COLOMBO: Condemning the deadly terror strike in Mumbai, Sri Lankan foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Friday said militant groups such as LTTE provide ideas and methodology for undertaking such attacks.

COLOMBO (AFP) – A pledge by Sri Lanka's Tamil rebel leader to fight on despite a military onslaught raised fears Friday of a return to a hit-and-run guerrilla war as his mini-state faced potential collapse. 

Separatist chief Velupillai Prabhakaran vowed Thursday the rebels would "continue with our struggle until the alien Sinhala occupation of our land is evicted," referring to Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese population, and appealed to Tamils abroad for support to shore up his military machine. 

Government forces have surrounded Prabhakaran in his political capital of Kilinochchi in the biggest-ever military campaign in the history of Sri Lanka's armed separatist struggle, which dates back to 1972.

The characterisation of LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran’s 2008 message as ‘Great Heroes Day’ speech is full of irony. The 3,283-word statement was made public on the evening of November 27, twenty hours after the start of the horrific fidayeen terror in Mumbai. In stark contrast to the response of the rest of the world, the ‘Great Heroes Day’ speech makes no reference to the Pakistan-origin terrorist strike at India’s financial capital.

The apologists of the LTTE might attribute the omission to the possibility that the speech was recorded well before it was broadcast. But how to explain the LTTE’s subsequent silence on Mumbai? The only credible explanation is that any comment on this subject would invite unwelcome comparisons, in Sri Lanka, in India, and elsewhere, given that the LTTE’s own terrorist track record that goes back to the early 1980s, has involved every conceivable atrocity against civil society and common humanity, and even spilt over into India to claim the life of a former Prime Minister. In essence, Prabakaran’s 2008 speech is a mercy plea to India to bail out Tiger forces on the run from a successful campaign by the Sri Lankan armed forces.