Months after its troops defeated the LTTE in the northern beaches,Sri Lanka foiled an attempted "suicide mission" by suspected Tigers,seizing a van laden with claymore mines meant to be driven to Colombo after detaining two persons. Acting on information from the detained LTTE suspects,the army detected 20 claymore mines - each weighing five kg - fitted inside a van in northwestern Mannar,police said. The van laden with explosives was to be sent to Colombo for a "suicide bomb attack",a police official said adding the vehicle was seized in the Uppukulam area in Mannar. The army started looking for the van after questioning the LTTE suspects held from Mt Lavnia near Colombo. Powerful Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday said the "war" against LTTE will continue till its "national and international operations are completely defeated". He said as per the information received by the security forces,the LTTE had about 30,000 trained cadres before the "decisive phase" of the war in May. Detained LTTE leader K Pathmanathan,the successor of slain Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhkaran,was shedding light on the remaining infrastructure on the rebels,he said. Pathamanathan,detained last week,was being interrogated by Lankan officials at an undisclosed location. "We now have Pathmanathan with us. We were then able to understand their (LTTE) plans and got to know the information on their local and international organisations." "Neither the President nor the defence secretary has stopped this war. That is why we tracked down KP. The war will stop only after all the enemies who acted to the detriment of their motherland were brought to book irrespective of whether they were local or international," Rajapaksa,the brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa,said. Meanwhile,Sri Lankan police found six boats filled with 998 kg of C4 explosives and a number of other items from the Vellamullivaikal and Puthukudiripu areas in the north. The recovery was made on Sunday night by a special anti-terrorist unit of the Kandy police. Acting on a tip-off,police recovered six boats,six suicide kits,114 RPG bullets,1000 T-56 bullets and one T-56 rifle,The Island newspaper reported today. It had been revealed that these boats had been hidden with the purpose of attacking Navy craft and vessels to allow an escape route to LTTE leader Prabhakaran,who was later killed in an encounter with the army,the newspaper quoted security sources as saying. The Kandy special anti-terrorist unit is continuing investigations,the report said.
