As air raids go, this was low key. I was barely 5 km away from the airport. Turning in early after a couple of late nights following the cricket, I didn't hear a thing as the bombs went off at around 12:45 (local time).
Hearing about it this morning was a surprise. Not a shock; the LTTE has ceased to shock. The atrocities they are capable of are too well known within Sri Lanka (but sadly undocumented without) to shock us any more. Nevertheless, it was a surprise.
The "Air Tigers" (not to be confused with the "Flying Tigers" or "Air Jordans") had flown their first sortie, striking close to the political and business capitals of the island of Sri Lanka with impunity, and returned unscathed to their bases (purportedly) in the north of the country.
On the surface, this was a damning idictment of our national air defense system; at worst, our entire infrastructure is open to attack from the skies.
Then again, the whole operation seemed a little rushed. Not to mention the wimpy payloads, poor targetting, and cheesy contrived press photos.
Essentially, the Tigers had spent the better part of the ceasefire agreement to smuggle in arms, ammunition, and an aeroplane. Having finally obtained the hardware, pilots and fuel (for which local Jaffnans are paying Rs. 500-700 per Litre), they demonstrate their new-found power by.... killing three soldiers and airmen? Surely the multi-million dollar jets and helicopters in the hangers should have been the primary targets? Whats that, Oh, you missed?
The Tigers have opened up a new dimension to the conflict, but to what end? They have given up the element of surprise, and confirmed what the government long suspected. The homes of the country's leaders may be in danger, but then again, perhaps no more than usual. For all the fancy paintwork, a crop-duster with a coat rack doesn't constitute precision bombing. Despite Tiger protestations, they haven't demonstrated night attack capability. They may have pilots who can fly at night with the aid of their instruments and little else, but a complex adjoining the international airport is the easiest thing to find at night, given the fact that it is close to the coast and generally lit up like a christmas tree. Flying in (I believe) parallel to the coast and below radar, turning in for a quick attack and flying back the way they came is the best explanation as to why they were not tracked and why nobody reported hearing a low flying aircraft in the aftermath. Clever but hardly ingenious or original.
As I see it the true worth of the Tiger's aircraft lie in their surveillance and reconnaisance ability. The Tigers now have the ability to track troop movements, as well as guide their water-borne bretheren (the Sea Tigers) on to (or away from) Navy craft. As a weapon of terror, however, the Tigers may find themselves in territory untouched since bin Laden visited it in 2001. Will they risk the international outrage (one would hope) if they used the planes on civilian centers such as the WTC, previously the site of their deadliest attack?
So the Tigers have made a statement, at a time when they are suffering reversals on the ground. However it seems to be a statement a little more naive than which we have grown accustomed to, a little more Saddam-Hussein than I would have expected from the most fearsome terrorist organization in history. Having been forced to give up (or at the very least, deny) their tactics of using terror as a weapon, their leadership appears to be at a loss as to how to continue with their demands for statehood. Democratic process can be very hard to comprehend for a group that has spent the better part of 3 decades crushing all opposition to their ideals. Perhaps this new air-wing of the Tigers is a sign that a leopard cant change its spots (or a tiger it's stripes), and is a prelude to a return to the bad-old-days of suicide bombers and cyanide capsules.
And perhaps the Tiger leadership is lacking in some of it's earlier decisiveness. More on that later.
For now, however, I shall wait to see what the morning brings.
