SLA units launched a surprise attack on 24 bunkers ahead of the Nagarkovil, Muhamalai and Kilali FDL at around 2am today, completely destroying the bunkers. The majority of the Tigers manning the bunkers ran for their lives. The names of 15 Tigers killed were later confirmed. SLA sources indicated that around 30 others may have been injured in the attack. The Army lost two men.
The successes come after the Sri Lanka Army changed the timing of its attacks, from pre-scheduled strikes launched after Bodhipooja, based on auspicious times given by astrologers to totally random offensives launched at the will of the officers and men involved. This is causing confusion in LTTE strategy, which had, since 1983 been prepared to face only pre-scheduled operations.
Earlier, the Tigers were able to monitor the movement of men, machines and supplies and then prepare themselves for the strike, which was launched at a particular time on a particular day only. Now, offensives are launched sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes a couple of attacks a day at different intervals.
The Sri Lanka Army has also cleared the Pallaikuli area in North Mannar, thus facilitating a future attack to recapture Adampan Junction and Uylankulam. They are now only one kilometer from Adampan Junction. An unfortunately large number of child soldiers and women fighters deployed in difficult to man FDLs are being killed almost daily.
Monday, January 21, 2008
No Auspicious Times...Random Attacks Only!
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37 comments:
Dear Defencewire-
Thank you for keeping all of us updated.
Are we now holding on to those 24 bunkers ? or after the missions we came back to original place?
Is there a way we can bring those child soldiers and women fighters pictures to international community?
Dear DefenceWire,
Is there no way to get the kids to surrender?...is there simply no way to disarm the children?.Why aren't any of the children surrendering?
Perein,
Are you sure thats a good idea bro.?
This is not good!
srilankan-
Unless we distribute those Kids fighting pictures / Video clips to international society, LTTE might distribute pictures saying we kill kids during the attacks.
We can really make a eye opener for the world by publishing these things.
Why do you think this could be a bad idea bro?
One other thing I missed out was, we could show every one what sort of animals are the LTTE are.
Those kids should be reading books and attending school.
Could be very disturbing for our soldiers too.
Do you guys think this is the start of the setbacks for the LTTE which the Army Commander has promised after the Mechanized Infantry Division goes into battle? If it is, I must say that those guys really have started it in style.
Chamal,
I dont know the groud conditions where the attack took place.I would guess that the mech div was not involved..this looks like an STF job supported by MBRL fire..now i am clueless so could be very wrong.
Perein,
Must be really horrific for the soldiers..but they are in a catch-22 situation..what are they supposed to do.This wonderful IC already know what the LTTE are capable of..this may give ammo to arbour to interfere further and press for a U.N monitoring mission which is what she really wants (not the welbeing of the kids).
Chamal...i am no military man but i think Gen Fonseka is keeping this mech div for a specific job...dont know what..
Three Police personnel killed in LTTE attack- Thanamalwila
LINK
Chamal..come to..think of it i dont think MBRL were involved. probably supporting artillary fire only...
lkdood..now that is very interesting.. reeks of safe houses..no these guys are not in jungles..ill bet
perein
"Are we now holding on to those 24 bunkers ? or after the missions we came back to original place?"
The article answers these questions.
thanks for the update defwire. these articles should be read by people in sri lanka itself (but more often than not its x-patriots)
seems the renegade tigers in the south have killed 3 cops today. farmers, children, women..now police officers. i fear for those poor comrades. isn't it funny..even tigers hunt the weak and downtrodden. maha loku tigers...
jiffy,
there is something very peculiar with this situation..because these tigers are invisible..
maybe it's insider info sri lankan (as you mentioned). from what ive heard when the residents of monaragala were complaining to the police they didnt take them very seriously.
defencewire:
Thanks for the update. I thought Uyilankulam is in SLA hands for last 3-4 weeks. MOD claims detroying bunkers every day while killing around 20 tigers daily. How come their FDL's didnt fall yet?
"....from pre-scheduled strikes launched after Bodhipooja, based on auspicious times given by astrologers...."
It is hard to belive SLA fall into this crap. It is obviuosly favarable to fight your enimy at a time he doesn't expect and at a place he doesn't expect. If you follow this astrology enimy can easily predict your movements even without intel, just using another astrologer. (Just need to ask from another astrolger what are the auspicious times for enimy!lol)
Putting some randomness (given other conditions are satisfied) always make things harder for the enimy. Unfortunatey SLA usa randomness where it is less effective ; At chsck points. SLA, ask auspicsious time for checking vehicles so that they can catch tigers ; those astrologers will run to india.
