Navy fires at unidentified aircraft over Mullaitivu

(January 21, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Naval crafts fired at an unidentified aircraft off Mullaitivu on Tuesday night, forcing the plane to detour and disappear, military sources said. The craft was initially seen flying towards Mullaitivu around 8.25 and about half an hour later was spotted flying over the sea towards the Fast Attack crafts (FAC), prompting the Navy to fire, the sources said.

The small aircraft had switched off the running lights and thereafter disappeared.

Security expert believed the two Czech –built propeller- driven Zlin Z-143 aircraft which the Air Tigers operated could have been dismantled and pulled into the jungles of Mullaitivu where the entire Tiger leadership is boxed in.

“If the Lanka Forces start combing the jungles they may discover the aircraft”, says Colonel R. Hariharan (retired) former head of military intelligence in the IPKF. Ho noted that the retreating Tigers had pulled roofing off the houses of their erstwhile capital Kilinochchi before retreating into the jungle.” It is possible that this roofing is being used for building bunkers and shelters inside the jungles,” he says.

The LTTE has used their two-aircraft air wing in eight attacks since March 2007, becoming the World’s only guerrilla organisation to field an air wing.
- Sri Lanka Guardian