked by terrorists with assault weapons and grenades. At least 6 of their players have been injured in the chest and leg, 5 guards killed in the attack near the Qaddafi stadium. The Sri lamkan team replaced India who refused to tour after the Mumbai carnage.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg22.htm February 11, 2009 TG-22 Treasury Targets U.S. Front for Sri Lankan Terrorist Organization Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of the Treasury today targeted the support network of the Sri Lanka-based designated terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by designating the U.S.-based Tamil Foundation under Executive Order 13224. Executive Order 13224 targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. "The LTTE, like other terrorist groups, has relied on so-called charities to raise funds and advance its violent aims," said Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Treasury's...

More than 10,000 Sri Lankan civilians have fled in the past few days from rebel-held territory in the north, the government says. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse called on the Tamil Tigers to let thousands more civilians leave and then unconditionally surrender. The rebel-held enclave is coming under sustained pressure from the army. Aid agencies have expressed grave concern for the more than 200,000 civilians believed trapped in the area. The government has accused the rebels of preventing the non-combatants from leaving and using them as human shields. But the Tigers say the civilians are staying in the enclave because...

Here's a question for Sid Ryan, CUPE, the York University Federation of Students, Britain's academic unions and Naomi Klein: When do we all start boycotting Sri Lanka? As most of our readers will know, the government of Sri Lanka has been locked in a civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels for more than a quarter-century. During that time, 70,000 people have died, including hundreds who have fallen victim to Tiger suicide bombings. The war may finally be coming to an end, however: In recent months, the Sri Lankan military has gone on the offensive, and is now closing in on...