New Delhi: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) may be cornered and their conventional military capability impaired but, according to well informed sources, their command and control system has not been broken, making them still a very dangerous entity.

It is possible suicide squads of LTTE members and sympathisers may have fanned out to carry out high profile assassinations in Sri Lanka and India.

Which is why, despite calling off combat operations and use of heavy weapons against them, the Sri Lankan army refuses to call a complete cease-fire against the insurgent group, the sources said.

However, according to the sources, it was “extremely unlikely” that the LTTE had “strategic alliances” with other terrorist groups in the region, like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Harkatul Jihad Islami (Huji), but it is likely they have “lower level connections” and gun-running operations with some of the regional insurgent groups in India’s northeast, Bangladesh, Myanmar and southeast Asia. The Indian government has renewed its request for the extradition of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran with the Lankan government, but it is unlikely he will be captured alive, analysts said.

The Sri Lankan army, under severe pressure from the entire international community including India, still has to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and “Sinhala chauvinism” is an element that will have to be factored in once the military hostilities cease and

the process of rehabilitating victims displaced by decades of ethnic violence begins, sources in the

government said.

While the Indian government welcomed the decision to stop heavy artillery and aerial attacks and is privately claiming credit for bringing about the cessation of combat operations by the Lankan army after it sent two senior envoys to Colombo last week, it is unclear what exactly triggered the decision. While Colombo is at pains to point out that there is no cease-fire, according to Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his government’s main concern now is to ensure that the civilians are rescued.

Civilian casualties, which is around 4,500 killed, are substantially lower than earlier feared, sources said.

According to analysts, this could indicate that the LTTE head, Prabhakaran, has managed to sneak out of the war zone territory. Or, as the Lankan government had earlier said, the war would end once it was in control of all the territory previously controlled by the LTTE. Once the war is over, there will be need to immediately provide basic relief to the hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils who were caught in the hostilities, after which the rehabilitation process can begin.

India, which has already sent 40,000 family packs (which comprise food, medicine, utensils, tents and other essentials for a family of five) to the afflicted region, is sending another 50,000 family packs as part of its Rs 100 crore relief package.

It also plans to shift its hospital from the ‘no-fire zone’ to “more fixed surroundings” in Vavuniya, sources said, and send more medical teams.

There are 62 Indian doctors already present and working there. Additionally, it will send demining teams to neutralise the thousands of mines laid across the combat zone in northeast Lanka.