LTTE leader Velupillai Pirabakaran with Air Tigers.

The Tamil Eelam Air Force of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which has been in existence for at least nine years without the Sri Lankan intelligence having the least idea about its location and capability, went into action for the first time since its creation in the early hours of March 26. It was a conventional air attack and not a suicide mission.

A newly unveiled Tamil Tiger "air force" of between two and five light planes is no match on paper for Sri Lanka's dozen fighter jets, but they pose a proven threat the military would be ill-advised to underestimate, experts say.

Sri Lanka is near the top of a global ranking of countries where the situation for minorities has significantly deteriorated in the last year, says a new global survey.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) said Sri Lanka and Pakistan had shown the biggest rise in this year's ranking of "peoples under threat", a major highlight of the international rights group's annual 'State of the World's Minorities' report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a press release issued Friday said the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) was involved in the abduction and disappearance of Subramaniam Ramachandran, a journalist working for the Tamil daily Yarl Thinakural.

Shops in in the heart of Colombo closed as owners protested the ongoing ransom demands, abductions and death threats they face from paramilitary groups, the milita

Teachers and students took shelter in a bunker as their school was bombed.

Photos were garlanded and floral tributes were paid as part of the final rites of seven TRO officials missing for more than a year and now presumed dead.

Despite promises to investigate abductions of children by the pro-government Karuna group, Sri Lankan authorities have taken no effective action and abductions continue, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.

 

“The Karuna group’s use of child soldiers with state complicity is more blatant today than ever before, ” Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW said in a statement.