இலங்கை அரசின் இயலாமையின் உச்சகட்டம் இந்தியா இணையவேன்டும் என்கின்றார் நீனா கோபால்

[ஈழவன்85]

India Must Join Battle To Defang The LTTE

WILL INDIA, which has covertly helped Colombo tackle the Tigers, take a more overt role to protect its vulnerable and emotive southern flank and safeguard its valued brains trust who have been put on the Tiger hit list?

No denying that as the Tigers attacked two Sri Lankan military air bases - one in Jaffna in the North and the other, deep in the south, slap bang next to its international airport - and then its oil depots, not only Colombo and Delhi, but the world also stopped to take note.

Sri Lanka’s antiquated radar and anti-aircraft defence systems and battery-operated, hand-held missiles that jammed were unable to do much more than light up the night sky with tracer bullets as the Tigers, skimming the tree tops, flying low to evade the radar, dropped their bombs with impunity and flew back to sea.

The Sri Lanka Air Force, unable to engage and destroy the rebel aircraft is clearly frozen in the glare of the Tiger.

But as defence experts dismiss the military threat posed by the Tigers as no more than an irritating gnat that must be squashed, there’s no denying the propaganda value of the Air Tigers in the eyes of a gullible public fed on tales of Tamil valour in the face of Sinhalese pusillanimity.

Officials believe the Tigers could have five to ten Czech-made Zlin-143 light planes, available for the asking in Europe’s markets.

Like all arms in its possession, these too were probably smuggled into the island in parts, to be reassembled and rigged with a small payload of bombs. It could have been brought in by sea.

But with stepped up patrolling by the Indian Navy and a close eye being kept on the support extended by Indian Tamils to their ethnic kin across the Palk Strait, officials suspect the planes may have been transported under the cover of tsunami aid.

Indeed, even the construction of the Iranamadu air strip deep in the Wanni jungles was brought to the attention of Colombo, New Delhi and the Norwegian peace facilitators as soon as it was detected by satellite images, it was dismissed as no threat at all.

International defence experts, even the Indian cabinet meeting on security this week, say the same.

The Indian cabinet convened a day after Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said the Tigers’ air threat has a range of 200-300 nautical miles that brings Sri Lankan cities, shipping in the Indian Ocean, and Indian nuclear installations within range.

No secret

That Colombo wants greater Indian involvement is no secret.

A mutual defence pact has been ready for several years but remains unsigned. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government does not want to anger his coalition partner in Tamil Nadu.

The ageing Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi, whose family is haemorrhaging on the succession issue, is increasingly vulnerable to LTTE supporters like rival Vaiko, who could exploit any sign of weakness to push through his larger agenda of creating a Greater Tamil Eelam.

India has already supplied a new radar to augment the existing two. One more is on the way. Sri Lanka’s Air Force, an object of ire in Tiger headquarters at Killinochchi for bombing raids on its purported homeland that pushed up civilian casualties and forced it to concede ground, wants to upgrade their Israeli-made Kfir fighter planes and fit them with intercepters, manufactured in India.

They also want Russian-made MIG 29s fitted with intercepters through which India dominated the skies during combat with Pakistan’s US-supplied F16s. As Rajapaksa’s envoy arrives in New Delhi today with a letter for Singh, India’s reluctance to get openly involved in the battle to defang the separatists must be reviewed.

Talks on devolution simply have no currency in Killinochchi. Singh’s government loses nothing in heeding Rajapaksa over revisiting the defunct Cease-Fire Agreement to re-examine the feasibility of retaking Jaffna.

Parliamentarians of Asian origin in the UK who contributed in large measure to the financing of the Kashmir jihad are set to do the same, pushing to lift the ban on Tigers, opening the route to recommencing overseas funding. It’s time India and Sri Lanka shed the crutch of foreign interlocutors and craft their own joint strategy.

The “Vazhu Puligal” may not pose an immediate threat to Indian security. But the suicide bombers were invented by the Tigers and fine tuned as a chilling tool of destruction in their bloody battle for a homeland to destroy anyone who stood in their way; as they did with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991. Despite their shared ancestry, the Tigers are no friends of India.

(Neena Gopal is an analyst on Asia)

Courtesy-Gulf News (Courtesy: Daily News)

[குக்கூ]

ரெம்பத்தான் எழுதுகிறா. எவ இவ? இப்படி எத்தனை பேர் புறப்பட்டுவிட்டார்(ள்)கள்?

புலிகளின் வான் எழுச்சி பொறுக்கமுடியாத பதட்டம்.

