This is the second part in a series on North Korea’s assistance to revolutionary movements in Sri Lanka. Click here for part one.

The mortars thumped through the night, drifting from several miles out to sea. By day Trincomalee was a pretty if somnolent port city, ringed by police checkpoints. In the backstreets, shaded by coconut palms, stucco bungalows gave way to multicoloured shrines, Hindu or Catholic. Fishing boats bobbed in the waters near Fort Frederick, a sweeping promontory occupied by the Navy. By night, with curfew imposed, I listened as artillery boomed south towards an area without government control.