Prabhakaran alive and desperate: Bombers

In this file picture released by Sri Lanka's ministry of defence on February 4, a government soldier looks at a portrait of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran at a camp believed to be used to train Black Tiger suicide bombers found by advancing troops in the northeastern district of Mullaittivu.Photo: AFP

Sri Lanka's elusive Tamil rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is still in the country's north, two suicide cadres who have surrendered to the military were quoted as saying yesterday.
Prabhakaran, facing the most serious crisis since Tamil insurgency broke out over a quarter century ago, remains holed up in the rapidly shrinking territory still held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the state-run Sunday Observer quoted them as saying.
"Prabhakaran is still in Wanni (LTTE held area) and will continue to hold innocent civilians until the military captures him," one of the two suicide bombers said.
The daily said the two guerrillas, Kanakasuthasan Suthas alias Shanker and Thillainathan Thivakaran alias Thamil Alai, had made surprising revelations to the security forces.
"According to them, with the battle hotting up, Prabhakaran had sent his wife and their youngest son, 10-year-old Balachandran, to a safer location," it said.
The two 'Black Tigers' in their early 20s surrendered to the 57 Division on January 28 after failing to blast the bund of the giant Iranaimadhu Tank in Mullaitivu district.
Prabhakaran's son Charles Anthony is commanding a contingent of the Tamil Tigers alongside other top rebel leaders like Banu and Lakshman, the arrested black Tigers have revealed.
Anthony, who returned from Ireland in 2006, is believed to have got a degree in aeronautical engineering and is heading the air wing and computer unit of LTTE, according to the reports.
He is also believed to have played a key role in building the LTTE air wing, which surprised the world with a night raid on Sri Lankan military air base inside Colombo's international airport in March, 2007.