NEW BOMB STRATEGY (98 Aug 12)
The Intelligence Gathering Unit has discovered in Vavuniyawa a twelve -and-a-half kilogramme bomb fitted to a cassette player with a tape recorded message in Sinhala and English. The message urges the people to flee an area where a vehicle with explosives is parked.
The police believe that the message is supposed to warn the public of a bomb explosion . The LTTE has apparently devised this strategy of 'warning' the public in order to tell the world that they are not killing innocent people. The police also think that this could have been devised to make a mockery of the pledge given to Mr. Olari Ottunu, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative who was in the country in early May, not to attack civilians.
However this type of messages will create a panicky situation and it could lead to more human lives being lost. It is clear that Mr. Ottunu is not in a position to stop killings of the innocent people by the LTTE. As we have emphasised on a number of occasions these killings can be stopped only by defeating the LTTE militarily and capturing Prabhakaran dead or alive.