Sri Lanka probes security lapse
2007-03-26 14:19
Colombo - Sri Lanka launched two investigations into security lapses that led to the first ever Tamil Tiger air raid against the island's main military base, where three airmen were killed, officials said on Monday.
The air force appointed a five-member team to probe lapses at the heavily guarded Katunayake airbase which came under a night air attack from Tamil Tiger rebels.
"The police, too, launched an investigation, because they were the first to pass on information about the sighting of two unidentified aircraft an hour before the attack," a top police source said.
He said police made visual contact with the aircraft as they crossed a de facto front line at Vavuniya, about 200km north of the Katunayake airbase.
"Ground-based soldiers had also picked up the aircraft on their radar and they established that the aircraft did not belong to the airforce," the source said. "We want to know why no action was taken to intercept the aircraft."
Unchallenged
After dropping bombs over the military base, the guerrillas flew back - a journey that would have taken them at least an hour - but were unchallenged either by interceptors or ground-based air defence systems, officials said.
The air force admitted the rebels had carried out their first public attack using aircraft only after the rebels announced their planes had returned to a secret location inside rebel-held territory.
Tiger pictures showed that four bombs were mounted on each fuselage.
The island's only international airport, located next to the airbase, shut for three hours.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) released pictures of seven "Air Tiger" guerrillas dressed in light blue camouflage uniform posing for pictures with Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran, 52.
Second attack
The pictures released by the Tigers showed a partial section of an aircraft, which indicated the plane was a single-engine, propeller-driven light aircraft.
Monday's attack was the second against the Katunayake airbase by the Tigers in six years.
A group of suicide bombers infiltrated the base in July 2001 and destroyed a fleet of parked military aircraft, then crossed over to the adjoining international airport and destroyed six civilian jets parked there.