A top Sri Lankan official has said that the needle of suspicion for last Tuesday’s attack on the country’s cricketers in
Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said it was possible that the Tamil Tiger rebels were trying to distract the government’s attention from the ongoing offensives against the guerrillas.
"We have heard that Pakistani authorities are also concerned that an external element may have contributed to the attack on our cricketers in
We will recall that on the first day of the attack itself certain suggestions were made that the LTTE may have had a hand in it. It would be surprising if they had not been behind this, Kohona added.
Howeve, the LTTE had already distanced itself from the attack on the bus carrying the cricketers in
LTTE spokesman Thileepan in an interview to Australias Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) last week said that the outfit was in no way involved with the attack the island nations cricket team, which cancelled the visit due to returned home subsequently.
And he (Thileepan) said the LTTE rejected speculation that it could be linked to the attack in
"We don’t have any connections with those people (
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Defence website, in an article, mentioned about possible links between the LTTE and Lashkar-e-Toiba, which is also one of the suspects of the
Dating back to 1992, Kittu, a key figure of the LTTE at the time, was known to have been negotiating arms purchases for the LTTE in
Subsequently, in 1993, Indian intelligence is known to have destroyed at sea the vessel carrying arms for the LTTE, killing Kittu, too, the article said.
Reports that the terrorists had planned to take the Sri Lankan players hostage, is also being viewed by intelligence sources in South Asian capitals, in the context of the LTTE’s current position of near defeat, and the search for a bargaining tool for its call for a ceasefire
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