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Sri Lanka calls Tiger raid desperate bid to delay defeat
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Sri Lanka calls Tiger raid desperate bid to delay defeat
AFP - 2 hours 11 minutes ago
COLOMBO (AFP) - - A kamikaze-style attack by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers on the capital Colombo may have been a last ditch attempt by the rebels to delay their defeat after 37 years of fighting, according to the government.
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The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) smashed a light aircraft into Colombo's main tax office late Friday, killing two people and wounding 58, officials said.
A second explosives-packed plane was shot down and crashed near the city's international airport.
"This is a desperate attack," said Keheliya Rambukwella, the government's defence spokesman. "They may be trying to divert attention from their defeats in the north."
The Tigers' territory in the northeast of the island has been rapidly shrinking in the past two years as government forces, backed by aircraft, tanks and heavy weapons have carried out their biggest ever military onslaught.
"Very soon, this problem will be over," Rambukwella said, adding that security forces hoped to completely crush the Tigers "in a matter of days."
The rebels said two men from their elite "Black Air Tiger" suicide squad had piloted the two light aircraft in Friday's daring attack, in which both pilots also died.
Authorities said the wounded included tax department staff and bystanders hit by falling debris. The identity of the two dead has not been released.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com said the targets were air force facilities in the heart of the capital as well as the main airbase adjoining the country's only international airport located about 35 kilometres (21 miles) north of Colombo.
Tamilnet said the attacks were "successful," but military officials said the guerrillas had missed the intended targets because of intense anti-aircraft fire from ground forces.
Forensic experts Saturday began combing through the rubble at the 16-storey Inland Revenue building, where the light plane crash set off explosions and a major fire.
"Forensic investigations have just begun," state revenue minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said. "There is extensive damage to the 13th floor where the aircraft crashed, but in other areas there is only minimal damage."
The minister said the tax office should be able to resume work "in two or three days."
Shortly after the attack, firemen and air force units recovered parts of the aircraft from the building.
"We have found a blown off arm of the pilot on an upper floor," an air force officer told reporters, adding early indications were the aircraft was carrying at least two bombs.
The Tigers are believed to have had five Czech-built Zlin-143 aircraft smuggled into the island in pieces and re-assembled. It is not known how many they have left after the government launched its all-out offensive.
The guerrillas have now lost over 98 percent of the territory they once controlled and are confined to an area of less than 100 square kilometres (38 square miles) along a coastal jungle stretch in the island's northeast.
And while Sri Lankan troops have said they have taken all the air strips used by the Tigers, Friday night's attack could have been launched from a stretch of paved road in an area still under rebel control.
"They are rapidly losing ground and they would have had to destroy the planes anyway before the army stormed in," said a military field commander, who declined to be named.
The Tigers lost their main political capital earlier this year and their military headquarters fell three weeks later.
Fighting between the two sides has provoked international concern for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone.
Friday's air attack in Colombo came as the United Nations' top envoy on humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, was visiting the island to assess the situation for non-combatants.
Tens of thousands of people have died since the Tigers launched a campaign in 1972 to carve out a homeland for minority Tamils in the majority Sinhalese island's north and east.
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