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Army changes tack in move which foxes Tigers

by Amal Jayasinghe in Madhu
When government soldiers swamped this pilgrim town, even the battle-hardened civilians were surprised by the stealthy move which had foxed the Tamil Tiger rebels.

There was no tell-tale artillery fire and air strikes to herald the military's advance which saw this north-western Sri Lankan centre captured from rebel control on Monday.

"It was a very stealthy manoeuvre," said a field commander who had led a column of troops through jungle for three days before reaching Madhu, one of the key population centres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The offensive, which hardly saw any firing, also signalled the army had changed its strategy of concentrating on a single target and instead was now moving on a broad front.

"I knew the army had come here only when the people came and told me that an army officer was waiting outside to talk to me,", said the administrator of the Madhu church, Father A.P. Devasagayam.

Most of the 20,000 civilians sheltering in this town are refugees who have fled fighting in other parts of the island's north-east.

Hundreds of civilians have now begun crossing over from rebel-held areas to this pilgrim site in search of food and medicine.

Two columns of troops were involved in the latest offensive and they had effectively straightened their defence lines by pushing them further north from earlier positions.

The military appeared to be setting up a new defence line stretching from the north-western coastal town of Mannar to the north-eastern region of Mullaitivu on the other side of the island.

However, Mullaitivu town itself and the immediate jungle area remains a stronghold of the LTTE, which captured the Mullaitivu garrison town in July 1996 by killing more than 1,200 soldiers in a single offensive.

Since new army commander Srilal Weersooriya took control in December, the army has abandoned its biggest and bloodiest campaign aimed at wresting control over a key highway in the north of the country.

That offensive, code-named Jayasikuru or Sure Victory, was called off in. December, after the army had taken about two-thirds of the A-0 highway linking the northern peninsula of Jaffna with the rest of the country.

The rebels said they lost 1,300 cadres during 18 months of fighting while the defence ministry placed its losses at about 1,500 killed. However, diplomats said both sides may have suffered more casualties.

But with the ending of the Sure Victory offensive which set out its objective openly, giving the rebels time to prepare their resistance, analysts said the army now appeared to be going for smaller drives on a broad front.

"The Tigers still have the ability to gather a large force and carry out a concentrated attack against any of our camps," a field commander here said. "But they can't afford to tie down men and women to defend a front-line that is now extending to several hundred kilometres (miles)."

Both the LTTE and the army are pressed for fighters.

The new army chief said they needed another 20,000 men to wage a major military campaign against the LTTE but added the Tigers too were suffering from shortages of combatants.

The LTTE, which is regarded as one of the world's most effective guerrilla organisations, was sending younger ill-trained fighters to the front and some were surrendering, Weerasooriya said earlier this year year.

However, he admitted the Tigers still had hard-core fighting units which could devastate military camps, as they proved by wiping out an army garrison in the northern town of Kilinochchi in September.

The Roman Catholic priest Devasagayam said guerrillas used to come to this area and screened video shows to attract young men and women refugees to join their ranks.

Military officials say despite the immediate setback the guerrillas may still be able to pressure the government with low-intensity bombings targeting public utilities in the rest of the country.

Tiger guerrillas are fighting for a Tamil homeland in the north-east. More than 55,000 people have been killed in the past 27 years. (AFP)

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