Yesterday’s terror attack on the Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka came as no surprise. The LTTE had been preparing the ground for a high profile assassination and the target happened to be Fonseka. He was undergoing an emergency operation with serious injuries at the time of writing. Eight were killed and over twenty others injured.

The LTTE wouldn’t have hesitated to target anyone else—even a top level government leader. The CFA has given the LTTE a license to kill. When it assassinated Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgarmar last year and water closed in on that dastardly crime, it was clear the LTTE wouldn’t stop at that.

The world denounced that crime and in the same breadth urged the government to adhere to the ceasefire thus issuing a veiled warning against retaliatory attacks. Some members of the international community even stopped short of naming the LTTE. The government took it all lying down. Naturally the outfit got emboldened.

Having made a virtue of its adversity in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, by entering into a CFA with the UNF government, which mistook it for an achievement, the LTTE has been preparing for war under the pretext of making peace. It went all out to cripple the military intelligence by assassinating capable officers of the calibre of Muthalif and Meedin. Thanks to the UNF government, which raided the Millennium City army safe house and exposed the identities of the commandos specialised in deep penetration offensives and the intelligence officers who operated from there, the LTTE also debilitated the Army long range operations so its leaders would be safe in its exclusive ethnic enclave behind the iron curtain.

After the signing of the CFA, in an interview with this newspaper, EPDP Leader and Minister Douglas Devananda warned of heavy LTTE infiltration of Colombo. He placed the number of suicide bombers who had entered the city at 50 and claimed the LTTE would trigger a spate of blasts, the day it decided to torpedo the truce. Despite the LTTE’s war preparations, the military lowered its guard and governments failed to take precautions. They were all lulled into a false sense of complacency, which has proved to be extremely costly, as the unfolding events demonstrate.

If the Army Commander is not safe inside the Army Headquarters, how unsafe others, including government leaders, should be, goes without saying. They ought to bid farewell to their populist agendas and curtail public appearances unless they want to invite disaster both for themselves and the country, which is left with only a handful of leaders due to LTTE terror.

Success of the brainwashed human bombs stems from the downright stupidity of their targets. President Premadasa committed suicide by walking into a crowd and exposing himself to danger. President Kumaratunga after a political meeting had a stroll across the Town Hall ground to her car allowing the suicide bomber to target her. Terrorists have to be lucky only once, it is said, while those whom they pursue have to be lucky all the time. The latter have been more stupid than unlucky.

The Tigers and the whole flock of carrion crows must be jubilant. But it doesn’t mean they will get any closer to their goal with such cowardly attacks. Al Queda, it should be recalled, landed a fuel laden plane on the Pentagon but the US military is far from destroyed. Or, the LTTE blew a serving Sri Lanka Navy Commander (Clancy Fernando) to bits but the Navy is far from ruined. The LTTE has only made itself too embarrassing to its foreign hosts through barbaric terror which the world is abhorrent of.

Yesterday’s attack has blasted hopes of Geneva talks, which the LTTE is all out to scuttle. One may wonder whether the truce is holding any longer with the LTTE committing such acts of terror as are suggestive of war already begun. It is incumbent upon the government to ready itself for any eventuality, while trekking the path of peace cautiously avoiding mines.

We eagerly await the reaction of the Co-Chairs and other members of the international community to the LTTE’s contemptuous defiance of their warnings.