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Food for thought
According to a well-known defence analyst and our regular columnist B. Raman, The Tamileelam Air Force (TAF) has a good bombing capability as seen from the well-planned and well-executed air strikes carried out by it at night on the Katunayake air base near Colombo on March 26, 2007, and on the Palaly military base in the Jaffna peninsula on April 25, 2007. It has shown technical skills in converting small aircraft, which are not meant for such bombing missions, into specialised planes capable of undertaking bombing missions. It has also managed to get its pilots trained in bombing missions. It is not possible to acquire such conversion and bombing skills in a normal flying club. Either they must have acquired them in a flying club having retired air force pilots as instructors or it has been assisted by retired air force officers of some country. It could be retired Tamil pilots of the SLAF, if there are any, or retired air force pilots of some foreign country or the other.
The LTTE should be presumed to have a capability for air terrorism, though it has not so far exhibited it. Air-mounted terrorism does not require any special skills. All it requires is individual motivation, a flying object which could be even a glider and the ability to glide or fly which could be acquired in any flying club. The use of an aircraft for air-mounted terrorism would result in the definitive loss of the aircraft. The TAF is estimated to have not more than five small planes. It is doubtful whether it would undertake an act of air-mounted suicide terrorism and lose a plane except in a desperate situation, he added.
The SLAF is still confused as to how to deal with the TAF. It has bombed some suspected air strips of the TAF, but this has not prevented the TAF from operating. This is because for these small planes no regular air strip is required. They could take off from and land in any open space such as a playground or a road with a metalled surface. Absence of precise intelligence regarding the hide-outs of these planes comes in the way of proactive bombings to destroy them on the ground. A good radar cover would help prevent future air strikes in the Colombo area, but may not in the Palaly area due to the very short distance involved. The SLAF needs a good mid-air interception capability to seek and destroy the TAF planes after they are air-borne even if they manage to evade ground fire. The kind of Russian, Ukrainian and Israeli planes the SLAF has presently are good for bombing missions, but not for mid-air interception roles. Moreover, they require regular airfields for take-off and landing. They can`t scramble fast. The SLAF requires some small, easily manoeuvrable aircraft, which can take off and land almost anywhere, with specially-trained pilots.
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