The grip of the astrologer goes deeper than a lot of people think. It thrives in threat situations, in which luck and/or devine interference is deemed to be decisive. A lot of us who wouldn't accept this stuff, will behave differently if made to face the situations these men confront on a daily basis. To them the underlying reality is one in which their families would be destitute, if they get killed. It is that simple, and for the poor who joined the military to find a job, every blessing helps.
This is also supposed to be the case with the LTTE. Apparently an Indian astrologer used to provide Velu with auspicious times for all his major ops once upon a time. It's a part of our culture and in times of uncertainty, we find solace in devine interference.
Sri Lanka needs to seek foreign assistance to build schools in the liberated areas. There should be a systematized rehab program for the surrendees/ youth of these areas. The President should personally address the people of the Vanni via radio, TV and air dropped leaflets eto encourage them to get their kids out of the grasp of the terrorists, with the promise of providing them with an education to make them employable in the future. That'll provide hope to the poor vanni folks and give them a sense of belonging to the Sri Lankan state and a direction for their lives. It will also increase pressure on the tigers to provide more convincing proof that they can provide better benefits to the children. Guess who the parents will find easier to believe?
--Back to the past--
LTTE is now use '80s tactics again. After grounding SLA camps with 1000+ soldiers now they attack police posts, kill 2 cops, take 2 T-56s and run into the jungle. We need to understand this does NOT mean LTTE is weak. Compare: SLA now successfully use small group based attack without heavy tanks or any thing ; this doesn't mean SLA is weak rather it's a favarouble stratergy. It is the same reason for LTTE. We should not underestimate enimy. This is the time LTTE is planning another AAB,KAB type attack or attacking Jaffna or Colombo. We should expect it and be prepared.
--Protecting protecters, Thanamalwila and beyond--
I always had the question how to garantee the security of cops on those check points. (But forgot to write.) It is possible LTTE to attack similer check points even in other areas.
--Killing process and killing the process--
Now we are supplied LTTE casualties on daily basis. But we need to understand it is not that LTTE has a fixed number of caders and it is getting reduced to zero so that no tigers exist at some time. When tigers kids get killed in FDLs LTTE recruit more to fill the gap and maintain their man power. Thus we need to concentrate not only killing but akso how stop this recruitment process. Ofcours, if we can kill top 10 tigers in a night things become so easy, but it is highly unlikely. This is some thing miliatary alone can't do and our politicos have a part to play which they always ignore. We need to study John Doily's tactics for this.
BTW, I didn't get any feedback on the sinhalanet report claiming LTTE has AA misiles. If this is the case and if they put down a fighter jet it is likely to send their tin cans into our poorly protected skies for double the propaganda (even though this is risky and even unnecassary for LTTE).
Well, doing relegiuos things for blessings for those in the for front by their family members etc is ok. Ofcourse, since our socity in generel depend on astrology no wonder having such faith among soldiers. So if you tell em, "we will start on this op on auspicisious time, so we will win" this might help for moral boosting. However it is the responsibility of commanders to make sure evrything else (which are the real intel based-determinent fatcors) if fine. If military top brass also in the same boat then only astrolgers can deliver a victory. Both rivirasa and jayasikuru started at auspicisous time. It is easy to understand the success and failiure based on ground based realities rather than movements of planets.
Thank you defencewire.
In the same token we can expect that there will be no special operations ahead of the Independance Day?
The situ in the south is pathetic. it reminds me the slang song (with its extention) of "Jim Pappa"!!!
Political package: More powers for PCs
LINK
defenewire:
Did SLA occupy the 12 bunkers they captured / destroyed early hours (2:30 am) or did they come back to the FDL after the attack. The picture in army website looks like a file photo from somewhere else. I can see a coconut tree in the pic. Do they have coconut trees in this area?
Sorry.. this is the link to sla article.
http://www.army.lk/morenews.php?id=10048
""completely destroying the bunkers.""
This is the umpteenth time when SLA has been destroying the bunkers but not tigers.This sort of news only puts SLA in a poor light after a point, in my opinion.
