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Trinco truck bomb aimed at high profile political target
Sunday, 1 July 2007 - 6:00 AM SL Time
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Contrary to the initial belief that a refrigerated truck laden with over 1,000 kgs of explosives seized on Friday evening in Trincomalee was to be used to target Colombo, the military believes that the intended target would have been a political gathering in the eastern port city.
`They were probably planning to target President Mahinda Rajapakse or Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapakse,` a senior official said.
Basil Rajapakse is a frequent visitor to operational areas, particularly in the eastern theatre, and is believed to be high on the LTTE hit list.
The monster bomb would have been kept in Trincomalee town area to be swiftly moved to the targeted area, the sources said.
There were altogether 56 steel boxes, each containing 20 kgs of C4 plastic explosives inter-linked to facilitate a single detonation. Interestingly there was not a single steel ball, a senior military official said, asserting that the blast would have been directed towards the front. `Even a bullet proof vehicle would not have survived the blast,` he said.
Initial inquiries and the interrogation of the middle-aged suspect had indicated that the plotters did not plan to bring the truck bomb to Colombo. Although the explosives had been neatly packed in a secret compartment in the large cargo hold of the vehicle, the LTTE would not have tried to take it through police and security forces checkpoints along the road out of Trincomalee, the official asserted.
Well informed sources ruled out the possibility of the LTTE making an attempt to drive through outer defences of the Trincomalee SLN base to enter the largest security forces facility in the East. They could not have overcome the defences set up over 600 meters away from the main entry points on both approach roads, the sources said.
They rejected the assertion that China Bay SLAF base could have been a target.
`There is general belief that the target would have been political,` another official said. ``Had they succeeded, the government`s success in driving the LTTE out of their all strongholds including Trincomalee would have sounded hollow.``
The SLN Friday seized the truck during a raid on Paddikkiya, a predominately Tamil fishing village situated about a kilometer away from the Trincomalee clock tower.
`The truck bomb was parked next to a badly dilapidated house where the suspect lived alone,` the official said. SLN intelligence is trying to establish the identity of the suspect who is widely believed to be the crucial link in an underground LTTE network operating in Trincomalee. The military did not rule out the possibility of the suspect being a suicide cadre.
Premier Ratnasiri Wickremanayake recently told the press that security forces were looking for an explosives laden vehicle. The revelation was made shortly after police deployed at a check point at Kotawehera seized a lorry carrying over 1,000 kgs of explosives.
The sources said that the LTTE is trying to offset their debacle in the Eastern theatre of operations with a major strike in Colombo.
The SLN had moved the truck to Trincomalee Dockyard after making it safe.
Since the use of an explosive-laden vehicle to attack an army detachment at Nelliady during Operation Liberation in early 1987, the LTTE had carried out over a dozen major vehicle bomb attacks with the strike on the Central Bank in January 1996 and last year`s massacre of over 100 SLN personnel at Diganpathana being two of the worst.
But the attack thwarted by the SLN would have been the biggest in terms of the loss of civilian life had they succeeded to detonate the monster bomb, the sources said.
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Joseph
Joined: Dec 2006
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30 Jun 2007 23:06:57 GMT Report for Abuse
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Karuna said- VP gets saddistic satisfaction by kiiling people.
Prof.James Jupp- Australia- VP is a pathological killer
Article- He lives to kill and kills to live!
Germans suffered because of Hitler but he did not harm Germans.
Milosevic killed others but he did not kill Serbs
Saddam killed Shiites and Kurds but he did not kill sunnies
Praba kills not only muslims and Sinhalese but more than that fellow tamils.
Whose freedom is he talking about ????? I guess his own only !!!
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Saint
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30 Jun 2007 23:07:02 GMT Report for Abuse
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Now I can understand what it was like for Jajapakse mother, when these guys were young. Hard to control daredevils.
:-D
Edited By - Saint - 30 Jun 2007 23:15:53 GMT |
Saint
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30 Jun 2007 23:09:32 GMT Report for Abuse
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Wonder how ltte command will react to this donation of explosives.
:-D
Edited By - Saint - 30 Jun 2007 23:25:44 GMT |
samadi
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30 Jun 2007 23:50:46 GMT Report for Abuse
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It seems these trucks are getting caught frequently these days..thanks to vigilant security forces, a disaster could be averted.
BTW
saint,
I visited your page now..
Edited By - samadi - 30 Jun 2007 23:52:12 GMT |
EEELamaya
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1 Jul 2007 00:00:35 GMT Report for Abuse
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''Had they succeeded, the government's success in driving the LTTE out of their all strongholds including Trincomalee would have sounded hollow.''
It sound hollow anyway, when one looks at the crimes reported from East. And, Toppigala still in LTTE hands, despite one year effort by SLA.
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Revy
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1 Jul 2007 00:10:04 GMT Report for Abuse
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The driver of the truck had said he was asked to hand the explosives over to a person in Colombo.
-Athas
Hmm... now what more money to guard Rajapakse criminals because of so called truck bomb? LOL
Waste of good explosives if it was to be used on those scum.
Anyway collect them all few more to go:
Another vehicle with 1,000 kg of explosives is still at large, it is learnt.
-The Nation |
saliya
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1 Jul 2007 00:48:06 GMT Report for Abuse
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Good job SLN and congratulations to all ooficers, sailors and Eastern naval commander R/Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe. Your main enemy is LTTE and LTTE is also thinking navy is the main barrier to achieve thier main goal.
How many times LTTE has planned to kill large number of people by exploding very powerful bombs in Colombo during last 2 month. Luckily all such attemps were detected well ahead by police or military forces. But who can give a guarantee that all such attempts will be stopped by forces. This is the LTTE target now. They don't mind even to kill thousands of innocent civilians if they can kill one or two military or police or politicians with a bomb. I don't know why the international community is not concern about these brutal attacks of LTTE. Can we allow tamils coming from East or North to stay a long time in lodges in Colombo?.
During the second world war all Japanese who had canadian citizenship were arrested by Canadian police and forces, and kept them in jail for a long period thinking those japanese were a threat to the canadian national security. Still Americans arrest suspicious muslims and keep them in jail thinking their free movement will be a threat to national security of US. We allow suspicious tamils to have free movement in any part of South in Sri Lanka. But LTTE will not allow any sinhalese or muslims to travel in LTTE controlled areas. Only a few muslims or sinhalese have at lease very restricted entrance to north.
If government is not going to impose very restricted conditions for vehicles or people coming from north to enter south, there will be a very high damage to south soon.
Edited By - saliya - 1 Jul 2007 01:04:09 GMT |
chinthanaya
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1 Jul 2007 00:49:18 GMT Report for Abuse
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1,000 kgs of explosives
Always 1000 Kgs! Why not 1500 Kgs or 500 Kgs. As long as there are several people in the south to believe, 1000 is a good number! |
TrueFactor
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1 Jul 2007 00:57:20 GMT Report for Abuse
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| UK is learning basics about terrorism today. We have known all these long before and they should have thought differently when they talk about human rights in SL. Shame on IC including USA, NORWAY, UK... |
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