Lanka says LTTE air power no threat to India

Going into a corrective mode, Sri Lanka today said it did not consider that LTTE could pose an aerial threat to India, a day after its Foreign Secretary claimed that the Tamil group could target nuclear facilities of the neighbouring country.

Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the authorities have not even discussed the possibility of the Tamil Tiger rebels using their aircraft to bomb any location in India.

"We certainly have had no discussions on anything like that," Samarasinghe said a day after Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Paltha Kohono said that there was a possibility of the rebels using air power to target Indian nuclear power stations.

Defence ministry spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said the government did not consider the LTTE's newly-acquired flying capability as a serious threat even to installations within the island.

"Very soon we will be able to take care of the LTTE's flying capability," Rambukwella said. "We are already in the process of acquiring weapons to deal with the problem. They are not a serious threat."

The Tigers have used at least two Czech-built Zlin-143 light aircraft for four bombing missions against the capital and military installations.

The attacks did not cause much damage, but it had a serious psychological impact on the defence establishment. At a press conference yesterday, Kohona said it was a "possibility." "You can't rule anything out," he said while admitting that he was merely speculating as mentioned in an Indian media report.

Officials here noted that it was not possible to bomb a nuclear facility with the type of weapons the Tigers are known to posses.

Even if the Tigers did manage, it was the rebel-held areas of Sri Lanka's embattled north-east that would be the first to be affected by any nuclear fall out, Tamil politician Dharmalingam Sithadthan said.

"It is far fetched to think that the Tigers are going to target Indian nuclear power stations," said Sithadthan who leads the pro-government Democratic People's Liberation Front (DPLF).

"If those facilities are bombed, it is the north-east of Sri Lanka that will be affected. The Tigers are not that mad."