""Tigers manning the bunkers ran for their lives""
To fight another day? What is the use of destroying bunkers when these fellows come back and re-occupy when the SLA withdraws? Since attackers of fortified positions always take more casualties it looks like a costly but gainless exercise for the SLA?
""This is causing confusion in LTTE strategy""
I think such tactics can be easily deduced and re-adjusted to after the first few surprises, esp for a talented force like LTTE.
""large number of child soldiers and women fighters deployed in difficult to man FDLs are being killed almost daily""
Why what happened to the men?:) I feel this is mostly GoSL propaganda for obvious reasons.
How times have changed.Once upon a time LTTE used to be the guerilla with SLA dug-in. Now the reverse seems to hold true!
I think Gen Fonseka is waiting for the monsoons to end and the ground to become dry for a massive and sustained thrust using Mechanised brigades.
Well said sun tzu's disciple.
In proverbial terms it goes as 'paalu gei walang bindinawa'(destroying the pots in an abandoned house)!!!
I'm afraid most 'operations' by the SLA, STF, SLN, SLAF against FIGHTING LTTE units have been about CHASING AWAY the tigers than to kill them.
The recent killing (I call it 'harvesting') operations in the North while not mainly targeting bunkers were exceptions.
1. The SLN sunk all siting-duck LTTE ships, but, CHASED AWAY the DELFT, PESALai, etc. sea tiger attackers!!
2. The SLAF attacks 'unarmed tigers' far far away from battlezones and destroys the infrastructure of their bunkers (destroying ammunition stores is good but that happened just once) but RARELY attacks FDLs, mortar positions, supply routes/vehicles/tractors.
3. The most fantastic example is the happenings in the South. Even YALA was opened after chasing away the tigers and killing only one (1) cadre. The chased away tigers kill more and more in different places until they are killed!!!
The govt. escaped bullshiting about the war in the EAST and the north, but now they are shiting as people come to know what really happens.
The universal truth - The govt. troops are STILL fighting a CHASE AWAY war not a war the KILLS the maximum number of terrorists.
wrong?? disagree??
DefenceWire please clarify. We always appreciate your input.
Dear Moshe
I agree with you.After all we should not be interested in "real estate" we should only be interested in killing or maiming the LTTE terrorists .They do not have unlimited numbers (much less then our boys anyway, and that's what counts!) of cadres.
Remember the flow on effects of these kills or maiming of the LTTE --> it devastates generations of their future.
At the end of the day it is who is willing to stomach suffering the most and make the other side suffer that will win.
The LTTE wants to make the Sinhala suffer in the south as they are in the North East.They hope this will put pressure on us to concede.But what the LTTE do not understand we Sinhala have suffered and survived(and thrived)despite many a bloody tragedy (Tsunami , JVP insurrection, 30 years of the LTTE fuckers and their homicide bombers).We are still here stronger than ever before.
The LTTE wants to bring the message of the war into bloody reality for the South that is largely disconnected from the fight in the North East.
What about the Tamil Dairrhoea(diaspora)? Well I do not think any of these westernised Terrorist supporters will be in a hurry to put down their big macs and trade it in for some home grown vadai any time soon! In fact have there been any documented cases of these great supporters leaving Canada , Australia UK etc to some and actually join the LTTE frontlines?
The horrible irony it is the very LTTE that is committing genocide against their own people.
They are sacrificing their children and the childbearing woman of their generations.Nothing can replace these losses.It will have sociodemographic implications for many generations to come.Less children ,less woman ,decrease in genetic pool , decrease in future potential , decrease in birth rate and so on.
Just think about it? The Sinhala are free to live/have families/get educated etc. The idea of war is not to die for your country but to make the other man die for his/hers.
Do not send in troops to clear worthless real estate, use napalm, fuel air explosive/thermobaric , cluster bombs and MBRL fire.Do not expose our guys trying to destroy bunkers(that are probably empty) make sure they are full of LTTE and send in the bombs/missiles.
Why can't we improvise/modify a cargo plane into something like a air fighting platform similiar to an
AC130 gunship "puff the magic dragon" bloody awesome and bloody effective.
If there are many casualties you can be sure there will be attempts to move these injured offshore to TN, or to resupply.The navy needs to be ready.
How effective is landbased artillery fire on naval targets?Are they airburst rounds?Why do we not use helicopters with machinegun and rocket pods?
What stops the helicopters pursuing these fleeing LTTE boats or at least tracking them at a safe distance to their source base and calling in the fighters to bomb them to shit!
