The LTTE cadres who broke through were to some extent sandwiched and cut down later. which bombed Katunayake Airforce base here in March 2007. [63] It was reported that more than 200 journalists from the local and foreign media attended this event and they had to go through a 10-hour security screening before the event in which Anton Balasingham introduced the LTTE leader as the "President and Prime Minister of Tamil Eelam." Charles Anthony, Prabhakaran's son, who returned from Ireland in 2006 after getting a degree in aeronautical engineering, heads the air wing and computer unit of LTTE. "We have not found their bodies and have no information about them," he said. Repeated questions about his involvement in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination were only answered in a sober note by both Balasingham and Prabhakaran. With the assault resulting in failure and many tigers being encircled several LTTE cadres began consuming cyanide. Photos of Prabhakaran with wife, son and daughter - Canary Trap He fought the Sri Lankan Civil War to make an independent state for the Tamil people in the north of Sri Lanka. But now it was being claimed that Prabhakaran, wife and daughter were alive and that the sick . "[85], Prabhakaran explicitly stated that an armed struggle is the only way to resist asymmetric warfare, in which one side, that of the Sri Lankan government, is armed and the other comparatively unarmed. Colombo, May 18 : Sri Lanka's 26-year-long insurgency ended with a blaze of bullets as Velupillai Prabhakaran, the dreaded chief of the Tamil Tigers that was. The protracted war between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began to take a qualitatively different turn from 2007 onwards. It said soldiers also found a body they believed to be that of Charles Anthony, the older . As such I have no intention of pursuing red herrings by engaging in discussing Nedumarans claim at this juncture though I may delve into the background behind his conduct in a future article. It has also been said that one bodyguard had a can of gasoline with him to burn the tiger leaders body if ever he was killed or committed suicide. 9. The Charles Antony Special Regiment, was an elite infantry unit and the first conventional fighting formation created by the LTTE. [41][note 1] In 1973, Prabhakaran teamed up with Chetti Thanabalasingam and with a fraction of the Tamil Manavar Peravai to form the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). [80] Prabhakaran never developed a systematic philosophy, but did declare that his goal was 'revolutionary socialism and the creation of an egalitarian society'. He is believed to have . Pictures released by the Army and defence ministry showed him in uniform and later in his underwear. [38], In the early 1970s, United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike introduced the Policy of standardisation which made the criteria for university admission lower for the Sinhalese than for the Tamils. Because No. [71] A week later, the new Tamil Tiger leader, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, admitted that Prabhakaran was dead. [67] But this rumour was proven false in a short while. [68] Clearing and mopping-up operations were carried out by troops under Colonel G. V. Ravipriya from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm that evening, but they did not encounter this last group of LTTE fighters that day. [60][61][62], Prabhakaran's first and only major press conference was held in Killinochchi on 10 April 2002.