The news of the arrest of Kumaran Pathmanathan alias 'KP' could not have come at a better time for the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration. It had just concluded its final propaganda rallies for the Uva Provincial Council elections on Thursday night, when the news broke that KP was arrested in Malaysia and brought down to Colombo.

But, his arrest has far wider ramifications than the widely anticipated results of the provincial elections. KP needs no introduction to Sri Lankans. He has been considered the lynchpin, so to say, of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) -- the man who pulled the strings from behind-the-scenes for the terror outfit from afar, up until the last dying moments of its military and political hierarchy that operated on this island-nation.

With the defeat of the LTTE militarily, the Government made it plain that the 'war' was not over. It said it would go after KP - it mentioned him by name - and pursue the terror outfit's international links. The pursuit of the LTTE's masterminds who operated on the world scene was a different 'kettle of fish' to hunting down the fighting cadres within the shores of this small island. This by itself was no mean task. And, here again, the Government has succeeded.

Despite its own clumsiness displayed in its conduct of diplomacy, the Government, by all accounts, has managed to strike the correct chord with Asian governments in particular, in its continuing battle against terrorism, and the remnants of terrorism.

KP was known to be lavish with the funds collected by the LTTE. He wined and dined with people in high places in South East Asian nations - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia etc., and he would have felt a certain element of invincibility to remain in those capitals freely moving about on false passports, being seen through Immigration desks on departure and arrival by influential friends.

The brashness with which he moved about, and the fact that he was arrested eventually in Malaysia, a country that has banned the LTTE as a terrorist organization is proof of his own belief that he was untouchable. The sting operation by which he was eventually nabbed has all the hallmarks of a classic top class intelligence operation with strike capabilities. KP would hardly have bargained for it.

With the decimation of the LTTE military apparatus, KP tried desperately to change course, and began floating position papers calling for political negotiations with the Sri Lanka Government. This was probably too little too late.

He would have known that the heat would now be on him, and he needed to ward off the Interpol and those law enforcement agencies that would start to show some interest in him for his complicity in the crimes committed by the LTTE, both in Sri Lanka and India. He would have known that in warfare, to the victory goes all the fruits, and the vanquished ends with the just deserts. He would have also wanted some political legitimacy and respectability in a post-war era.

Equally, he would have wanted to keep the Diaspora that funded the LTTE in its history of atrocities as an organized entity. In short, he wanted to keep the LTTE alive.

KP holds the key to the LTTE's foreign financial assets, which by all accounts are a substantial amount. He knows the names of LTTE operatives, who were fund collectors, the individuals who were in charge of weapons procurements, those who ran their merchant shipping vessels, those engaged in drug cartels and crime networks that laundered monies by purchasing real estate, and shares in companies - if there was one man who had all this information in the possession of one head, or computer - it was not even the erstwhile leader of the LTTE, but KP himself. It is for this reason that the arrest of KP is an important catch of a 'Big Fish'. KP could be termed the CEO and Managing Director of Eelam Incorporation, the multi-national financial empire and crime syndicate of the LTTE.

The Government would clearly wish to be privy to this information, and his capture is likely to send a shiver down the collective spines of those LTTE operatives who were part and parcel of this, three-decade long insurgency that wrecked the lives of so many people, especially those living in the North and the East of this country.

In a sense, KP is fortunate to have not faced the same fate as his partners-in-crime who were felled in mortal combat in May. He will necessarily undergo intense interrogation and probably be put on trial. Additionally, he is wanted in India, for aiding and abetting in the murder of its one-time Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

As the LTTE's fighters were faced with imminent defeat, it seemed KP was the heir-apparent to LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He was made the leader of the 'International Wing'. The move was more than symbolic. It made clear that KP, a relative of the one-time supremo, would be the successor. But a residual faction of the LTTE was not happy with the move. As KP began resurrecting the guerrilla group from outside Sri Lanka, together with a New York based lawyer and a committee anointing himself as leader, there were others who resented it. They are small in number, but with KP set to tell his tales to the Government of Sri Lanka, the question is how far the rivals could go. The capture of KP appears the first step in dismantling the international outreach of a guerrilla outfit that has shocked the world for more than quarter of a century.