Monday, December 10, 2007

Czech Republic offers to provide anti aircraft missiles to Sri Lanka

Czech republic has offered to provide anti aircraft missiles for SLAF while LTTE's de facto air force continued to pose a threat to Sri Lanka. Czech offer includes supply of state-of-the art AA missiles, training and even personnel to man the launchers if required.  Whether the GOSL will accept the offer or not remains to be see.

LTTE is known to operate between 5 to 10 Zlin-143 light planes and have so far attempted 7 raids on both military and economic targets in Sri Lanka. A locally made bomb rack has been attached to at least one of these aircrafts. However payload delivery seems to be lever activated and this may be the cause of reduced accuracy. Even though the LTTE planes have had little success in terms of damaging military/economic assets, they have significantly boosted LTTE's morale and have further strengthened Eelam Diaspora funding.

This is not the first time Czech government pledged help to the Sri Lanka military. After the fall of Elephant Pass base complex in 2000, LTTE laid siege to Jaffna trapping 32000 government troops in the Peninsula. By that time LTTE had managed to acquire weapons with higher firepower such as the 152mm artillery. This is when the Sri Lankan government turned to India for offensive weapons but all India had to offer were transport aircraft to evacuate 32000 forces from Jaffna. However Pakistan and Czech republic came to Sri Lanka's aid by providing Multiple Rocket Launchers (BM-21 and RM-70). One shipment of RM-70 MBRLs went missing for several days when the plane carrying the hardware landed on a different country. Plane was later found and finally the delivery was made to Sri Lanka after a significant delay, only to be found that MBRLs that were on board were sabotaged. Luckily for the army, the machines were repairable (Later MI discovered that the Norwegian intelligence agencies were behind the whole fiasco). When the first MBRL barrage was fired on Pooneryn, LTTE artillery that were pounding Palaly for days immediately fell silent. RM-70 and BM-21 MBRLs were used extensively to push back the LTTE forces that laid siege to Jaffna and the machines were responsible for halting LTTE's unceasing waves III operation. In addition to the MBRLs, Czech government recently offered to provide Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for SLAF to replenish its inventory from losses suffered in AAB attack.

In the meantime Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) flew three sorties on LTTE military installations in the North during last week. Surprisingly, both government and pro LTTE media were silent about the attacks. As usual, casualty figures from these aerial raids are not available as of now.

53 comments:

  1. Good NEWS and an interesting article

    if Anyone know more about the story of RM-70 MBRLs went missing please update.

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  2. What's the Norwegian's strategic interest in SL? It cannot be as passive as wining the Nobel Peace Price. Is it oil in the Mannar Basin?

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  3. would like to know more about how these MBRLs were able to hit and chase away the tiger bringing the unceasing waves 3 to a halt. And tthe casualty rates of the tigers were not known and under the circumstances of the big defeat that the SLA received, tiger casualties were not given a prominent notice. I have heard that in the very early days of the MBRL usage in JAFFNA, complete human waves were decimated and only after this fearsome weapon, that the tigers haltered thier human wave style attacks. IS this correct?

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  4. I'm also curious why the Norwegian's are are so hell bent on supporting ltte against sri lanka???
    There were online reports about how their special forces have trained sea tigers for under water demolition etc etc...
    there's gotta be something very important they are after

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  5. defencenet/Guys..

    The BM-21's were provided by pakistan,rite?..coz i thoght we operated a chinese-built MBRL..how many BM-21's do we operate currently?since we already have 16 RM-70's & are going for more,.are those smaller iranian-made jeep-mounted 107mm MBRL's,still used or not?

    Is the Mig-29 deal still on track?..what are the SAM models that are offerd by the czech-republic,& are these brand-new? or used..Have we got the 3 new MI-35M Hinds as yet?..

    Attack is the Best Defence,
    The MBRL's were indeed the weapon-system,that when deployed,was a turning point in the Elephant Pass battle..Because,until then,the SLA had no answer to the Tiger human "waves"..moreover,the fighting was concentrated along a narrow point that linked the jaffna peninsula,to the rest of the island..therefore,MBRL rockets,which are "area fire" weaponry,with less accuracy,than an artillery gun,were indeed able to wipe-out the ltte's massed-formations..several hundreds were killed-some say,around 800 KIA,but those are unconfirmed..most likely a figure of 1000+..the SLA,too suffered more than 1500 KIA,& several hundreds also died due to the tigers shutting of the water-supply,by capturing wells,water tanks,etc..they died of dehydration & sun-stroke,since that april was indeed extremely boiling..Without the MBRL's,i feel that SLA casualties on that day,would have been unbearable..since sea-tiger units were blockading the sea,as well,preventing supplies from coming in..From the air,there was a great fear of SAM's,especially for slow transport planes,& these planes had to take a long-route to reach palaly AB..

