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The LTTE, once rooted in Jaffna, will pose a serious threat to south India

The LTTE has come to be internationally associated with terrorism and its powerful leader Prabhakaran, regarded as a cross between Pol Pot and Che Guevera. The picture of this undisputed leader of the LTTE would have appeared on a Canadian postage stamp as part of their international propaganda campaign but for a last minute detection of this by the Canadian authorities.

What makes the LTTE the world's deadliest guerrilla force? Not just guts and guns, but an elaborate international network of support bases as I found out on a recent visit to Thailand and Sri Lanka. On October 10, Sri Lanka goes for elections. Already, fear of the LTTE haunts both Colombo and Jaffna. Thrice in the last three months during the stalemate in Jaffna, the Sri Lankan Army tried to squeeze out the LTTE from the salient they have wrested below Jaffna, but with disastrous consequences -- despite the military's newly acquired fire power including the mythical Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher, MBRL.

The LTTE is expected to carry out spectacular attacks in the north and south, coinciding with the elections, to show it is their supremo Prabhakaran and not President Chandrika Kumaratunga who is in command. An LTTE victory in Jaffna next month or later this year would revive the panic-rousing evacuation scenario. Both Colombo and Delhi must remain alive to the reality of this threat, which will not go away till Elephant Pass, EPS and Pooneryn are recaptured by SLA. Given the depleted morale and strength of the SLA, this seems highly unlikely.

The LTTE is the only non-state military force in the world to have a triad of military capabilities: on land, in the air and at sea. It also has land-based human bombers and blue and brown water suicide squads. No guerrilla organisation has ever acquired such gruesome versatility in causing devastation and fear psychosis. The killer instinct in the LTTE is matchless. That is how a cyanide-popping force of 700 fighters has run rings around 120,000 armed forces. It was the Tigers who first introduced the MBRL in war and it was they who bestowed on the Indian subcontinent the dreaded IED in its myriad variations.

By late last year, they had reconquered in six days, 90,000 sq km of territory lost to the military during 18 months. They had also reduced the Sri Lankan Air Force, SLAF to two fixed-wing aircraft, a couple of helicopters and one or two attack aircraft. The LTTE brought down 20 aircraft in 18 months. The decision to abandon the crucial EPS was made by Kumaratunga when the SLAF chief told her he could not support that garrison.

Shoulder-fired anti aircraft missiles (Stingers and SAM 7s) and flag trajectory weapons virtually grounded the air force. The LTTE has constructed an air strip near Killinochchi and possesses at least one Microlite aircraft. The capture by the LTTE of the air and naval bases in Jaffna peninsula would be horrific. It would multiply several-fold their offensive capacity.

The Sri Lankan Navy regarded the most professional of the three services, has also suffered grievous defeats at the hands of the Sea Tigers, LTTE's naval wing. The SLN's main task is to patrol the eastern and western coasts and to escort troop and supply vessels from Trincomalee to the beleaguered Jaffna peninsula. Suicide attacks by Sea Tigers are kamikaze-style: eight to 10 speedboats (and fishing trawlers) each driven by four 250 HP engines trail a naval convoy selecting the quarry. While the other boats act as decoy, the explosives-packed suicide craft rams into its target. The SLN is now developing water-jet technology to counter the Sea Tigers' use of multiple horse-power engines which outspeed their naval vessels.

Mullaithivu is the headquarters of the Sea Tigers. Their fleet consists of cargo boats, passenger and cargo craft, two captured Israeli Dovra ships and an assortment of speedboats and trawlers. Further, the LTTE owns 12 ships in the name of front companies registered in the London-based Lloyd's list that deals with international shipping. There is irrefutable evidence of the LTTE's naval facility off Phuket in Thailand. Surprisingly, this is both denied and confirmed by Thai authorities.

While the official denial discounted the presence of any LTTE military base, the Thai army chief contradicted this, saying the LTTE was operating from Phuket with the help of Thai nationals but was not in contravention of local laws.

In Bangkok, I was shown a film shot by Ian Williams, a reporter with London's ITN (Independent Television Network), on Sea Tiger activities at Sirael island off Phuket. Despite several camera blockades, the film is intact. It shows the location of two shipyards stacked with boats, shipbuilding materials and the catch of the season: a ten meter long half-built midget submarine in two parts, hull and stern. The submarine was also described as a mini submersible, usable for observing marine life. A submarine in the LTTE's possession could wreak havoc on naval convoys and Trincomalee harbour through suicide and sabotage attacks.

The film shows the shipyards owned by Christy Lawrence, a Jaffna-born Tamil with a Norwegian passport and married to a Thai. There is just a short glimpse of the submarine -- reporters were shooed away by the Thai police, but showed great presence of mind because they continued to shoot with a secret camera. Thai authorities recovered radar, sonar, radio equipment and LTTE posters and propaganda material from the shipyard. Lawrence was arrested, released on bail (he said the submarine was meant as a tourist attraction) and produced in court last week where he pleaded not guilty. The trial is bound to be long, but short on exposing the Mullaithivu connection.

Thai authorities are reluctant to admit the presence of the LTTE on their soil, even less offend the Tigers and invite reprisals in a tourist-flourishing economy. Thais are not ignorant about the Tigers' terror tactics and their own bitter experience with a long-drawn out communist insurgency. Although one submarine may have been discovered, Sea Tigers' skills in rebuilding another and more would not be affected.

A look at the map will show that 2200 km away, Phuket is the nearest land from Mullaithivu. Fishermen from both sides -- Thailand's west coast and Sri Lanka's east coast -- have helped each other in stormy weather. The LTTE is cashing in on this historic relationship. Arms and supplies through Thailand are shipped in LTTE vessels which usually anchor 60 to 70 nautical miles off Mullaithivu. They are then transferred to smaller boats that zip into Mullaithivu harbour. I was told by a former SLA chief how a dismantled 130 mm gun was brought on shore, driven up over ramps in speedboats. This is probably the same 130 mm gun once deployed at Pooneryn which made the Palaly airport unusable for several days in May this year.

It is in India's national interest that Jaffna peninsula does not fall into the hands of the LTTE. As a dialogue partner of the ASEAN Regional Forum, ARF, of which Thailand is a member, India must help Sri Lanka in forcing the closure of their Phuket base. Though there are hundreds of tiny islands off the coast of Thailand where a Sea Tiger base can be reinvented with or without the knowledge of the Thai authorities, Thailand must be requested to police these effectively.

Both India's eastern and western flanks are insurgency-ridden. Only the southern frontiers are for now, relatively stable. The LTTE menace, once it gets rooted in Jaffna, will pose a serious threat to south India. Therefore, India needs a cordon sanitaire around Jaffna as much as Sri Lanka does.

Major General Ashok K Mehta (retd)