Sri Lanka’s military said yesterday it had averted a major disaster in the capital Colombo by knocking out two Tamil Tiger light aircraft packed with explosives before they could hit their intended targets.
Colombo activated its air defense system as the planes approached late on Friday, shooting down one near the city’s main airport and apparently forcing the other off course and into the Inland Revenue building.
Air force spokesman Janaka Nanayakkara said each plane was packed with 215kg of C-4 type plastic explosives and the city’s ground-based air defense units had averted a major disaster.
PHOTO: AP
However, pro-rebel Web site Tamilnet.com said the attacks, in which two people died and another 58 were wounded, were “successful.”
“This is a desperate attack,” defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. “They may be trying to divert attention from their defeats in the north.”
The Tigers’ territory in the northeast of the nation has been rapidly shrinking in the past two years as government forces, backed by aircraft, tanks and heavy weapons, have carried out their biggest ever onslaught.
“They are rapidly losing ground and they would have had to destroy the planes anyway before the army stormed in,” said a military field commander, who declined to be named.
Rambukwella said security forces hoped to crush the Tigers “in a matter of days,” adding that “very soon, this problem will be over.”
Authorities said the wounded included tax department staff and bystanders hit by falling debris. The identity of the two dead has not been released, but one of them was believed to be a child.
A canteen worker, Ranjith Dissanayake, 45, said he saw the aircraft hit the tax office.
“There was a huge explosion and I was thrown on the ground,” he said.
Shortly after the attack, firemen and air force units recovered parts of the aircraft from the tax building.
A search of the wreckage of the downed plane found the pilot had no night vision equipment to fly in pitch darkness and used a pocket torch and a hand-held global positioning device.
The rebels said the targets were air force facilities in the capital and that two men from their elite “Black Air Tiger” suicide squad piloted the two light aircraft in the attack. Both pilots died.
In neighboring India, air defense systems were on alert for possible intrusion by rebel aircraft. A narrow strip of water separates Sri Lanka from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, home to the 62 million Indian Tamils as well as to thousands of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees.
The Tigers are believed to have had five Czech-built Zlin-143 aircraft smuggled into the nation in pieces and re-assembled. It is not known how many they have left after the government launched its all-out offensive.
The guerrillas have now lost more than 98 percent of the territory they once controlled and are confined to an area of less than 100km² along a coastal jungle stretch in the nation’s northeast.
Fighting between the two sides has provoked international concern for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone.
Friday’s air attack came as the UN’s top envoy on humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, was visiting to assess the situation for non-combatants.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
RSS