Targets in India?

ROHAN GUNARATNA

THE security threat posed to India by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is on a par with the threat to the country from the numerous other terrorist groups, according to a recent Indian intelligence warning. The intelligence agencies have alert ed the Government of India about the impending threat from the LTTE. It has now been revealed that the LTTE, an organisation with long-term strategic goals, has developed contingency plans to target nuclear facilities in South India. The LTTE has planned to deploy a number of suicide squads armed with custom-designed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to sabotage these facilities in the event of India stepping up military assistance to the Government of Sri Lanka, especially by reintroducting its troop s on Sri Lankan soil.

The recent debriefing of a senior LTTE leader by a foreign intelligence agency revealed that the LTTE had mounted surveillance on, built scale models of and developed operational plans to sabotage strategic targets in India. The LTTE's civil intelligence under Pottu Amman and its military and strategic adviser Wedi Dinesh were both instrumental in running a number of agents into India to gather details of these facilities. The intelligence gathered includes photographs of some of the facilities and deta ils of senior, middle-level, and junior staff of the Fuel Reprocessing Plant at Kalpakkam. The scale models of the targets were built by the map- and the model-making units of the LTTE's military and civil intelligence wings. The intelligence gathering w as coordinated by Janan Master, a senior intelligence wing leader, who was assigned to cover India. Janan Master, who was responsible for planning the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, is widely respected in LTTE circles. His presence in I ndia was clandestine even when other LTTE leaders and cadres engaged in "political and military" activities in the country. n