For all intents and purposes, the military - according to Defence Ministry figures and claims - has cleaned up the map, and killed the Army Commander's benchmark of 5,000 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres between January 1, and the end of June.
As of last Friday, the statistics maintained by The Sunday Leader of LTTE cadres claimed killed by the Defence Ministry's official claims, was 4,698.
Given the Rajapakse administration's war on media, we have exercised much caution in maintaining these statistics.
A copy is saved of every article referred to, as is a link to the article's unique identity number on the Defence Ministry website's archive, along with the number claimed killed. In situations where swathes of LTTE cadres are claimed "killed or wounded," we are careful to count less than half the number as killed.
The many instances referring to "ferocious" battles where the military had inflicted "massive casualties" - but no concrete numbers - were omitted entirely.
The effects of air strikes too were omitted entirely as the air force has allowed that it is extremely difficult to independently verify the number killed on the ground after an air strike.
And thus we have a number from the Defence Ministry - that cannot be independently verified - of 4,698 LTTE cadres killed in land and sea action.
Theoretically, 302 should be remaining, skulking in the Wanni jungles.
Kept track
However, we have also kept track of the number of air strikes announced by the air force this year on "identified terrorist targets."
Eighty four, separate, aerial bombing raids have been announced this year, most involving more than one aircraft.
Given that at least four bombs are dropped on each target - and they don't come cheap: the cheapest of reliable 'dumb' bombs costing in the region of Rs.100,000 each - from a value for money perspective if no other, it would be sensible to expect that at least four LTTE cadres are killed in each of these "massive" strikes on "LTTE installations."
It is not much to ask that a single military operation costing in the region of Rs.400,000 to several million rupees in their ordinance costs alone - leave alone pricey aviation fuel and aircraft maintenance costs - take out at least four LTTE cadres.
Thus with at least 5,000 LTTE cadres having been killed by the Defence Ministry's own numbers, we are back to square one wondering why the government is asking the country to brace itself for an ever more, stringent war footing.
For all practical purposes, going by Defence Ministry statistics alone the war should therefore be now over with at least 5000 Tigers killed between January 1 to date. But is it? And if not, how come?
Surely the Defence Ministry that has identified media persons who challenge their word on the war as traitors would not have been lying to the very people who are funding the war?
That after all would be treason, would it not?
Reality
The reality is that although Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka claimed bombastically that the war would be over by August with the killing of 3000 Tigers, and then by the end of the year, the advances of the military - most likely due to tactical and strategic sensibilities - have been conservative.
The military has advanced, by its own estimates, as deep as 10 or more kilometres on the northwestern Mannar front, and has captured an area of 50 square kilometres in the road-less jungles atop northeast Weli-Oya.
The area captured is effectively less than one third that was controlled by the Tigers six months ago.
It would be almost delightful to hear the excuses of the people who believed the government when it claimed mid-last year that the LTTE strength was a mere 5,000, also believed in December 2007 (after 2,800 Tigers had been killed) that their actual strength was 3,000, and then later believed again in February that the true number was 5,000 cadres remaining and that the war would be over by August. What do they have to say now?
(edited)