    DN,apologise for the lengthy post!!

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  6. DN/others,

    1)Czech republic, Pakistan, Ukrain and Isreal are the countries normally sell arms to SL. For Isreal it may be just money, Ukrain need to get rid of old Russion stuff, Pakistan may have a stratergy due to India. Why does Czech help us?

    2) There were so many stories on how Norvegians support LTTE. I actaully thought they are false. Is the reason oil in sea? When you have time can you post a detailed article on that matter.

    3) BTW, can you confirm and tell us what is that foriegn inteligence if it is ok. This is regarding the article in lankaenews. (http://lankaenews.com/English/news.php?id=5022)

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  7. Ranil and others,

    Not sure why the Norwegian's are so keen to interfere in SL. It could be the oil or the sizeable Tamil population/lobby in those countries.

    However, the Norwegians do have a habit of interfering in other countries and messing up by being extremely partial. They were kicked out of Ethiopia for favouring the Eritreans in that dispute. They also made a failed attempt to mediate in the Israeli/Palestine problem.

    Sometimes its just a case of these developed countries having too much money and too many bored diplomats who need to justify their existence.

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  8. Defencent;
    Trying to understand below points.
    Can you please help?

    1) Why would SL not accept Czech aircraft missiles? (If that happens) Surely this need to be something more than the price tag?

    2) While we can get the real time info such as where the top Terror leaders are having meetings, why can not we get the accurate details of the location of these air crafts?
    If we manage to hit those air crafts, surely will boost moral of our brave heroes as well as general public while Terror leaders has fight harder to win the support.

    3) What extra would provide by having Czech missiles compared to Current Air defence system?

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  9. Ninja Bandara and others,

    FYI,

    Czech Rupublic gave 24 RM-70 MBRL's with 50000 rockets for them virutally free of charge..

    China gave 2 free of charge...

    Pakistan also provided few, not free but cheaper than they usually charge

    This was in 2001 after the loss of EP.

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  10. "While we can get the real time info such as where the top Terror leaders are having meetings, why can not we get the accurate details of the location of these air crafts?"

    Good question Bro..

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  11. The planes carrying these MBRL's went missing for several days..They were landed in Azerbaijan and later in UAE under mysterious and suspicious circumstances...Norway got the wind of these arms shipments for the SLA...Most probably they(the norwegians) bribed many people to deliberately delay the deliver of these weapons to the SLA which was under seige in Jaffna in 2001..If these weapons were delayed for few more weeks, then LTTE would have decimated the 25000 troops stationed in Jaffna around that time..LTTE even captured some areas of Chavakachcheri before these MBRL's were introduced..They say after few rounds of MBRL fire on Punareen, the LTTE's never ending artillery/motar fire from those places went silent after months.

    The rest is history...

    Check the www.svik.org for Norways clandestine operations against the GOSL..

    It must be the oil these Norwegians are after..

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. tangara, me too brother.... needs a nice article if someone who has sufficient information could help us with this..

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  14. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Sri-Lankan-Army

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  15. One of the reasons for the Czech republic to get rid of their cold war era MBRL's was that, under the NATO terms(in 2000 or after, Czech republic joined NATO) they were not allowed to use them..They had 2 choices, either scrapped their existing MBRL's or give away free of charge. They opt for the second option..However I strongly belive that the Czechoslovakia didn't want a real friendly country like Sri Lanka to loose the war. They sent a special army general to negotiate the whole thing..The story further goes like this..

    The Czech general in civies went to Jaffna(it was a risky mission but he knew the babies his government handed over to the SLA) He addressed the top commanders and told them to
    "STAND UP AND FIGHT" with those MBRL's..(Those were the days, SLA lost 200 men a day and everyone's morale was at rock bottom).

    I wish I had the full article which described this historic event ...Bugger...

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  16. Thank you defencenet for the original article..Very informative.

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  17. Sorry for the multiple posts..

    There is a possibility that, if GOSL wins the budget, LTTE may be planning to mount a massive ground/air/climore bomb/ attack.

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  18. i always liked czechs. shapely women too. steady on..

    ok, so here's the million dollar question. if we know the norwegians did this why do we still insist on keeping them?

