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Air Force more than matches new Tiger weapon
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The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) this week introduced fuel-air bombs for the first time, more than matching the battlefield stakes raised by the LTTE early last week by its gas attacks on troops at Akkarayankulam and Wannivilakulam.

The impact of the new bomb was instant, as the LTTE`s expatriate sympathisers began making immediate discreet calls to Colombo to inquire and complain of air raids in Kilinochchi on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday`s introductory air raid over Wanni, with the new bomb, could even be just a warning shot to the LTTE not to resort to any further chemical strikes, as the return could be far more devastating.

SLAF`s fuel-air bomb ``sucks out`` Tigers
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According to military analysts, the lethal new bomb is ideal to take out Tigers from the thick jungles of Kilinochchi and Mulaithivu and could even help expedite an end to the war. As the name fuel-air indicates, it is a bomb that explodes on the surface, causing a fireball, while sucking out air from everything in the vicinity. In other words, if the fire ball does not kill an enemy combatant hiding in a fox hole, the air sucked out of his lungs certainly will. So, while the SLAF has bunker busters to take out LTTE command structures and leaders holed up in deep bunkers, the fuel-air bomb will take care of the hardcore fighters it is now throwing against advancing troops in the thick jungles.

Unlike the banned cluster bombs used liberally by the Israelis, even in civilian areas, in its 1996 foray into Lebanon against Hisbullah forces, there is no such ban on fuel-air bombs in its use against combatants. Cluster bombs are truly lethal, as, on explosion, a single cluster bomb releases many small bombs that can explode long afterwards, when accidentally touched or handled, especially by playing children.

Ever since mustard gas was first used by German soldiers against allied forces in World War 1, as a chemical weapon in warfare, such chemical attacks are well known to terrorise fighting men. But fortunately, for the soldiers, the Army immediately identified the substance used by the Tigers on September 15 as CS gas, used in anti hijack operations and issued gas masks to frontline troops as a counter measure.

The LTTE has no qualms about using whatever it can get hold of against the security forces, and there is a history of it resorting to chemical attacks. As far back as 1990, it used locally manufactured chemicals to attack the Army`s Kiran camp at Trincomalee. On September 2, the Tigers apparently spiked the fish supplied to Army`s Henanigala camp in the East with cyanide, resulting in about 300 soldiers falling ill. Even their erstwhile war hero Karuna Amman has recently warned that the Tigers were capable of resorting to chemical warfare as a last ditch effort.