Sri Lankan air force raid kills Tamil Tiger political chief

After a year of retreat and reversal, Sri Lanka's ethnic insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) recently suffered another major blow with the killing of the head of its political wing, S.P. Thamilselvan, during an early morning air force bombing raid on 2 November. His death marks the most high-profile killing to date since the resumption of civil war in mid-2006 and it followed soon after the meticulously planned LTTE suicide attack, backed up by aerial support, on the Anuradhapura air force base on 22 October.

These two major attacks are likely to have more of an impact on morale rather than significantly altering the balance of military power between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. Indeed Thamilselvan's demise is likely to further strengthen President Mahinda Rajapakse's administration's grim resolve to pursue a military solution to the conflict.

Thamilselvan first rose to prominence when he played an influential role in the 1995 peace negotiations with the government of then president Chandrika Kumaratunga. The former head of the political wing subsequently played a key role in all the peace processes, although the LTTE's chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham, who died last year, remained the international face of the rebel group. Indeed, the significance of Thamilselvan's death is arguably comparable to the assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in 2005.