Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military's Counter-Insurgency
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12 February 2010 Strategic Analysis of Sri Lankan Military’s Counter-Insurgency Operations Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe FDI Associate Summary Sri Lanka’s victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, offers interesting insights and lessons in confronting an intractable and formidable insurgency. To achieve victory, Sri Lanka transformed its military and adopted new tactics. The role of defeating the LTTE was primarily assigned to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), which mobilised its resources for the largest military campaign in the country’s history. Analysis Service Transformation The Sri Lankan military’s process of transformation began in earnest with the election of President Mahinda Rajapakse in November 2007. He immediately appointed the pragmatist and reformer Gotabaya Rajapakse, a retired Lieutenant-Colonel (also his brother) to the key position of Defence Secretary. Subsequently, as quoted in Business Today , Gotabaya Rajapakse adopted measures to restructure the military that markedly differed from those of his predecessors: ‘The hallmarks of the new radical approach included the appointment of tried and tested commanders; leaders who were brave and had battlefield experience, purchasing of new weaponry alongside an increased and fervent recruitment and training agenda.’ Accordingly, General Sarath Fonseka (at the time a Lieutenant General and, most recently, the Chief of Defence Staff), was appointed to command the army, which led to the implementation of reforms. Infantry training doctrine was revamped to emphasise section level small unit infantry operations (the traditional platoon concept was dropped). Instead, the Special Infantry Operations Team (SIOT) concept was now standardised. SIOT operated in eight-man teams and was first introduced by General Fonseka in 2002. The SIOT training programme involved a one-month basic commando endurance course. Soldiers who passed were subsequently given 18 weeks of additional training in jungle warfare, explosives handling, medical training, and the use of signals communications to act as spotters for the co-ordination of artillery and air strikes. SIOTs were then deployed to offensive formations, with each rifle company being allocated six reconnaissance teams that also acted as field instructors to uplift infantry standards and impart SIOT skills. By late 2006, the numbers of SIOT-trained soldiers had increased to around 6,000 from approximately 1,500 prior to the start of hostilities. In some cases, entire infantry companies were SIOT trained. According to General Fonseka: ‘They were very well trained soldiers who could operate independently for a limited time. When the war started, we could push them into jungles effectively, supported by Special Forces and Commandos, which put the LTTE off-balance on the ground.’ Cumulatively, these measures saw a major transformation in the army’s ethos, organisation and doctrine, which prepared it to absorb the challenge of full scale hostilities. Eastern Province After sustained tensions, full-scale hostilities commenced in August 2006, when the LTTE forced a major confrontation by closing the Mavil Aru sluice gate in the Eastern Province, depriving over 20,000 farmers in government-controlled areas of irrigation waters. In response, the government launched a limited military operation to capture the sluice gate. The LTTE further escalated hostilities, however, by launching a major offensive against five military bases south of Trincomalee harbour to distract the military from securing its objective, to isolate and render the Trincomalee naval dockyard inoperable and to sever the vital maritime logistical link to nearly 50,000 garrison troops defending the Jaffna Peninsula. Despite its best efforts, the LTTE was defeated at Mavil Aru, and its offensive to the south of Trincomalee harbour was also repelled, which enabled the army to bring reinforcements and launch local counter-offensives. It transpired that the failed LTTE offensive in the Eastern Province was a prelude to another major LTTE offensive on the Jaffna Peninsula. The LTTE commenced its attack on 11 August 2006, with a massive artillery barrage on the Muhamalai defence line followed by amphibious attacks at other strategic locations. Apart from initial gains, the army held its ground and launched counter-attacks, which rapidly evicted the LTTE from its lodgements, but at Muhamalai heavy fighting continued until the army recaptured its original positions on 26 August. The failure of the LTTE’s main offensive demonstrated the limitations of its military power and capabilities, which boosted the confidence of the military in regaining the initiative. As a result, the army went onto the offensive in the Eastern Province to exploit its initial successes. Commando and Special Forces units operating either in four- or eight-man teams were used extensively, and enhanced the army’s real-time battlefield intelligence capability. Irregular army units frequently infiltrated LTTE controlled areas, by sea or through the jungle, which dominated large tracts