Despite government claims, Killinochchi has not been captured and news filtering in from the North indicates that the LTTE has about 15,000 cadres left, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said.

Addressing the UNP’s 53rd annual convention at the S. de S. Jayasinghe grounds in Dehiwela on Saturday, he said that in the absence of the independent media’s access to war torn areas, the government was making high sounding claims. "But the truth is that Killinochchi has not been overrun and the LTTE, it is estimated has about 15,000 cadres in the Wanni District."

Wickremesinghe said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran prosecuted the war very differently. Prabhakaran sends planes in the night to bomb Colombo, while his cadres smuggled in arms and ammunition through the sea. President Rajapaksa directed the war according to his mysterious agenda, regardless of the mounting human casualties, including those in the security forces.

The military was being pushed from one point to another by Mahinda, for reasons best known to him and his brother Gothabaya.

He was being projected as the greatest general in the world with scant regard for names such as Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great and Napolean Bonaparte, he said.

"The government’s job is to govern, while the security forces should be allowed to prosecute the war according to strategies, best known to them. But the Rajapaksa’s, who constantly interfere in the execution of military operations, cover themselves with glory when battles are won, but no sooner the bodies start arriving, the blame is shifted on to the security forces."