Tuesday, January 20, 2009

LTTE planes missing: Did Prabhakaran fly?

Has Sri Lanka’s most wanted man, Tamil Tiger chieftain Velupillai Prabhakaran, fled the country with his family? Sri Lankan troops who captured six airfields and landing strips used by the LTTE in their march towards the last stretch of territory held by a handful of Tigers, said they had not been able to find the three Czech-made Zlin Z-143 aircraft that the Tigers’ air wing had secretly acquired in recent years.

This has led to intense speculation that the feared head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam might have used these light aircraft to fly out of the island nation, possibly even to a destination in Southeast Asia. Constant monitoring of sea routes by the Indian and Sri Lankan navies — however patchy — had made it difficult to escape by sea, either to India or the southern Philippines, from where the Tigers have recently sourced their weapons and supplies.

The four-seater planes have made a mockery of Sri Lankan air defences in the past, and could easily have been rejigged by the Tigers to enable them to be flown across the Palk Straits, although evading Indian radar might be trickier than those back home.

>> Read full story here (Asian Age)

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