COLOMBO: During the Eelam War IV, the LTTE’s Air Force had used fuel smuggled from Tamil Nadu, says a report in the Colombo-based daily The Island on Wednesday.
“Air Tigers would not have been able to launch a series of attacks, including the double suicide strike last February thwarted by the SLAF (Sri Lankan Air Force), had Sri Lanka stopped aviation gasoline stocks reaching the Vanni. The military establishment believed that the LTTE had procured aviation gasoline supplies from India,” the paper said.
“The LTTE had access to influential persons in Tamil Nadu, who even accepted supplies from Norway and other developed countries on behalf of the LTTE and then transferred them across to Sri Lanka,” it added.
“A chance detection of LTTE operatives with their Indian counterparts, and the seizure of a trawler carrying about 2,000 kg of high explosives at the early stages of Eelam War IV revealed the existence of the Indian supply line,” the paper recalled.
“Supplies from India had been as important as heavy armaments from China in sustaining the LTTE’s fighting capacity,” the paper said.