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DESPITE INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE TO GIVE UP TERRORISM AND DISBAND BLACK TIGERS LTTE IS TO HOLD CELEBRATIONS TO CHERISH THEM
Photo
Moments before the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Under the dress the Black Tiger woman assassin wearing glasses wore the suicide kit.
(Photo by: Jane's com)
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

June 25, 10.15 AM: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), despite international pressure to give up terrorism and disband the Black Tigers, the world’s largest squad of suicide bombers, will hold “Black Tigers Day”, July 5, to lionize the dead suicide bombers and inspire more children and young men among Tamils to join the squad in the country’s Northern and Eastern provinces.

The Tamil Tigers are planning to celebrate the “The Black Tiger Day” in the midst of intelligence reports that hundreds of them had arrived in the capital city of Colombo, ever since former Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe lifted all Police embargos in the capital city after signing a ceasefire agreement with LTTE Supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. In the latest discoveries, June 17, Police also found an explosives-packed suicide jacket of the type used by Tamil Tiger rebels and two powerful land mines in a fertilizer bag abandoned on a street corner in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo following many other similar clues about the presence of Black Tigers in the capital city.

Announcing the latest celebrations they are about to take up in about ten days the LTTE controlled Tamil Net said “ that a special event is also being planned to be held in one of the islets to ease the travel burden on the residents of the several islets west of Jaffna who would otherwise have to make arduous trip to attend events in peninsula proper.” This was seen as an attempt on the part of the Tamil Tigers to spread its tentacles in areas not very faithful to them in the past.

The website said, “sporting events, poetry story writing competitions and welfare activities to assist students in poor neighborhoods” allegedly their targeted areas for child recruitment will be held on the day .

The website further said, the Black Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran’s most cost-effective fighting machine would be celebrated on the occasion on the anniversary of the death of their first suicide bomber, whom they call “Captain Miller” alias Wasanthan killed himself destroying a make shift Sri Lankan Army base located in the Nelliady Madya Maha Vidyalayam about 25 kilometers North East of the Northern city of Jaffna ending the lives of 40 soldiers. The place is expected to be the central and main spot for the upcoming celebrations of war.

Describing the world’s largest suicide squad estimated to be between 500 to 1000 the LTTE controlled website said, “Black Tigers' identities are closely guarded. Having completed their training, they serve in regular LTTE units, concealing their membership. When called up for a (suicide) mission, they take routine leave and if they survive, return to regular service again. Membership is only revealed if they are killed in combat”

According to their own statistics , 241 Black Tigers have so far died killing thousands of other lives, mostly unarmed civilians and millions of dollars worth of public and private property, like Sri Lanka’s Central Bank in the past. An exhibition of the dead Black Tigers will also become part of the planned celebrations

Some of the major assassinations by the Black Tigers were the May 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a campaign rally in India, the May 1993 assassination of Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, the July 1999 assassination of a Sri Lankan member of parliament, Neelan Thiruchelvam, an ethnic Tamil involved in a government-sponsored peace initiative, a pair of December 1999 suicide bombings in Colombo that wounded and partly blinded Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and the June 2000 assassination of Sri Lankan Industry Minister C.V. Goonaratne.

The Black Tigers have immensely contributed to the world terrorist scene: Some of the Tigers’ innovations such as the “jacket” apparatus worn by individual suicide bombers has found its way to al-Qaeda, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and Palestinian groups such as Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. In its early days the LTTE trained with the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the group may still come into contact with other terrorist organizations through the illegal arms trade.

Soosai, the Commander of the Sea Tigers, the marine armed wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam told BBC that the terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda had copied terrorist tactics from them.

In the BBC interview, Soosai said, he believed that the other terrorist groups should learn from the Tamil Tigers and the Al Qaeda of the September 11 notoriety had already copied them

The BBC TV news feature introduced the Black Tigers as "the Original Suicide Bombers of the World."

A proud LTTE leader, Soosai now openly supported by a US ally Norway, told BBC television, "They are using our tactics. I think in Yemen they used our strategy of suicide attack to blow up an American ship. That is exactly what we used to do."

Soosai was referring to the October 2000 attack by Al Qaeda on the destroyer USS Cole that killed 17 US soldiers.

( go2lanka.com)