ரெம்பத்தான் எழுதுகிறா. எவ இவ? இப்படி எத்தனை பேர் புறப்பட்டுவிட்டார்(ள்)கள்?

புலிகளின் வான் எழுச்சி பொறுக்கமுடியாத பதட்டம்.

[Justin]

ஆனால் கடைசிப் பந்தியில் பாதி உண்மை தான். புலிகளும் ஈழத்தமிழர்களும் குறுக்கே யார் வந்தாலும் நிற்கப் போவதில்லை. வெட்டிச் செல்லும் வழி போராகத்தான் இருக்க வேண்டுமென்பதில்லை.

[விகடகவி]

யார் என்ன எழுதினாலும்

இந்தியாக்கு சுயபுத்தி இருந்தா பேசாம இருப்பது ரொம்ப நல்லது..

இப்ப அமைதிப்படை இல்லை யார் வந்தாலும்..எங்கட மண்ணில சாம்பல்தான்..

சாவுக்கு துணிந்த புலி சவாலுக்கு பயப்படுமா

[Justin]

உண்மை விகடகவி. இப்போது தான் வாசித்துக் கொண்டிருக்கிறேன் எமது தேசத்தின் குரலின் "யுத்தமும் சமாதானமும்" நூலை.இந்திய அரசு செய்த கபடத்தனங்கள் இப்போது தான் நுணுக்கமாகப் புரிகிறது. அப்போது வேசம் போட்டுக் கொண்டு வந்தார்கள். இனி நேரடியாகவே வருவார்கள் பாதகர்கள்.

[kural]

[COUNTERING LTTE'S AIR CAPABILITY---AN INTERESTING FEED-BACK- INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 223

By B. Raman

(In response to my article titled "Countering LTTE's Air Capability" at http://www.saag.org/papers23/paper2217.html , many interesting comments have been received. I am giving below the most interesting of them, which gives a lot of elaboration and also questions/corrects some of my observations. This has been received from Mr. Prasun K Sengupta, a Southeast Asia-based regional security analyst who is a regular contributor to FORCE magazine published out of India ,and is also Contributing Editor of TEMPUR, a monthly regional security affairs magazine published from Malaysia. We thank him for his detailed comments, which would enable a better assessment of this issue----B. Raman)

With reference to your analysis titled 'Countering Tigers In Air ' and the following questions raised by you, kindly allow me to offer the following answers:

1) There are so many questions for which there are no satisfactory answers. Where did the LTTE procure the planes?

The aircraft—Zlin Z242L model to be precise—based on published photos thus far by the TAF, were bought from a private South African flying club. The aircraft were and are built by Moravan Aviation s.r.o., Letištì 1578, 765 81 Otrokovice, Czech Republic. You yourself can go to the company's website at http://www.zlinaircraft.cz/ and check out the aircraft's details yourself.

2) How did it pay for them?

That is the least of the LTTE's problems as any one of the LTTE's front companies based in Europe and South Africa could have made the payment. The LTTE usually maintains its proxy bank accounts with Standard Chartered Bank. One such account was in existence way back in 1999 with US$190 million.

3) How did it manage to smuggle them into the areas controlled by it?

The Zlin Z242L ultra-light model is delivered from its manufacturer in completely knocked-down condition and therefore it can be transported unsuspecting in kit form and can easily be disguised as automobile parts or components for heavy commercial vehicles. By all accounts, the aircraft were ferried by sea-freight using forged bills of laden and false declarations were made to the Colombo Port-based Customs authorities to deliberately disguise the nature of the consignment. Once on land, due to its completely knocked-down nature, it was probably transported by land on board commercial freight carriers bound for the north-east.

4) How and where did it get its pilots trained not only in normal flying, but also in bombing missions? Did former pilots of the air force of any country play a role in this? Who are they?

All aspects of flying training and attainment of pilot proficiency levels were obtained from the same South Africa-based flying club that ordered the aircraft from the Czech Republic. As far as dropping ordnance is concerned, this training too was provided in South Africa as there is no dearth of mercenaries there who are highly experienced in such flying sorties (they did it day in and day out during the numerous civil wars prevailing throughout the African continent). That is why it is significant that the first air raid on Colombo was conducted at night, an act that requires a high degree of flying proficiency using instrument flying ratings (IFR) for the TAF aircrew. It is a well-known fact that South African pilots excel in this area. This technique is popularly known as 'bush-flying'.

5) Where from has it been smuggling the aviation fuel?

Aircraft like the Zlin Z242L are powered by engines that are multi-fuel, i.e. they do not require avgas or aviation fuel. They can be run using ordinary diesel. In fact, most flying clubs are nowadays resorting to re-equipping their aircraft with such multi-fuel engines as it results in a dramatic reduction in the direct operating costs per hour of such aircraft.

