SL intelligence warns of impending LTTE attack

Colombo, June 15: Sri Lanka's intelligence services have warned that the Tamil Tiger rebels, in the face of the recent setback in the eastern battlefront, were planning a major terror attack to create a bloodbath in the capital city of Colombo, a State-run media reported today.

According to the intelligence reports, the Tiger outfit was awaiting a huge explosion using nearly 1000 Kg explosives to fully destabilise security in Colombo, the State-run Daily News said.

The Tiger cadres infiltrating Colombo were waiting in lodges and various other places in the suburbs to get a confirmation from the Tiger leader to accomplish their pre-planned guerilla type raid, the newspaper stated in its weekly defence column.

The media report said the defence authorities had instructed to intensify security arrangements in Colombo after receiving confirmed reports about the LTTE's desperate attempts to infiltrate Colombo.

The determination to create mayhem in Colombo was still on their agenda, it said, adding, LTTE was not making any effort to tread the path of democracy but was innovative in its terror operations.

The increased vigilance by the police and the security force personnel, after the two claymore mine attacks in Colombo and Ratmalana last month, had produced positive results. The detention of a lorry carrying over 1000 kgs of C4 explosive early this month in the north-western province bared the LTTE's intention to create mayhem in Colombo, it said.

The report stated that the detention of the 1025 Kg explosive laden vehicle and the two claymore mines blast in Ratmalana and Colombo confirmed the intelligence report of an attack being unfolded in the city.

The detection of the explosive laden vehicle fully tallied with the intelligence reports received by the Security Forces about a guerilla type raid targeting an economic nerve centre in Colombo or a VVIP, the report said, adding, if the lorry had gone undetected the country would have experienced its worst terror attack in the three decade long conflict.

According to the explosive experts, the outcome of the explosion would have resulted in direct blast effect, structural collapses, debris impact, fire and smoke and other indirect effects preventing timely evacuation, the media report said.

Claiming that the arrested driver and the cleaner of the explosive-laden lorry had been staying in a budget lodge in Colombo over two months, it said, measures taken by the security forces resulted in sending back hundreds of Tamils living in these lodges to their homes in the volatile north and the east. It had however, ''triggered controversy among politicians and the international community''.

It was natural that the Tamil civilians living in Colombo lodges were subjected to this type of search operations as the LTTE outfit was using civilians to accomplish their missions, it said.

UNI