Thaindian News

Colombo, Oct 3 (IANS) Hunting for top Tamil Tiger leaders, Sri Lankan Air Force fighter jets carried out yet another air raid Friday, targeting “a secret passage” of the LTTE’s intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman in the restive north, defence authorities here said. “The well identified secret passage, which is used as terror intelligence headquarters at Kanagapuram, located four kilometers west of Kilinochchi town, was engaged around 2.30 p.m Friday,” air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said.

He said the target was precisely taken out by the Air Force jets, based on real-time information gathered through continuous ground and air surveillance.

The second air raid for the day came barely six hours after the air force fighter jets bombed “the main office complex” of LTTE’s political wing head, B. Nadesan, in the rebels’ administrative capital of Kilinochchi, located about 350 km north of here.

The air force Friday said that the main office complex of Nadesan located 500 metres west of Triarukulam (in the northern town of Kilinochchi) was engaged around 9.20 a.m, causing extensive damage to the building complex.

It is not known whether these two top rebel leaders were present at the targets at the time of the attacks.

In an e-mail to the media on the air attack, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) claimed that air force has “targeted the office complex of Tamil Eelam police headquarters, located in the centre of Kilinochchi town”.

“The Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation’s store situated alone with the police headquarters also badly damaged in this attack. This latest attack came after heavy artillery and MBRL barrage by the Sri Lankan Army, targeting in and around Kilinochchi town,” the LTTE statement claimed.

Nadesan, who had briefly served in the Sri Lankan police service, joined the LTTE decades ago and was made head of the “LTTE police force” by elusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

He was later appointed as the political wing head of the outfit after S.P. Thamilselvan was killed in an air raid in November 2007.

The military said troops advancing from various directions were just 3.5 km away from Kilinochchi town and were determined to capture it in the near future.

The LTTE has been fighting the Sri Lankan government to carve out a separate state for Tamils in the northern and eastern part of the island for the past three decades. Thousands have died in fighting between the LTTE and the military since late 2005.