Tamil Tigers' Tactics

The Tamil Tigers are again wreaking havoc in Sri Lanka. According to an Economist briefing from the January 12-18 edition, a government official was killed in the bombing near Colombo. (I couldn't find it on the Economist website, but it's on p. 8 of the journal under the heading "A violent state of affairs"). I've read a few NYT articles on the recent bombings and shootings, trying to find more information, but none of them mentioned the death of a government minister. However, the mentioning in the Economist caught my attention because it could shed greater light on the Tigers' strategies. If they are randomly exploding bombs in public places, perhaps they are just trying to get international attention (and influence within the state). Yet, if the Colombo bomb was purposefully exploded to kill the late government minister, then perhaps they were employing the "decapitation" strategy discussed in class. Granted, they did not assassinate the head of state, but they did kill a state leader. We can't really make this call without more information though; to identify the strategy (or strategies) used, we would need to know if the minister was a deliberate victim of the terrorist act.