Maldives Coast guard sinks suspected Tamil Tiger vessel

Maldives Cost gurd sinks suspected Tamil Tiger vessel

ca.today.reuters.com

OLOMBO (Reuters) - The Maldives coast guard opened fire on and sank a vessel carrying suspected Tamil Tiger rebels on Thursday after a 12-hour standoff at sea in the island nation's southern territorial waters, the government said.

However, one man who threw himself overboard before the clash and surrendered spoke the south Indian language Malayalam and not Tamil, and officials were treating the alleged rebel link with caution.

"We have sunk the vessel. We have captured the five people aboard," Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed told Reuters by telephone from the Maldivian capital of Male.

According to a government spokesman, one of the captured men said four people he believed to be Tamil Tigers had boarded his 80-ft fishing trawler at sea and loaded it with guns and mortar bombs.

He said confusion arose over an initial coast guard report saying the man had identified himself as a Tamil Tiger.

"We are now treating this with caution, because the man was speaking Malayalam and not Tamil," said chief government spokesman Mohamed Shareef.

The Tigers denied any involvement.

"We are not operating in that area," Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said from the rebels' de facto state in Sri Lanka's far north. "These guys are not our people."

Neighboring Sri Lanka's navy has sunk several boats and trawlers in recent months suspected of trafficking weaponry for the Tigers across the Palk Strait that separates Sri Lanka and India amid a new chapter in a two-decade civil war.

The incident took place several hundred nautical miles off the south of the Maldives archipelago, which in turn sits 500 miles off the toe of India and is famed for palm-fringed desert islands and luxury holiday resorts that attract Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise.

"If they were poachers, why would they have guns and fire at us?" Shareef said. He said the identities of the captured men were not yet clear.

"The southern atolls of the Maldives are a fair distance from Sri Lanka, so if they were gun-running, they were very bad navigators."

Maldivians are mindful of an abortive coup attempt in 1988 by dissidents backed by Tamil paramilitaries from Sri Lanka, which ended in the Indian Navy chasing and sinking a vessel on which the plotters had tried to escape with hostages.

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title edit - spelling



[edit on 17/5/07 by masqua]

this brings back memory's of the fate full day when the Tamil rebels attacked on 1988.

local news says Indian air force provided air cover and reconesencec for the cost guard of maldives who does not have a air force or a navy

it is good that we can rely on our big naigbour to give us a helping hand.

ca.today.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

i wonder why the MSM is saying these people are "Rebels" when for a fact they are terrorists inside territorial waters of Maldives shooting up unarmed local fishermen who aproched them. i guessed you are only labeled terrorist if you are Muslim these days otherwise its "rebels"

also the news about the vessel being hundred of miles south of maldives is wrong. the MNDF spokesmen said that they were approximately 21 miles off GA. Villigili Atoll capital of Huvadhu Atoll.

[edit on 17/5/07 by nashthegreat]