COLOMBO: As Sri Lanka’s twenty four year old civil war drags on with no clear solution in sight, reports reveal that a militarily weakening Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) headed by the ailing war maestro Vellupillai Prabhakaran is facing an internal crisis, three years after the outfit suffered its first major split.

A controversy is reportedly in the offing over the rebel leader’s decision to hand over the guerilla group’s leadership to Charles Anthony, the eldest of his three children.

The 52-year-old Prabhakaran who is said to be suffering from hypertension and diabetes, reportedly wants Anthony to be his successor, a move which analysts say could create yet another division within the group.

Reports say there is growing opposition among senior guerilla’s against the decision to hand over the LTTE’s reins to Anthony, 23, is an aeronautical engineer who heads the guerilla air wing which carried out two air attacks on Colombo since March.

The new tremors within the Tiger rebel top ranks is it’s second upheaval since the former eastern district rebel militant, Karuna broke away from the LTTE to wage war on Prabhakaran and the mainstream rebels in February 2004.

Meanwhile recent local military intelligence reports confirmed of a rift between the LTTE leader and rebel Sea Tiger chief, Soosai.

After a considerable silence the rebels last week confirmed earlier rumours that its naval chief was injured in an “accidental” explosion off the seas in the rebel held northern region of Mullativu. The guerilla group also acknowledged that son of Soosai was killed in the blast.

The Defence Ministry in Colombo also revealed a power struggle between the guerilla intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman and its political chief, S. P. Thamilselvam. The Ministry also said that eight rebel tax officials had been executed following disagreements with top rebel leaders.

Analysts meanwhile raise doubts as to whether Vellupillai Prabhakaran will be able to withstand yet another fracture in the organization.

“The rebel group has seen its share of internal conflict in 2004 which is still continuing in the form of unexplained murders and abductions contributing to much of the violence in the north-east. If there is another rift before or after the death of Prabhakaran it will decide if the LTTE will continue to exist”, one analyst noted.

Whatever impending crisis that is in store, defence analysts agree that it is a weakened rebel group which will have to face it.

The LTTE has in the past months suffered some of its worst defeats at the hand of the military, coupled with international crack downs on its arms procurement and regular attacks by the Sri Lankan Navy on rebel ships smuggling weapons.

Intercepted radio communications of the Tamil Tigers had recently claimed that the rebel leadership had ordered a stop to the launching of offensives into military held areas due to shortage of military hardware.

Military and independent sources confirm that with the global noose on LTTE activities abroad tightening, rebel fund raising activities which sustained the organization are severely affected.

“It is a weakened LTTE which came to the negotiating table in 2002. What we have right now is a very feeble outfit which was fully ousted from all of its eastern strongholds earlier this year. The rebels are at present confined to its northern bases but on those regions too military operations have commenced”, a military official noted.

Whether Prabhakaran will pass on the war to his eldest offspring to be continued for another twenty four years and face the threat of further fissures within his band of rebels or if he would sooner than later respond to the government’s sporadic peace calls are yet to be seen.

The most recent peace offering by the Sri Lankan government came last Sunday when Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse told the Colombo based Sunday Island newspaper that government troops will not press ahead with an offensive if Tamil Tiger rebels agree to return to the negotiating table.

However since Sunday over thirty LTTE cadres have been killed in fresh clashes with government troops in the north.