6) Successful proactive strikes require precise intelligence of their hide-outs, which the SLAF apparently does not have.

Again, this is an area in which the SLAF does have a capability, but it is not yet proficient in exploiting its capability. Precise intelligence can only come from either ground-based HUMINT, or by airborne assets like long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles like the Searcher Mk2 UAVs already in service and delivered by Israel Aircraft Industries. However, UAVs can only locate the dispositions of such light aircraft and the ultimate destruction on the ground of such Zlin aircraft will have to be performed by either field artillery or by a heliborne special operations force.

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.

This issue also begs one to raise one more question: did the TAF carry out its first air strike on March 26, 2007 knowing fully well that both the BEL-built Indra-2 tactical air defence radars were inoperable due to periodic maintenance requirements? Or was the radars' shut-down a sheer coincidence? But it must be said here that deployment of radars like the Indra-2 is like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant. Such radars are used only for detecting low-flying aircraft (at an altitude of 500 feet) inbound at high speeds, NOT an experimental-category aircraft like the Zlin, which is normally used for recreational flying and therefore has a minimal radar cross-section. The Zlin has been employed before in South Africa to drop light ordnance when flying at an altitude of only 200 feet. Therefore the India-origin radars of the SLAF are next to useless as of now. What the SLAF now needs to do is to procure tactical low-level manportable radars like the EL/M-2106NG made by Israel Aircraft Industries' ELTA Systems Division. This type of radar has its operating parameters optimised for detecting airborne targets with radar cross-sections similar to those of the Zlin ultralight. It is reliably learnt that the SLAF, due to cost grounds, is now negotiating with China for procuring a similar radar with matching performance. Contract negotiations are now underway for procuring up to four such radars for the air defence of Colombo.

7) The SLAF needs a good mid-air interception capability to seek and destroy the TAF planes after they are airborne 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 takeoff and landing. They can't scramble fast. The SLAF requires some small, easily manoeuverable aircraft, which can take off and land almost anywhere, with specially-trained pilots.

With due respect, you have gone off on a tangent here. Both the Kfir C-2/7 (from Israel) and MiG-27M (acquired from Ukraine, with six more ordered late last year) of the SLAF are equipped with both airborne cannons as well as short-range air-to-air missiles like the Vympel R-60T. Manoeuvrability is not a factor here as even the Zlin cannot pull off high-G manoeuvres! The main limiting factor of the MiG-27M is its ability to search for an airborne target as it does not have an internally-mounted airborne fire-control radar, which is required if an aerial interception is required to take place at night. The Kfir C-2/7 on the other hand does have such a radar and can be used for aerial interception at night. The MiG-27M, though, can be effectively used to launch the R-60T during daytime when there are no visibility problems. As far as scramble times go, both these aircraft types can scramble within 1 minute 57 seconds but only if they are maintained on an alert status known as quick reaction alert (QRA). But then again, it will be highly expensive and unwise to use combat aircraft to shoot down the Zlins. What the SLAF needs are a small batch (only a Battery) of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles like the FIOM-92A Stinger or the Chinese FN-6 or the Russian IGLA-S, all of which can be integrated with the early warning alerting mode of low-level air defence radars like the EL/M-2108NG. This is a more cost-effective approach.

In terms of pro-actively seeking out the TAF's aircraft assets, a two-pronged approach could be adopted on a one-off basis: using satellites equipped with synthetic aperture radars (like the private Canadian RADARSAT); or using aircraft such as Su-30MKI Mk3s to make a couple of sweeps over suspected TAF hideouts, provided the Zlins are stored at ground level, and not in underground bunkers.

8) Periodically use an ELINT aircraft of the Aviation Research Centre (ARC) to look for possible ELINT signals emanating from the TAF.

Again, such action is deemed highly cost-prohibitive. SIGINT and ELINT aircraft are normally employed for at least 10-hour continuous flight durations and the sortie profile is pre-arranged because the end-user/operator knows precisely what to look for and where to look. In the LTTE's case, such airborne ELINT/SIGINT sorties are totally worthless. A far more pragmatic approach will be to install such SIGINT/ELINT mission sensors on board both the Indian Navy and Coast Guard Do-229-201s that are tasked with flying routine surveillance sorties adjacent to the airspace of northern Sri Lanka, and installing similar hardware on board the Coast Guard vessels patrolling the seas off Rameshwaram and Jaffna.

[kural]

http://www.zlinaircraft.cz/pdf/z_242_l_offer_b_c.pdf