of the Eastern Province, and acquired targets for artillery and air strikes, jammed communications, attacked listening posts and mortar positions and ambushed reconnaissance teams, convoys and field commanders. Over a period of time, key LTTE-controlled areas started falling into army hands, such as Muttur and Page 2 of 8 Sampur, then Verugal Aru and subsequently Vakarai, its last urban stronghold in the Eastern Province. Similarly, the Sri Lanka Police (SLP) paramilitary arm, the Special Task Force, overran 12 LTTE camps in the southern recesses of the province, which had channelled LTTE guerrilla units towards the remote Toppigala jungles, the last LTTE redoubt in the Eastern Province. From the outset of hostilities in the Eastern Province, the implications of the 2004 split between the LTTE and Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (alias Karuna Amman), who broke away with 3,000 fighters and was subsequently referred to as the Karuna Group, were felt. The Karuna Group disbanded its army and went underground with 500-600 fighters, defected to the government and was heavily active in operations against the LTTE. Due to fears of infiltration, the LTTE could no longer rely heavily on the loyalties of eastern ethnic Tamils and consequently recruitment markedly diminished. Hence, when hostilities erupted in 2006, the LTTE’s strength in the Eastern Province never regenerated to more than around 4,000 fighters. Most LTTE senior commanders in the Eastern Province were northern ethnic Tamils who lacked local knowledge and understanding of the region’s dynamics. The LTTE could not compete with the Karuna Group’s intimate local knowledge of the population and terrain, which enabled it to harass LTTE supply lines and attack isolated outposts. Increasingly, the LTTE in the Eastern Province operated more like a conventional army of occupation, rather than an insurgent force, often arresting, torturing and killing dozens of Tamil civilians on suspicion of being Karuna Group loyalists or informants. While ethnic Tamils were bitterly divided between loyalties to the LTTE and the Karuna Group, for the LTTE, its situation in the Eastern Province was further compounded by demographic obstacles, where large populations of ethnic Sinhalese and Muslims were strongly against the LTTE. Unlike the Northern Province, which is overwhelmingly dominated by ethnic Tamils, the Eastern Province turned into an increasingly hostile environment for the LTTE. The army was able to exploit these inherent advantages and drove the LTTE from zone to zone throughout the Eastern Province and channelled retreating LTTE forces towards the Toppigala jungles, which were overrun by August 2007. The army’s victory in the Eastern Province led to the recapture of an estimated 6,500 km 2 of territory previously controlled by the LTTE. It also destroyed the conventional military capability of the LTTE in the region and left it unable to conduct anything more than low intensity operations. Thereafter, the Eastern Province was largely held by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF), Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), SLP and the Civil Defence Force militia (formerly known as the Home Guard), in collaboration with the Karuna Group, which enabled the army to withdraw and concentrate its troops for the looming campaign in the Vanni. Vanni Operation The Vanni campaign, which took place in an area that comprises most of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, began in March 2007, six months prior to the fall of Toppigala, while LTTE forces in the Eastern Province were progressively encircled and reduced. Due to the army’s continued growth, the 57 th Division was raised and deployed north-west of Vavuniya for the “Vanni Operation”, the main campaign against the LTTE. The 57 th Division, which consisted of three infantry brigades and a Special Forces regiment, forced the LTTE to divert much of its forces from other fronts to contest its advance. As General Fonseka stated: ‘The LTTE for the last so many years had been holding onto this land and believed in not giving even an inch of land. They thought they had developed Page 3 of 8 a conventional army capability. They never wanted the army to come and capture even a small village. We were like two armies fighting. In Vavuniya, to capture some small villages we fought for about eight months without moving.’ Indeed, throughout most of 2007, the LTTE successfully repelled five major assaults and, in June 2007, even launched a series of counterattacks that forced the 57 th Division to fallback six kilometres from its original positions. These successes, however, proved to be short lived. As on several other fronts, the years 2006 and 2007 were militarily disastrous for the LTTE, which faced growing manpower shortages, logistical problems and heightened commando and Special Forces activity in rear areas. The loss of the Eastern Province, for instance, with the deaths of many experienced LTTE fighters was, from a recruitment and retention perspective, a critical blow to its finite manpower resources. This may explain why most of the remaining LTTE fighters in the Eastern Province, estimated to be around 600-800, were ordered to return to the Vanni.