The military yesterday charged that the LTTE was using Hindu kovils for safe keeping, as they had found a stock of military items, including weapons and grenades, in the Makiapiddy Hindu Kovil, hidden behind the ‘Vel Cart’. 

Army headquarters said that security forces threw a security blanket over Kandaroddai village yesterday in order to nab four LTTE cadres who had fled after hiding inside the Makiapiddy Hindu kovil (temple) behind its VEL Cart with their arms and ammunition.

An army foot patrol, after observing strange movements inside the temple’s special hut-type structure where the covered holy Vel Cart was kept parked had been about to summon reinforcements to conduct a check on the suspicious place, it said.

by: Franklin R. Satyapalan

The delivery of the first convoy of 60 lorry loads of dry rations and other essential requirements for Internally Displaced Persons of Killinochchi, who have taken refuge in the Mullaitivu district, is being given top priority. 

A high level meeting of UN humanitarian Agencies chaired by Senior Advisor to the President Basil Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday with Chief of Defence Staff Air Vice Marshall Donald Perera and Minister of Resettlement Rischard Badhuideen ironed out the details.

The meeting was convened on the instructions of President Mahinda Rajapaksa who said that there must be no delay on the part of the government to dispatch relief to the Tamil people who are suffering due to no fault of theirs, but the consequences of the LTTE, soon after he returned from the 63rd UNGA sessions in New York.

Army Troops, now on the outskirts of much-spoken Kokavil, to the south of Kilinochchi bordering the parallel A-9 Highway and old Murikandi-Kokavil Railway Station recall cherished memories of their fallen War Heroes in the 1990s with honour, admiration and valour and LTTE massacre on 'Yal Devi 'passenger train.

 Photos in this story taken on Monday (29) show vandalized ruins of the Murikandi-Kokavil railway station platform with all its roof-sheets, iron rail tracks, and almost everything, belonging to the railway station after those items were either damaged or removed and finally taken away by jungle- based Tiger terrorists, to be used for their criminal acts.

by: Don Asoka Wijewardena

By Shanika SRIYANANDA

Social Services Minister Douglas Devananda, commending on the government's decision to relocate UN agencies and other INGOs in Vavuniya, said that civilians who were forcibly kept in Mullaithivu and Kilinochchi would cross to government controlled areas soon breaking the orders of the LTTE.

by: DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

Watching the footage of the massive bomb explosion which killed 53 people at the Marriott in Islamabad, and sharing the concerns about the travails of our close friend Pakistan, pressured from without and threatened from within, I was reminded of how strong and "tough" the Sri Lankan state, polity and society are.As the 1980s turned into the ’90s, Sri Lanka had foreign peacekeepers on its soil, a separatist insurgency (LTTE), irredentist strivings (Perumal/NEPC), and a ferocious insurrection of the xenophobic ultra-left (JVP).Any one of these challenges could have wrecked a state and a polity, and yet we survived and prevailed, our democracy and market economy intact and sovereignty retrieved in the main, though we could not overcome the most serious of the separatist threats, the LTTE.

by Roland Buerk

Sri Lanka's powerful Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said the government is on the verge of victory in the war against Tamil Tiger rebels. "In all fronts we are very superior, on the ground, the sea and air," said Mr Rajapaksa in an interview with the BBC. "Our numbers are very much greater than theirs, our firepower is much greater.

We are very confident we can win and we want to finish this very soon." About 70,000 people have been killed in one of South Asia's longest wars.

After a ceasefire fighting resumed in earnest in mid-2006 and Sri Lanka's military ejected the Tigers from the East. Attention then turned to territory controlled in the north by the rebels, who want a separate state for the ethnic Tamil minority.

UN: The Presidents of Sri Lanka and Iran agreed on the need for agricultural development especially in the developing countries in the context of assuring global food security. This understanding was expressed when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the United Nations on Thursday.

The bilateral meeting of the two leaders took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly sessions that were addressed by both leaders. The Iranian President expressed his gratitude for the very warm reception extended to him on his delegation on their recent visit to Sri Lanka, while the Sri Lankan President thanked Iran for the assistance given for important development projets, and measures that helped Sri Lanka avoid the harsh impact of the global fuel crisis.