November 06, 2007	Tuesday	Shawwal 24, 1428

COLOMBO, Nov 5: Sri Lanka’s government vowed on Monday to continue hitting Tamil Tiger leaders with air strikes as a way of bringing peace to the island, following a raid last week that killed the rebels’ political chief.

The bullish warning from Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake came as Colombo appeared to be shifting away from its public commitment to a moribund peace process, and toward a belief that it can now win the 35-year-old war.

Speaking in the state-run Daily News newspaper, the premier said the government’s aim was to “eliminate LTTE terrorism and bring peace to the country.”

“Our security forces are targeting the hiding places and safe houses of terrorist leaders to deal a mortal blow to the Tigers,” he told the paper.

“They will not stop the relentless pursuit of terrorists,” he added, spelling out that the rebels could expect even more government attacks.

On Friday the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) lost their top political leader and de facto number-two, S.P. Thamilselvan, in a government air raid — the highest-ranking LTTE member to be killed by government forces.

The funeral for Thamilselvan, the public face of the hardline guerillas and the point man for Norwegian peace brokers, was due to take place in rebel-held territory later on Monday.

The LTTE’s supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has vowed to step up his campaign for independence from the majority Sinhalese nation following Friday’s raid, and security has been boosted around the capital.

The two sides had agreed to a Norwegian-brokered truce in 2002, but the peace process began to unravel in December 2005 — even though both sides still occasionally pay lip service to the ceasefire.

Thamilselvan’s death, however, has been seen as another nail in the coffin for peace hopes — as well as a sign that the gloves have again come off.

Sri Lanka’s defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said the LTTE were never interested in peace anyway.

“They once used the peace talks as a guise to bring night vision equipment into the country,” Rambukwella said, referring to six rounds of peace talks between September 2002 and March 2003.

Furthermore, the Sri Lankan press has been seizing on rumblings of dissent within LTTE ranks, saying that tensions in the ruthlessly efficient separatist movement have resulted in better intelligence from the north.

“The indication is that there are some very good leaks from the LTTE,” former army brigadier general Vipul Boteju said.

The former head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing, the external intelligence agency, B. Raman, also said the killing of Thamilselvan — seen as a relative moderate — may even have been the result of a feud with the LTTE’s reclusive leader.

Thamilselvan’s death “eliminated a possible rival to Prabhakaran and aggravated the anger against the Sri Lankan authorities,” Raman wrote on the website of the South Asia Analysis Group, a private Indian think tank.

This week, the Sri Lankan government will unveil its biggest ever defence budget, with military spending set to rise by 20 per cent to $1.45 billion in 2008.

—AFP