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  19. "The MBRL's were indeed the weapon-system,that when deployed,was a turning point in the Elephant Pass battle."

    Renegade, what are you on? We didn't have MBRLs at the time of the fall of EPS. If we had, we might've held them off. MBRLs were acquired to prevent the Tigers attacking north into the Jaffna Peninsula from EPS via Muhamalai. The 800-1000 Tiger KIAs at EPS you're talking about were inflicted by 6/SR in '91, when we held off the Tigers until Balavegaya 1 fought its way to us.

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  20. About Norwegian question, I think the main reason is Norway is one of the world largest small arms manufactures. Alfred Nobel is the Bill Gate in small arms industry. Alfred Nobel’s interest in peace is nothing more than McDonald interest in Health.

    Who is the biggest small arms customer? Insurgence rebel groups. They may not directly used “Made in Norway” labeled weapons. But chain of marketing goes long way in modern manufacturing world.

    If you look carefully at Norwegian activities around the world, they always favor Insurgence because they simply do maintain their customer base. Israel trained LTTE back then, expecting to get more business form Sri Lankan military. This is nothing but military-industrial complex acting in global level, just like the President famously Eisenhower predicted back then.

    // if we know the Norwegians did this why do we still insist on keeping them?//
    Simple reason. It is very expensive to be poor. And we are poor. We depend on them.
    Didn’t we got India in last time knowing India trained and bread LTTE too.. isn’t it?

    Those LTTE light aircrafts, I’m pretty sure they cannot drop a bomb on a correct target. But it is good to eliminate them, before they do a nose dive, the only way they can deliver correctly on a target, which I’m sure they will do sooner or later. And that will be the most talked about news all over the world.

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  21. Hi All,

    anyone interested in these wall papers

    http://patriotsrilanka.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  22. David Blacker,
    Din't we possess the smaller iranian-built jeep-mounted 107mm MBRL's,at this time?..i'm not on anything(at the moment,atleast)!..so how many tigers were killed in the EPS battle,then?..so are you agreeing that 1500+ SLA were KIA,during this period,i.e. from the fall of EPS,to the tigers reaching the DOORSTEP of jaffna(chavakkacheri)?..

    ReplyDelete
  23. Out of topic..What a wonderful sight!!Tamil citizens of the eastern province protesting about the TNA.

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  24. Hi, Guys
    Please check this out in island, one of the best feauture i read for a long time.
    http://www.island.lk/2007/12/10/features5.html

    ReplyDelete
  25. What are the Norwegians after? It can't be oil, it is estimated that we have 1 billion barrels of oil in teh Mannar Basin. The Norwegians have more oil in their seas than us.

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  26. They want a "reputation" for being a "peace builder" around the world. That's all.

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  27. Attack is the Best Defence
    "I have heard that in the very early days of the MBRL usage in JAFFNA, complete human waves were decimated and only after this fearsome weapon, that the tigers haltered thier human wave style attacks. IS this correct?"

    Well it wasn't the end of human waves. LTTE tried again in last August and failed again with bitter results and high casualties.

    Anyway back in 2001 several army personnel lost their lives when few rockets backfired on a BM-21. It was an unfortunate incident.

    renegade,
    "those smaller iranian-made jeep-mounted 107mm MBRL's,still used or not?"
    They are rarely used. Widely used is the RM-70
    "how many BM-21's do we operate currently"
    we operate 10-15 BM-21s.
    "apologies for the lengthy post!!"
    no need to apologize mate. Length is not a problem.

    perein,
    "
    1) Why would SL not accept Czech aircraft missiles? (If that happens) Surely this need to be something more than the price tag?"

    The only other reason would be that SLAF already has the required quantity of missiles(which is doubtful). Also, there are committees that are appointed to research on the most feasible solutions possible. If this committees disagree, and suggest another alternative, deal may be delayed(has happened in the past, unlikely it will happen here).

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  28. ""While we can get the real time info such as where the top Terror leaders are having meetings, why can not we get the accurate details of the location of these air crafts?""

    Well the two scenarios are different. Intel on leader movements are usually good because they can be observed, somewhat known to general public (in Wanni that is) etc. Aircraft and their landing bases are known by a select few LTTE cadres.
    The other fact is that these aircraft do not need a large runway to launch. Therefore LTTE do not have permanent hangars and the ones they have are scattered across several locations (even in jungles, according to MI). Their mobility makes the locations harder to track.

    as for the questions we didnt answer, we hope you found answers in tangara, sam and others posts

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  29. Oh now wait a minute fellas.... why the hell do we still let that jackass Solheim dictates terms to us ? huh ? I'm glad MR stood upto Norwies jerks ! crap gents, it's pretty evident Norwies love the darn tigers and HAS given them you name it !

