Only 1,000 Tigers left, war almost over – Fonseka

by admin
Jan 23, 2009
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka on Sunday January 18 said that as there were only a thousand Tamil Tigers left and they were “boxed” into a small jungle area in Mullaitivu, the war would soon be won.
 
The Tigers could not resist the 50,000 SLA soldiers surrounding them, he said.
 
Lt. Gen. Fonseka, who spoke at an annual dinner he hosts for defence correspondents at his residence, joked that he expected most of them "to be out of work by this time next year." He wore a black shirt, adorned with a dragon strangling a tiger, Reuters reported.

"It would be extremely tough for the 1000-odd LTTE cadres to take on Sri Lankan army of 50,000 personnel, deployed in areas around Mullaitheeivu," Fonseka said.

At least 200,000 people who fled towards Mullaiththeevu from Sri Lankan Army advances in recent months, along with almost a similar number of residents are enduring relentless and indiscriminate shelling from the SLA’s heavy guns and rocket artillery and the Air Force’s bombing.

Fonseka said the LTTE now only hold an area of 30 km (18 miles) by 15 km (9 miles). The LTTE controls 40km of coastline, the military says.

"When the war started, I used 50 map sheets to plan it. Now I only need one sheet to plan it," he boasted.

Lt. Gen. Fonseka suggested LTTE leader Vellupillai Pirapaharan may even have fled the island, unable to face the advancing Sri Lankan army.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button