Just some thoughts and suggestions.
Couple of valid points there lion. But do we need a AC-10 thuderbolt? i don't think so; it is a fantastic and RELEVANT weapon though.
I suggest we fully use the MiG-27s before tigers destroy them!! It can take ground targets effectively enough.
The killing spree in the south must end soon.
Ninja Bandara,
"BTW, I didn't get any feedback on the sinhalanet report claiming LTTE has AA misiles. If this is the case and if they put down a fighter jet it is likely to send their tin cans into our poorly protected skies for double the propaganda"
What type of SAM missiles are you referring to? If you mean MANPAD's, the LTTE has had them for over a decade and have fired them at fighter jets on many occassions. The chances of a MANPAD shooting down a modern fighter jet is very slim for a number of reasons. They can be used more effectively against helicopters and transport planes though. However, the SLAF planes are equipped with anti-missile defences that can protects against most MANPAD's.
moshe,
The ongoing war can be described through military science to help absorb the theory. The current war is partly a war of attrition, which defenceAnalyst described many months ago. In attrition warfare, you must wear down an enemy's fighting forces, and other assets over a period of time whilst withstanding similar attacks on you.
The success of an attrition war depends not on who escapes and who is chased by whom but on a phenomenon called Attrition Rate (AR).
AR is a percentage of losses suffered by an enemy within a particular time period. for example, SLA estimate of killing at least 10 LTTE a day would translate into 300 LTTE a month, with maybe 30 SLA KIA during the same period. So our damages, according to the rate of attrition, for a month is only 10% of the LTTE's. This rate can then be maintained and multiplied into a year (or as Gen Fonseka estimates) for another 6-7 months. Also remember that this war has been going on since August 2005.
What would the repercussions of this be? The repercussions of this would be constant bleeding of LTTE, resulting in the death of at least 3500 cadres between now and August. Intermingled among the women and child soldiers are around 10% of the LTTE's elite fighters. This is the current strategy. The next phase of the strategy cannot be discussed here.
"..it will have sociodemographic implications for many generations to come.Less children ,less woman ,decrease in genetic pool , decrease in future potential , decrease in birth rate and so on."
Ranjan Hoole recently pointed this fact out in a long article published in TLA and as usual the 'noisemakers' overseas simply labelled him a traitor to the tamil nation. but lets not forget this same R Hoole was himself at one time given to making hardline statements against 'state chauvinism' in what could have only 'egged on' violent tamil activists. now hoole is on the run from his would be saviours. gotta love karma.
Moshe
Not the A10 Warthog thunderbolt but something more like this the AC130 gunship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130
Patriots,
Sometime ago, before the fall of Kilinochchi I think, another blogger proposed a "Thunder Run" similar to the one made by armored divisions of the US Army through Baghdad, Iraq. The US Army "Thunder Run" surprised and demoralized the Iraqi army, and hastened the fall of Baghdad by penetrating the innermost sanctum of Saddam's powerbase, well before all Iraqui units were defeated by a broad advance along the front lines. This is an application the "blitzkreig" technique, perfected by the Germany Army, devoid of the enveloping strategy. At that time a Thunder Run was proposed for the Wanni Operation, the LTTE retained enough of its internal cohesion, to be able to coordinate the development of kill zones and to isolate and cutoff units in narrow salients that develop, making the strategy quite risky to the SLA. Also, the SLAF did not possess the airlift capability needed to rescue or reinforce such a thrust depending on insecure supply lines, if it ran into difficulties.
I think that the military command structure of the LTTE has now degraded sufficiently to allow such a Thunder Run by an armored task force advancing rapidly down route A35 from Dharmapuram Southwards towards Puthukkuyidyiruppu. A suitable task force could be formed from the Div55 armored brigade supported by the Div53 mechanized infantry brigade.
Armored thrusts on narrow fronts such as these have been avoided by the SLA during their very successful campaign up to now for very good reasons. If the enemy is sufficiently well organized to develop kill zones to trap and cutoff such formations, they can be destroyed. However, such thrusts can quickly rout a demoralized enemy on the run, before they can regroup to develop additional defences that can extend a conflict.