    That MBRL diversion issue opens can of worms mates ! GOSL better get their act toghether cuz, stratigic location of Sri lanka has become, a prime target for powers to meddle and interfere.

    Norwies... I have a word of advice to you bigots.... read Lanka History...it's bad luck to pollute my sacred ground and if ya do better prepare to pay the price ! Now Solheim..... kiss my ass !

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  30. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  31. From the today's Island about the arrest of the LTTE operative in India,

    "Interrogation of the suspect taken at the parking lot of Chennai International Airport terminal on Saturday night revealed that he had received funds from a London based LTTE operative identified as Karuppiah to procure a large trawler. Investigators have recovered the boat at Mallipattinam in the coastal Thanjavur district."

    Looks like they're pretty desperate to replenish their fleet of arms vessels. The Navy really needs constantly patrol the seas to prevent arms getting through.

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  32. btw I'm not sure they were normal clearing operations, but I noticed a number of reports that seem to suggest the Army has stepped up operations around Kokkutuduvai along the eastern cost. Up to now all the fighting and major offensives have been going on near Mannar and the areas west of Vavunia, but even today there's a report on a Tamil website that the Army lauched an operation into LTTE area near Kokkutuduvai.

    http://www.tamileelamnews.com/news/publish/tns_9086.shtml

    It'll be nice if we can march northwards from there and take control of a bunch of the coastline the LTTE currently uses to smuggle their arms. The less access to the sea they have, the easy it'll be for us to patrol it.

    This was also suggested as been the 3rd access route to Jaffna, after the A9 and A32, although it does run dead through Mulativu. It'll be good to have the LTTE wondering which route we actually want to go for, and having to defend all of them just in case.

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  33. IE,
    There is a news item in Lakbima about these attacks at Kokkutuduvai.

    click here.

    How far away is the old Mullativu Camp from this area? 15 miles?

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  34. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  35. Mr. Cock says that Elam is not illegitimate. He doesn't support LTTE is because the method they are trying to attain Elam is illegitimate.

    He is leaving... fucker didn't have to balls to say it before. Probably didn't want to get kicked out.

    Anyways we should kick out any 'diplomat' that is a threat to our sovereignty. This is very serious statement. I hope the government makes due note of it and take necessary action.

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  36. This is good news,

    I hope the czech Gov. sell us a good C4I system to proper coordinate the AD sectors. They have been good friends. From Tanks, recovery, MBRLs, small arms and now to radar & SAMs thes have sold or gifted SL a lot.

    I hope we can woo the Polish & Slovaks to do the same. Polish AD systems are very good,C&C systems,ammo & tanks. A UAV spotter for Arty would make our gunners hells angles for the tigers.

    As for the Norwegian's we shouldnt be suprised..they are looking after their "conserns" in SL, this is what the world is..we must expect more of these covert acts...we need a good Counter Intel arm & a heck of a good DFI.

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  37. Well said Ares. I was going to write the same thing. This ass is leaving in April. But we should send him back today. These asses are the third grade diplomats who always get posted in small countries who then try to act all knows to earn a name for themselves.(Actually some knew what he was going to say before hand. I saw a news item regarding this before his speech)
    If anybody haven't seen his comments please click here.

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  38. One may say the following article is biased towards President Rajapaksha. But the information is mostly accurate (I think).

    click here.

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  39. The Norwegians were interfering in the Israeli-Palestinian issue and managed to turn it into t bloody mess. The Norwegian influence played a major role in bringing the Clinton administration almost into conflict with the Israelis, who were being bombarded daily by the Pal's. By this time, the Norwegians had been even on the Nobel lists for peace-making on that front.

    It was around that time that the present US Prez came into power and decided to back off the issue. That was a go ahead for the Israelis to take out the issue once and for all. It was also the time the hawks came into power in Israel and caged in Arafat. They say they microwaved the ol' terra, but that may be fanciful thinking.
    The Israelis have a thing against the Norwegians, and you'd see it in Israeli defence blogs.

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  40. Regarding the Chilcot speech..

    Guys, I read a version of British envoys speech in "Lanka Business Online" And I was Furious. And I just read the whole speech in tamilnet. I must apologize for posting a link for this news item. They were (LBO) posting an "Associated press" story. It gives a completely wrong impression inserting parts of the speech out of context. Please compare the two news items.


