By IANS
Colombo : Sri Lanka’s army chief has said Tamil Tiger’s chief Velupillai Prabhakaran may not survive for more than six months even as Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa hinted the guerrilla commander might have been killed in an air raid on his bunker late last month.
“There is no assurance that the LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran will survive for the next six months. This is because the Sri Lankan Air Force has plans to attack all the LTTE bases in north Sri Lanka,” Army Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka told the government-run Sunday Observer.
“Over 500 cadres have been killed by the armed forces. We have weakened the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) by 50 percent or more and we are confident we can go that extra mile in the coming year,” said the general, who survived an attempt on his life by an LTTE suicide bomber in April 2006.
According to Fonseka, the LTTE is left with only 3,000 cadres.
In another interview in the same paper, Rajapaksa said that Sri Lankan intelligence sources believed that Prabhakaran was either “seriously injured or killed” in the Nov 26 air attack on the Jayantinagar bunker complex in Wanni.
“It is obvious that the LTTE will not divulge this for a long period,” Rajapaksa said.
He discounted the validity of the pictures put out by the LTTE of Prabhakaran delivering his annual Heroes’ Day address over TV and radio Nov 27, a day after he was supposedly injured or killed.
“The LTTE can also publish pictures but it does not give any indication that he is alive, until he comes for a public meeting,” Rajapaksa said.
Asked if the death of Prabhakaran would mean the end of the LTTE and terrorism in Sri Lanka, the top defence official and brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that it might not be the end of the Tigers but would be a “major factor that would gradually destroy their organization”.