UNP Assistant Leader Rukman Senanayake yesterday expressed his confidence of an outright army victory over the LTTE.

Speaking to The Sunday Island from Kataragama, the Kegalle district MP said that Friday’s liberation of Kilinochchi close on the heels of army’s victory at Paranthan would give a turbo boost to Sri Lanka’s fight against terror.

Senanayake said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government should be commended for boldly meeting the enemy challenge and successfully executing the war.

Responding to our queries, the MP said that the leadership given by the President and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had been exemplary.

He asserted that the recent territorial gains on the Vanni front had made the remaining LTTE strongholds shaky.

Fielding questions, he dismissed the perception that the UNP was attempting to throw a lifeline to the LTTE. "Absolutely not," he said, expressing confidence in the Rajapaksa administration’s strength to finish off Tigers.

Senanayake’s statement came in the wake of UNP accusations that the government had bungled the war effort. UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe recently accused the air force of failing to evacuate soldiers wounded on the Vanni front for want of fixed wing aircraft.

Wickremesinghe said that the lives of several hundred soldiers could have been saved had they being evacuated by air force. The Opposition leader went on detail assets available to the air force.

The Defence Secretary told The Sunday Island that nothing could be as ridiculous as this particular allegation. Fixed wing aircraft couldn’t touch down in the Vanni as there weren’t any airstrips, he said, adding that all personnel wounded both east and west of the A9 had to be evacuated by helicopters or road.

The Opposition had mixed up the Jaffna theatre with Vanni, he said, asserting that the administration had strived hard to provide every possible facility to the fighting soldier. He rejected the perception that all soldiers wounded in the northern and eastern provinces were evacuated by air to Colombo.