What are the dangers that would confront such a Thunder Run down route A35, and what would be the anticipated benefits? First and foremost, these units would have to cope with mines and Improvised Explosive Devices placed along A35; these would be placed directly on the road itself and on the two sides of the road at pre-prepared kill zones. That would require engineers or specially modified armored vehicles to detect, explode or remove the mines to allow the armor to proceed. If the LTTE still has sufficient cohesion on the battlefield, they will prepare kill zones which are so mined and pre-targeted with mortars and artillery to destroy the armor as they slow down to clear mines. Therefore, such a thrust would need to be coordinated with Aerial Surveillance and Close Air Support (CAS) to detect and destroy the sources of indirect fire. In addition, the LTTE would deploy RPG-equipped anti-armor teams with LMG support. However, such teams can be defeated by supporting the armored column with mechanized infantry assault teams with their own anti-personnel RPGs, as the Isrealis did to counter the Egyptians, after suffering heavy casualties to shoulder-fired guided missiles and anti-armor RPGs, in the initial phases of the Yom-Kippur War.
The benefits of such a Thunder Run, would be to rapidly cutoff the LTTE cadre in the 2-4 km wide zone to the Southwest of route A35, before they can withdraw across A35 to the uncleared area Northwest of A35. The LTTE cadre in this region would be trapped between the advancing Div57, TF2, TF3, TF4 forces, and the Thunder Run forces disrupting their ability to coordinate attacks on the former units.
This threat from the North to Puthukkudyiruppu is likely to compel the LTTE either to abandon all areas to the North of Puthukkudyiruppu to a line immediately North of Puthukkudyiruppu. If this thrust is coordinated with a thrust by Div59 towards the sea South of Puthukkuyidyiruppu, it may compel the LTTE to abandon Mullaitivu altogether to defend Puthukkudyiruppu...a severe blow to LTTE's remaining access to the sea.
Furthermore, these developments will take place much faster than the LTTE can relocate civilians camping along A35, or prepare sufficient accommodations for them, thus allowing the civilians to seek refuge with the SLA, before they can be incorporated into a human shield in built-up areas surrounding Puthukkudyiruppu. In short, it enables another means of separating the LTTE from their hapless captive human shields.
Such a Thunder Run involves considerable risk to the attacking column, and hinges on the ability of the enemy to quickly adapt and organize a defense. It may not be attractive at all to the SLA in view of their detailed knowledge of conditions in the battlefield, and the success of their more conventional well tested strategies to date.
Panhinda said...
The time has come for the government to promote locally made defense equipment for overseas buyers. Locally made APCs and Arrow/Dvora are battle tested and proven.
China govt sells locally manufactured defense equipment through govt owned agencies. There is no reason why we cannot. We have the edge over them because of recent experience dealing in guerrilla/offensive warfare. This may well turn out to be a good forex earner if its properly managed.
Absolutely. This is the way to go. We have to quickly leverage what the SLDF has learned in this war to offset the cost of maintaining and equipping a large and growing defense establishment in the future, and to introduce a new foreign exchange earning industry to our country.
Combine SECURITY, SELF-SUFFICIENCY in ARMS, ECONOMIC GROWTH and GOOD SKILLED JOBS!
Panhinda, I too have written many detailed posts here on this subject, that might help confirm and support your own ideas.
Panhinda said...
/*
How do you use a nuclear device peacefully?
*/
energy.. its elementary i thought.
Peaceful use of uncontrolled nuclear fission/fusion devices, as opposed to controlled nuclear reactors used for thermal power/electricity generation, were investigated in the past, before the adverse health effects of radiation were fully quantified and appreciated.
Among the uses investigated (theoretically, as well as experimentally through field experiments) were the use of nuclear explosives to create sea channels (like the Panama and Sethu Samudram canals), deep-water harbors, dams & reservoirs, and more interestingly, underground in-situ retorts for distilling and extracting oil from oil-shale. Many other "civilian" uses of uncontrolled fission/fusion nuclear explosives have been proposed, but have not been deployed in practice because of the inability to control and limit adverse health impacts.
PussyTigers said...
ananda,
Thunder Run is a great idea. They'd expect SLA to advance cautiously as they have been doing for the last few weeks. So always do what enemy expect the least. Only flip side might be the possibility of higher casualties.
Yes, brother. I think doing the unexpected is the key to success.
The SLA knows the situation on the ground and will decide accordingly. We are mostly blind and working off limited outdated publicly available information. That is the way it should be; no battle planner would let the world know what he knows, unless it is to mislead the enemy, or is obsolete information useless to the enemy. :)
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