    AFP.

    Tamilnet.

    Tamilnet story is many fold accurate than that of AFP's.

    The speech is not a bad one. I must render an apology to high commissioner Chilcot.

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  41. Sam,

    Alfred Nobel was Swedish, not Norwegian. He was the owner of Bofors, which is a Swedish arms company. Sweden still has a very large/comprehensive arms industry.

    Norway does not have a significant arms industry. Most of the small arms they use are imported, mostly German.

    Insurgent groups mostly use weapons manufactured in the former Soviet bloc and China. US/NATO and European manufactured arms are rare among terrorist groups. They are hard to get hold of even for legitimate governments because of all kinds of human rights related issues.

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  42. "Din't we possess the smaller iranian-built jeep-mounted 107mm MBRL's,at this time?"

    I don't remember ever seeing any at EPS in '91. We did have jeep-mounted 105-mm RCLs though.

    "so how many tigers were killed in the EPS battle,then?."

    If you mean "EPS 1" in '91, 800+ is the conservative estimate. It was VP's first experiment with conventional warfare, and was a disaster. The LTTE entirely restructured it's small unit makeup after that battle.

    "so are you agreeing that 1500+ SLA were KIA,during this period,i.e. from the fall of EPS,to the tigers reaching the DOORSTEP of jaffna(chavakkacheri)?.."

    I don't know the casualty figures for the period you mean.

    I'm glad you corrected yourself, Hemantha! Chilcote's speech pretty much articulates the IC's opinion on the SL/NE situ.

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  43. Hey Guys...

    Do you want to hear a GOOD NEWS?

    Wait for few days...

    Another Karuna like change-over about to happen.

    This time, it is a big big shot....

    I will keep my mouth shut, until everything is smooth!

    Well done.. great work..(you know to whom I speak) :-)

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  44. R*fard&C*ble,

    I'm 100% sure its not VP.

    Your posts are very attractive.
    Why don't you give a clue??

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  45. R*fard&Cable,

    Please give us a little clue; the first two letters of the big gun, at least.

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  46. Hemantha and ares...Dont for a moment think that "chilcott" is on "our side" or he understands this conflict from the Govt's point of view..What you need to understand is his tenure is coming to an end very soon..and he is trying to placate "ruffled feathers" at various luncheons/parties.Now he can promise the earth to everyone on the street because he will be leaving the country soon.This bs should not be the sole basis of our diplomats abroad.
    http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20071210_15-now thats an interesting article..

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  47. Hemantha and ares..see most recent posting on defencewire..(no disrespect to DefenceNet).

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  48. Norwegians are interested in SL because of fish ('proposed' tamil elam has 2/3 of cost of SL.) which is vastly untouched resource in SL and may be oil could be another reason.

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  49. c.coin
    can't fish...
    the southern coast is also very good for premium fish like Tuna.
    And i believe CBK signed an agreement with norweigians allowing their longliners to fish southern deeps seas.
    The excuse for the agreement was that local fishermen not possessing the technology or the know-how to fish in deep waters...
    I'm also into recreational fishing but don't know how much better the "fake eelam" seas in terms of fish resources when compared to the southern/western seas...
    I think since they are not fished that much it might hold higher concentrations

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  50. Defencenet

    Since setting up two blogs featuring the SLN and SLAF, I've been attempting to obtain enough information to deliver a similar portal for the SLArmy. I've also written to the SLA a number of times but there's no sign of life there. Perhaps they've all gone a' tiger huntin'.

    Since you seem to have a lot of inside scoop and access, I urge you add a pictures and videos column to this blog so that we cover all three of our major forces in a way which provides oue people scattered all over the world an insight.

    It seems too much to expect from the Army...They are busy, out hunting..

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  51. Guys

    Aspirations are not illegitimate. They can be anything, but it is the actions we take in pursuit of those aspirations which when they cross certain lines of acceptable behavior, become issues.

    Like the hots I have for that chick Beyonce....that ain't illegal.

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  52. So if Norwie Intels were active aginst us... could they have helped in diverting or hijacking that arms shipment from S. Africa with the load of Mortar shells that
    were destined for SLA during the late 90's that eventually ended up in Mullaitivu ?

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  53. shay
    I suggest you to get hold of a good biography about Nobel or watch history channel documentary about Nobel price.

    If Nobel is a chemist, Bill Gates is a programmer.

    anyway. it is all out of topic.

    ReplyDelete

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