Number 54 in Helion’s Asia @ War Series is the 4th Volume on the Sri Lankan War, from 1995-2002. Also called the Eelam War III, this Volume covers the Northern Theatre of the war to its conclusion. The author is a Swiss military researcher and has published 20 books on military topics. For this larger than normal Volume, he has done a brilliant and evocative job on bringing this civil war to light.

Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) is a large island off the southern tip of India, and has a tumultuous history of internecine warfare. This volume is strictly about the military events, and does not cover the political situations, atrocities or human rights violations in detail - these have been manifested in the first three volumes, by Amnesty International and other NGOs.

Largely a brutal, classic, decades-long guerrilla war by the Tamil sect (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE) targeting the Sri Lankan national government of Sinhalese and Muslim communities (SLA), the focus is on the military gear and operations, and outcomes. Air, land and sea theaters are analyzed. The actions considered both sides, when possible, and provided eye-witness accounts. These volumes present war unfiltered and without taking sides.

For modelers, since this war used mostly Russian, European, Chinese and Israeli equipment, many interesting and rarely seen topics abound from the numerous color plates, photos and figures of men, arms, artillery, ground vehicles, marine craft and aircraft.

Footnote: this conflict, started in 1983, reignited and was finally ended in 2009 after 80-100,000 deaths. Peace has been maintained since then.

Chapters:

• Note, Abbreviations and Acronyms, Preface and Introduction
• Chapter One – Tigers and Lions - Illustrates the forces of each opposing groups
• Chapter Two – Dangerous Skies - The air war is chronicled
• Chapter Three – Riviresa - Government forces take the Tamils' historical stronghold, the Jaffa Peninsula
• Chapter Four – Disaster in the Vanni - Government forces pushed the Tamils out of another stronghold, at great cost
• Chapter Five –Contested Seas - Chronicles vicious small boat activities
• Chapter Six – Jayasikirui - Continued back and forth gains by both sides
• Chapter Seven –Unceasing Waves 3 - Tamil LTTE forces take back territory from the Government troops
• Conclusion: Bloody Endgame – Both sides were depleted, but SLA government used their larger resources to force the Tamils to negotiations to end the conflict in a cease-fire.
• Bibliography
• Endnotes

Figures:

• Figure 1: Front Cover of Paradise Afire
• Figure 2: Rear Cover of Paradise Afire
• Figure 3: LTTE (Tamil Sea Tigers) typical suicide boat. Note the projecting rostrum detonation device on the bow.
• Figure 4: Sri Lankan Army T-55 main battle tank, manufactured in Czech Republic.
• Figure 5: LTTE commanders inspecting female Sea Tigers. Women filled front-line combat roles, with hundreds being killed in action.