Sri Lanka's military Thursday denied involvement in the killing of a top Tamil Tiger leader and warned that his reported death may be a ploy to justify intensified rebel attacks.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said its self-styled colonel Shankar was killed by a Claymore mine attack carried out by government forces Wednesday in the rebel-held area of Oddusudan.
"We had no hand in this," defense ministry spokesman Sanath Karunaratne said, however. "They are giving us a lot of credit, but it could be a small piece in a bigger jigsaw puzzle."
Karunaratne said the guerrillas may be trying to stage more attacks and use the purported killing as a justification for "retaliatory" strikes.
The LTTE's clandestine Voice of Tigers radio said Shankar, whose real name was Waithyalingam Swarnalingam, was a close relative of LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and a senior leader of the rebel movement.
"A deep penetration commando unit of the Sri Lankan army triggered a Claymore mine on Colonel Shankar's vehicle and he was killed on the spot," the LTTE said in a statement sent here Wednesday night.
Voice of Tigers radio said Shankar had been an engineer and a pilot. Tamil sources said he was thought to be the head of the "air wing" of the LTTE which is suspected to operate micro-light aircraft.
"The LTTE leadership shares the Tamil people's outrage and treats the killing of a senior leader with utmost gravity," the LTTE statement said.
It said Shankar had been with Prabhakaran when Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim visited the rebel-held area of the island's north in November to open a landmark meeting.
The LTTE said the latest attack was a further setback to Norway's attempts to broker peace in the island where more than 60,000 people have been killed in the three-decade Tamil separatist conflict.
The Tigers also accused the government of choosing the anniversary of the death of a rebel who starved himself in 1987 to stage Wednesday's attack.
The LTTE has on several other occasions accused government forces of trying to target rebel leaders. The military has denied involvement and in turn alleged internecine clashes within the rebel movement -- COLOMBO (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
