Terrorism: May 2007 Archives

COLOMBO (IPS) - By successfully carrying out air raids on military and economic targets in and around the capital, separatist rebels have demonstrated a new capacity to wage 'all-out' war in their fight to carve out a separate state for the Tamil ethnic minority in Sri Lanka.

But questions are being asked as to how the fledgling Tamileelam Air Force (TAF), the air wing of the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has been able to acquire planes and train pilots despite the relatively small size of the land mass available in the the Tamil-dominated north and east of the strife-torn island.

By all estimates the TAF is puny and may consist of no more than five propeller-driven Zlin Z-142, Czech-made planes that seem to have been smuggled in as completely knocked down (CKD) kits and assembled locally. But given the anti-terrorist atmosphere of the post 9/11 world, putting the TAF together and actually carrying out bombing raids is a feat that has startled intelligence specialists.

Use of deceptive intelligence data by pro-war Bush administration officials in lead-up to war on Iraq being further exposed

In his book, "At the Center of the Storm," former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet describes efforts by Pentagon and White House officials to subvert pre-Iraq war intelligence assessment by the CIA.

Tenet focuses on the actions of a group inside the Pentagon that sent the Bush administration bogus intelligence on Iraq's weapons program and ties to terrorist organizations that supported the administration's policy.

This group was recently criticized by a Department of Defense inspector general report from February 9, 2007, which found that a policy shop known as "the Office of Special Plans," headed by the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, acted "inappropriately" by cooking intelligence to reflect a "mature and symbiotic" relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. This characterization was never supported by the CIA, but was presented as fact by Feith's office to White House policy makers in the runup to the Iraq war.

Full story: United States: Tenet Battled With the Office of Special Plans