LTTE's downfall inevitable, says Jane`s Intel. Review

 

The Northeastern coastline is of huge strategic value to the LTTE as it allows maritime access and the use of the Sea Tigers in operations in Jaffna or elsewhere. This is not to say that the Sea Tigers pose a significant threat to the Sri Lankan Navy.

Few effective maritime attacks have taken place in the north. The 21 January assault on the MV City of Liverpool, a cargo ship carrying foodstuffs to the Jaffna peninsula, involving five Sea Tiger attack vessels inflicted only minor damage on the ship. In fact, few major contacts have occurred in 2007. Other major engagements occurred when the Sea Tigers were in relatively robust health: the l October 2006 attack on the Dakshina naval base in Galle involving live Sea Tiger vessels disguised as fishing boats occurred while the LTTE still had a network of eastern bases and the coastal town of Vakarai under its control.

The Sea Tigers are now without not only Sampur and Vakarai, but also Silavathurai and a considerable percentage of their fleet of attack craft and cargo ships. The SLA even claimed that the last of the Sea Tiger cargo vessels had been destroyed on 8 October, the 3 cargo ship Matsusmina, sunk 700 nautical miles off the Sri Lanka's coast, only a week and a half after the death of Nishanthan, the Sea Tiger commander in a sea battle on 27 September. Significantly, until September, LTTE vessels had always been sunk by the navy within 200 nautical miles of the coast, with the greater distance of the Matsusmina sinking suggesting they are in possession of reliable international intelligence regarding ship movements. The signing of a memorandum of understanding on intelligence co-operation between Sri Lanka and Maldives on 2 November reflects this reliance on overseas intelligence. Nonetheless, despite the evident denigration in the Sea Tigers` capabilities, retention of access to the northwestern coastline is important for the LTTE, and hence its land campaign will likely reflect this.
LTTE air campaign

In addition to its land and sea strategy, the LTTE is likely to augment any ground operations with aerial attacks. The most recent example of this was the 22 October attack on the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) base in Anuradhapura. Although ostensibly a ground attack by a Black Tiger unit, an aerial element was included, acting largely, but not exclusively as a psycho factor. The October operation was the first co-ordination of ground and air attacks. Hitherto, Tamil Eelam Air Force air raids had no ground component.

The operation began at 0320 local time and involved at least 21 male and female Black Tigers. Up to 27 males have been involved, based upon eyewitness accounts of the villagers living in the vicinity of the base and from pictures on the LTTE releases. The LTTE waited in a nearby empty house, cut through the perimeter chain link fence, cut a concertina wire fence and walked unchallenged for 300 metres to a hangar. They then proceeded to fire on aircraft using RPGs and light anti-tank weapons. LTTE were also able to maintain contact during the attack with Vanni commanders via satellite mobile telephones and walkie-talkies.

At least 21 LTTE members were killed in the Anuradhapura attack and the SLA acknowledged a death toll of 13 airmen, including four killed in an apparent `friendly fire` incident. The attack may cost the government at least USD30 million approximately SLR 3 billion).
LTTE decline

As a result, the recent ground and air attack in Anuradhapura, despite its psychological impact, is unlikely to reverse the perilous position of the LTTE now at its lowest ebb since the Indian intervention of late 1980s.

The aircraft losses will not impede SLA sorties over the Wanni. Indeed, the death of Thamilselvan and live senior officers in an air strike came a day after the LTTE leadership conferred honours on the Air Tiger pilots involved in the attack. Air superiority was an integral part of the government`s eastern victories earlier in the year and will likely play a vital role in the government`s campaign of attrition along the northwestern coast. It is therefore likely the LTTE will attempt further attacks on SLAF facilities, while committing forces to slow the SLA`s advance in the southwestern Vanni.

In addition, the 16 October attack in the south eastern Yala National Park indicates the LTTE`s reversion to traditional guerrilla tactics in the east. However, these are currently neither numerous nor audacious enough to tie down sufficient numbers of eastern security forces to the extent that troops and artillery cannot be diverted to the northern campaign.

This means the government`s northern campaign will slowly advance, seeking to bleed the LTTE by retaining artillery pressure on the FDLs and capturing portions of uncleared territory where it can, the SLA may look to advance north along the A32 in early to mid 2008. Any push south from the Muhamalai and Nagarkovil FDLs in Jaffna would be dependent on the campaign in the southwestern Vanni, but this is an unlikely option within the next year given the SLAs experiences at Muhamalai in October 2006, and may not occur at all in the northern campaign. Under General Fonseka, a veteran of the failed Jaya Sikuru offensive, it is unlikely that a similar high profile land offensive to that of 1997 - 1999 will take place in 2008, despite the short-term political benefits that would accrue to the Rajapaksa administration.

At the same time, the denigration of the Sea Tiger fleet precludes all significant ability to dominate the coast or easily transport troops for strategic mobility. The limited aerial capabilities of the Tigers are high profile and may boost morale, but are of little tactical utility.

In addition, the LTTE is currently suffering from recruitment difficulties and international pressure over its diaspora fundraising and overseas weapons procurement networks. With its maritime supply routes likely to become limited by its loss of land in the northwest, unless a new political or military variable enters the equation, the decline of the LTTE is inevitable.

This does not yet suggest an end to the conflict or a military defeat of the LTTE. While it may lose territory, a reversion to guerrilla warfare in the east will likely be matched by a similar tactic in the jungles of the Vanni. High-value political and military targets will be attacked with suicide squads and bombers, and intermittent light infantry raids will be carried out on military stations. Weaponry will be supplied by theft from security forces, with the LTTE`s estimated 7,000 fighters offering substantial resistance for years ahead.

The movement`s demise has been predicted several times since its inception in the 1970s, and the group has proven adept at jungle fighting in previous years. The current crisis could yet prove to be the catalyst for lethal new innovations on the Sri Lankan battlefield.