Word: ltte
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...celebrations didn't last long. Less than an hour after Rajapaksa's late afternoon speech, a suicide bomber struck the air force headquarters in the city, killing three people, including two airmen and wounding at least 32. The LTTE have not officially claimed responsibility, but the message sent by the blast was unmistakable: even if the government is close to controlling all of Sri Lanka, the guerrilla war is far from finished. "They want to take the victory spirit out," says Lakshman Hulugalle, a defense ministry spokesman and director general of the Media Center for National Security...
...Kilinochchi's importance is only partly strategic. It is one of several key areas of territory along the A9 highway, a road toward the northern tip of the teardrop-shaped island and one of the main supply routes into Mullaitivu, the thick jungle areas where the LTTE is believed to base its operations. Symbolically, Kilinochchi is more important. The 463 square mile (1,200 sq. km.) district it governs has been under LTTE control for more than 10 years, ever since the Sri Lankan Army lost a battle known as Operation Unceasing Waves in September...
...Suresh Premachandran, an MP from the Tamil National Alliance, which is considered a proxy of the LTTE, told TIME the death of Tamilselvan will be a blow for the negotiation process. "It shows the Government is for a military solution. Tamilselvan was the leader of the political wing and involved in all rounds of negotiations, so when the Government targets him it is clear they do not want a political solution," Premachandran said...
...National Security, Lakshman Hulugalle, said the aerial attack also showed that a recent Tiger air attack on a key government air base had not seriously compromised Colombo's air force. "As far as we are concerned, it is a morale boost for the government and we have got another LTTE leader," says Hulugalle. "It also showed that the Air Force has not lost its capacity to strike." Defence Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother, told Reuters that the successful assassination was "a message that we know where their leaders are ... if we want we can take them...
...without significance since it comes just three weeks before Tiger Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran makes his annual "Heroes Day" speech on November 27. The elusive Prabhakaran uses the speech to set out his organization's direction and he likes to do so having scored some victory against the Government. The LTTE's attack on the air base gave him that, but today's attack evens the scales. The next few weeks could get very bloody...