The Sri Lankan Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen Sarath Fonseka told The Island daily here on Saturday, that in the two-year-and-10-month long Eelam War IV, the Sri Lankan army had killed 22,000 fighters of the LTTE and captured over 9,000.
“This is 90 per cent of the total losses inflicted on the LTTE by all the security forces,” Fonseka said at the end of the army’s 60th anniversary celebrations.
The General, who led the army to victory in the 2006-2009 operations known as Eelam War IV, claimed that the army was responsible for the destruction of 70 per cent of the assets of the LTTE’s sea and air wings also. One of the key factors, which helped the army defeat the LTTE was rapid modernisation and fresh recruitment, he said. The army grew in manpower from 116,000 to 200,000 in three years. New recruits held captured areas while experienced troops took part in the offensives.
However, the army lost 192 officers and 5,200 men and 27,000 suffered battlefield injuries.“The army bore 96 per cent of the casualties in this war,” Fonseka said. “No one can match or come close to the army’s contribution to the war,” he added.
Captured Lankan doctors re-enter govt service: Except for Dr Sivapalan Sinnadurai, all the Sri Lankan Tamil doctors who had worked in the LTTE held areas and did the militants’ bidding, had been released on bail and allowed to rejoin government service, Daily Mirror reported on Saturday.
Dr Shanmugarajah, Dr Varatharajah, Dr Sathyamoorthy and Dr Ilanchelian, were working in government hospitals in the war zone in north Sri Lanka. During the final critical phase of the war from January to May, Shanmugarajah, Varatharajah and Sathyamoorthy had allegedly given exaggerated death figures to the Western media, which resulted in the Western powers campaigning for a trial of Sri Lankan army personnel for war crimes.
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