Army will defeat LTTE in a year

Sri Lankan Army Chief on Monday claimed that the troops had wiped out the "conventional military capability" of the LTTE by inflicting heavy losses on the rebels through a changed strategy that focused on killing as many of them as possible rather than bother about mere territory. He said the Army would "completely" defeat the Tigers in about a year.

"From about the beginning of the year, the LTTE has lost its conventional capability. In less than one year, the LTTE will lose the present capability too," Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka told foreign correspondents here. He said the rebels were no longer able to use conventional tactics to resist the advancing troops and were resorting increasingly to hit-and-run attacks.

Gen. Fonseka said for the first time in decades, the Army was working "to an overall military plan" that decimated the rebels like never before and reduced their numbers by over 9,000 since August 2006. In contrast, the Army had lost 1,700 soldiers in the last few years. "We do not just go for terrain, but we go for the kill. This is the difference between the military operations in the past and the present," he said, who had escaped an attempt on his life with injuries when a Tiger suicide bomber hit the army headquarters in April 2006, just four months after he assumed charge.

Source: howrah