Talk:2008–2009 Sri Lankan Army Northern offensive

Number of LTTE fighters

 * The number of LTTE fighters is given here as 5000. But this is an estimation given by the army commander, and the actual number is believed to be much higher isn't it? Chamal (talk) 13:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Disputed tag
Article only contain all claim by the Sri Lankan Army/ GoSL and nothing is even mentioned about the LTTE claim. In fact, even the casualty figure and the battles are only the story of the GoSL. As no LTTE, the second side of the conflict, is provided this article's neutrality and accuracy are both disputed. Watchdogb (talk) 15:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The Background and Battle sections are badly cited. Most claim in the section and article are not referenced to a source. Watchdogb (talk) 12:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Are there any sources from the Tiger point of view? Sounds like they're having it pretty hard, even if the government exaggerates; would they have time to be giving news reports?  Nyttend (talk) 13:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Recent edits
The edit here violates many rules. First, the edit removes the fact tags that were added since no reference was provided for the strength of the two warring parties. Second, the addition of the casualty figure given is cited by a source that is an Anti-Rebel website per WP:SLR we need to add the subscript that these claims come from an anti rebel website. These edits are in direct violations of wikipedia rules. Watchdogb (talk) 20:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Extending the edit restriction (bluebox)
As there seem to be an outbreak of edit war on this article, I propose the addition of the Sri Lanka Dispute Resolution to this article. Please refer to WP:SLR for further details. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 19:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Start-date of the battle
The infobox indicates that the battle began on 1 January 2008. However, this timeline indicates that the government did not withdraw from the CFA until 2 January. What is the source for the 1 January date? Thanks, –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Casualty accounts
The "Casualty accounts" makes a claim that "it was established that the government was covering up its own casualty figures". While this source does confirm that, for a while, the Defence Ministry underreported the number of casualties suffered by security forces, nothing is said about a cover-up. (In theory, the underreporting may have been as a result of a failure in bureaucratic processes rather than a deliberate cover-up.) Can the claim of a cover-up be substantiated with another source? –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Mathematical casualties
Just wondering how a force of 3,000 could have 4,500+ killed? numbers dont add up. need consistend sources for this. Lihaas (talk) 03:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe some were shot after being killed and then double counted... Gimli/Legolas style. --135.196.27.80 (talk) 09:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * But then that ought not be there. There should be a consistent source that adds up. Lihaas (talk) 14:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Please go and pose that question to the Sri Lankan Military as they are the ones who claim these figures. Watchdogb (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This figure was given by the Army Commander, and was probably exaggerated to show how weakened the LTTE was. The LTTE itself has never revealed its actual strength. There is no other 'reliable source' to be found on this. Some have presented this figure around 15,000 - 25,000 but we can't include them here, as the sources are mostly blogs. Chamal    Talk 05:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Listen Watchdogb I don't want to start another edit war with you again, the source I put says 5,000 killed & 5,000 remain, at least another 3,000 wounded that is 13,000, I even left the 3,000 number with it's reference so I put an estimate of their strenght 3,000-13,000. The 3,000 number is in any case crazy but I left it. In any case the Tigers always say their number of dead at the end of each year so I think we should leave the number of 5,000 for now and when the Tigers say their casualty number at the end of the year then we should make the apropriate changes. (Top Gun)

Removal of possible OR and biased info
I have removed the following part from "Casualties" section of the article.

'' Following the implementation of the new government policy in late October to not reveal military casualties the only source on the numbers of SLA dead were the ones from the Tamils. There were also several sporadic reports by the SLA to counter-act the reports by the Tigers in the propaganda war. As such, a conservative estimate of 397 SLA soldiers were reported to have been killed since then, 32 of them in the east of the country. ''

What is this "new government policy"? Can someone please back this up with a reliable source? Government websites are still giving out their official casualty details and the media are publishing them as usual. This looks like original research to me. Also, the source given is tamilnet for the casualties, which is not accepted as a reliable source (see here). We need reliable third party sources for the casualty details.  C h a m a l  talk 02:23, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * There is nothing biased or OR about the statements given, the government policy has been implemented, if you don't belive me here is a reference that backs up the claim . I will cite the statement that confirms it so you could find it in the ref Sri Lanka’s defence ministry had decided in October to stop revealing daily casualty figures, saying they would affect military operations. If you would check I belive you could find on other sites something similar said. I will reinsert the paragraph you removed with this reference. I don't know about Sri Lankan media, and I have not heard anything about government websites giving the numbers. All of the numbers given by Reuters, BBC, CNN, AP and AFP in the alst two months have been based on reports by tamilnet. The military has just only started again to give sporadic reports of their casualties in the last 10 days since the LTTE started claiming massive SLA casualties about a week ago. Again the reports are only sporadic so they could counter the LTTE's claims of massive casualties (such is the propaganda war), but in November there was almost not even one report by the government itself in the international media on the number of dead, the only numbers were given by the LTTE. I am willing for a compromise, let's put this reference now that confirms the stop to revealing military dead, and you give me the URL of the website you say is giving the number of killed and will insert it too and I'll check out what those numbers are that are claimed by the government website and put them in the article, but I would prefer that the website is in English because I don't speak Sri Lankan, as I also belive that most of the other readers of Wikipedia don't speak Sri Lankan too, after all this is the english-speaking Wikipedia, no offense I hope. In any case, will wait for your reply. Cheers!89.216.235.147 (talk) 07:13, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not that Chamal didn't believe you&mdash;see WP:V. Reliable sources are needed for statements like the one you added.  Allanon   ♠The Dark Druid♠ 07:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, did you have a reliable source to back up the rest? Otherwise, it really can't be included... (I mean this part: "..the only source on the numbers of SLA dead were the ones from the Tamils. There were also several sporadic reports by the SLA to counter-act the reports by the Tigers in the propaganda war. As such, a conservative estimate of 397 SLA soldiers were reported to have been killed since then, 32 of them in the east of the country")  Allanon   ♠The Dark Druid♠ 07:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I was not aware of this policy, but as your ref says it is there. The local media (both printed and electronic) report casualty figures, taken from the Media Centre for National Security. The figures given out by the LTTE are also reported, but these are usually regarded skeptically and are always followed by the military's denial of these figures and then figures given by the military. The facts in the article are referenced, and since verifiability is what we want here, I will leave them as it is. I have made some fixes to make that part more neutral. I will do some research on this and add some more info and refs in the next few days. I don't think that the "only sources available are Tamil sources" is true (since as I have said, local media are giving details), but right now I don't have any references to add any other info.  C h a m a l  talk 01:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem
This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

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