The abortive attempt on Sri Lanka army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonsenka by a suspected pregnant LTTE woman cadre inside the military headquarters in April 2006 in a way can be termed as the beginning of the last war fought by the LTTE under Prabhakaran's command. A seriously injured Fonseka escaped death by a whisker and spent the next five months in hospital.

Rajapakse, who was elected as president in November 2005, had fought the election against his rival and former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on the plank of wiping out terrorism from the island nation and the military defeat of the LTTE. Ironically, the Tigers helped Rajapakse's ascent to the most powerful position in Sri Lanka by its diktat to the Tamils, who traditionally supported Wickremesinghe's party, to boycott the election. Despite this generous help from the LTTE, Rajapakse won the election only by a margin of 150,000 votes.

He got the much needed opportunity to launch a military offensive against the Tigers in August 2006 when the LTTE blocked the sluice gates of an irrigation canal in the east over a dispute with the government on execution of a development project in the province.

What began as a fight between the government and the LTTE over the canal issue escalated into a full-fledged war. It was the beginning of the end of the LTTE with the military notching one victory after the other.

Colombo-based journalist B Murlidhar Reddy of The Hindu has covered these extraordinary times with a high degree of professionalism. Reddy was the only foreign print media journalist to witness the last phase of the war from inside the war zone.