Leaked CIA report analyses Sri Lanka's assassination of LTTE leaders
A leaked United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report warned of the negative effects that assassinations could have, recommending targeted strikes that could exploit leadership divisions and a combined counterinsurgency strategy.
The report, compiled in 2009, analyses the impact of "high value targeting" (HVT) in conflict scenarios across the world, including in Sri Lanka.
Entitled “Best practises in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency tool” the report stated that HVT operations may,
The report, compiled in 2009, analyses the impact of "high value targeting" (HVT) in conflict scenarios across the world, including in Sri Lanka.
Entitled “Best practises in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency tool” the report stated that HVT operations may,
“by eroding the ‘rules of the game’ between the government and insurgents, escalate the level of violence in a conflict, which may or may not be in a government’s interest.”The report noted that the Sri Lankan government had used “antibunker bombs” to target LTTE leaders in 2007 and 2008, adding
“Geocoordinate information provided by a former bodyguard of Prabhakaran’s contributed to an accurate Sri Lankan military bombing raid that killed LTTE political spokesman S.P. Tamilchelvan and other LTTE leaders on 2 November 2007, according to a clandestine source with whom a relationship was just beginning.”
