JIHAN HAMEED
COLOMBO
In the space of days, two serious transport disasters have unfolded in South Asia’s most sensitive zone. An Air India Express aircraft crashed. Days later, a Singapore-flagged cargo vessel operated by Wan Hai Lines, a major Chinese shipping player, caught fire after departing Colombo en route to Mumbai.
Two events. Two sectors. Two powers. Both tied to the Indian Ocean corridor where Sri Lanka sits quietly but dangerously at the midpoint.
Most will dismiss these incidents as technical failures. But to those who understand how hybrid destabilization works, the question is not whether they are connected. The question is: who gains from such disruption? This corridor is the future battlefield of great power competition. India seeks to project aviation dominance. China builds commercial maritime control. Third-party actors, state or non-state, may seek to disrupt both without direct confrontation.
When planes fall from the sky and ships burn on the water in close sequence, hybrid signals cannot be ruled out. Intelligence professionals call this “pattern escalation” — when multiple domains are tested simultaneously to measure national response, expose weaknesses, or quietly send warnings.
Sri Lanka’s position at the crossroads makes us a passive target zone for such operations. Our airspace, sea routes, and data corridors form part of a larger struggle that most of our public discourse remains blind to.
At this stage, these may still be isolated incidents. But if further disruptions follow in the weeks ahead, the pattern will harden into something far more deliberate. It is time for the Sri Lankan state to remain alert, and for the public to begin understanding how invisible wars unfold long before official conflicts ever begin.
(About the Author : Jihan Hameed operates at the intersection of civilian intelligence, state sovereignty, and hybrid threat analysis. As one of Sri Lanka’s leading independent investigators, she monitors emerging patterns of destabilization, covert influence, and regional power competition impacting Sri Lanka’s national security architecture.)
File pix courtesy USA Today
