• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

India admits helping Lankan navy against Tamil Tigers

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, Jan 16, IRNA
India-Sri Lanka-Help
For the first time in recent years, India has acknowledged helping the Sri Lankan navy in its operations against the Tamil Tigers.

Indian Navy chief Adm Sureesh Mehta said in the capital on Wednesday that India has been helping Sri Lanka, NDTV reported here.

On Tuesday, Sri Lanka's Navy has praised India for its help in countering the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and said the militant group's "backbone has been broken" after the destruction of several rebel vessels.

"Cooperation with India has been extremely successful in countering the LTTE. Every year, the Indian Navy with the Indian Coast Guard and the Sri Lankan Navy holds four bilateral discussions. We are conducting coordinated patrols with the Indian Navy as well," Navy Chief Wasantha Karannagoda said.

"We have broken their backbone by destroying their supply vessels and floating warehouses, several war-like materials which would have allowed the Tigers to sustain this conflict," Karannagoda said.

The Navy chief asserted that the LTTE was not strong enough to sustain its fight against the government for long and that the outfit's naval power was badly weakened after several losses.

"The Navy has destroyed almost all LTTE vessels that could have assisted the Tigers in attacking the armed forces," he said adding, "Within one year we have destroyed eight floating warehouses, which had carried more than 10,000 tons of war-like material".

This included artillery, mortar, dismantled parts of three aircraft, bulletproof vehicles, underwater delivery vehicles, scuba diving sets and radar, among other things, he said.

On its part, the Sri Lankan Navy has acquired new ships and boats and is also building indigenous vessels to counter the LTTE threat, Karannagoda said.

Earlier, the LTTE warehouses were stationed off the island's coast and whenever the need arose they came up to about 300 kms from land and transferred the arms cargo on to trawlers, which brings them ashore, the Navy chief said.

He said the Navy had successfully put an end to this type of arms smuggling, severely weakening the LTTE.

2160**2322**1412