Sri Lanka's police yesterday detained two airmen who were on guard duty the night a Tamil Tiger rebel squad stormed the country's largest military air base and the adjoining international airport, destroying 11 aircraft and damaging three others.
Officials said the two air force personnel were being questioned on how the 13 Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas, armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons and assault rifles, infiltrated the base undetected before dawn on Tuesday.
Thirteen Tiger guerrillas died in the six hour fire-fight that followed the blowing up of eight military aircraft and three commercial aircraft. Seven soldiers were also killed.
Meanwhile, security around the airport and the capital Colombo, 25 miles away, has been tightened, with cars and pedestrians being searched by security personnel. Tuesday's attack coincided with the 18th anniversary of the start of the LTTE insurgency for an independent homeland in the north and east of the island for 3.2 million Sri Lankan Tamils. The Tamils claim they face linguistic, employment and racial discrimination by the majority 14 million Sinhalese.
The war has left more than 64,000 people dead and 1.6 million people, mostly Tamils, homeless.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga has appealed over national radio and television for political unity to fight terrorism and described the rebel attack on the airport as the "most horrendous" ever.
"Throughout its history of terrorism, the LTTE has attempted to destroy as many lives of innocent civilians as they could and to devastate the forward march of Sri Lanka," Mrs Kumaratunga said.
The LTTE, the world's most efficient, ruthless and committed guerrilla group, has successfully taken on the Sri Lankan and the Indian armies, both superior in numbers and equipment.
Established in 1976 by Vellupillai Prabhakaran, a 46-year-old portly, uneducated Tamilian from northern Jaffna, the political and spiritual capital of the Tamils, the LTTE has grown from a guerrilla force to a semi-conventional army.
It is armed with 152 mm and 125 mm artillery guns, heavy mortars, multi-barrel rocket launchers, surface-to-air missiles and shoulder-fired Stinger missiles. The LTTE fights a "mobile war" against the Sri Lankan army's "static war" of digging themselves in camps and waiting.
"What singles out the LTTE from other military powers is that no soldier is provided any sort of luxury . . . neither are they promised anything in return for their sacrifice other than the freedom of their people and their land," an LTTE website declares.
For Mr Prabhakaran, all manner of brutality and hardship is acceptable to achieve his goal. He had no compunction in shooting dead his own deputy because he suspected him of coming close to dealing with India.
