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Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Template:Rtl-lang
The official emblem of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Leader	Velupillai Prabhakaran
Dates of operation	1976 – present
Motives	The creation of a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka
Active regions	Sri Lanka
Ideology	Tamil nationalism
Status	As of February 25, 2009, has control over 58 km area in northern Sri Lanka,proscribed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries

Template:History of Terrorism The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Template:Lang-ta, ISO 15919: tamiḻ iiḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ; commonly known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers) is a militant organization based in northern Sri Lanka. Founded in 1976, it has since actively waged a violent secessionist campaign that seeks to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. This campaign has evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, one of longest running armed conflicts in Asia. Since its formation, the LTTE has been headed by its founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The Tamil Tigers are currently proscribed as a terrorist organization by 32 countries (see list of countries). They have a well-developed militia cadre, and are notorious for commiting atrocities against civilians, for carrying out high profile attacks, including the assassinations of several high ranking Sri Lankan and Indian politicians, and for recruiting child soldiers. They are known for pioneering suicide bombing as a tactic among militant groups, and have carried out more suicide bombings than Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda combined. The LTTE are the only rebel organization known to have possessed aircraft.

Over the course of the conflict, the Tamil Tigers have frequently taken control of territory in north-east Sri Lanka, engaging in fierce confrontations with the Sri Lankan military in the process. They have also been involved in peace talks to end the conflict four separate times, each time unsuccessfully, and at the start of the latest round of peace talks in 2002 they ran a virtual mini-state in areas under their control. However after the breakdown of the talks in 2006, the Sri Lankan military launched a major offensive against the Tamil Tigers, bringing a vast area under their control and limiting the Tigers to a 58 km area in the Mullaithivu District.

As a result of this offensive, there is increasing belief that the final military defeat of the LTTE is near, although they may launch an underground guerrilla campaign if defeated as a conventional force. There have also been growing calls for the LTTE to surrender, including a joint statement issued in February 2009 by the United States, the European Union, Japan and Norway, which said there was "just a short time before the Tigers lost all the territory still under their control".

History

v t e Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009)
Origins	Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism Sinhala Only Act 1956 1958 Vaddukoddai Resolution 1977 1981 Burning of Jaffna Library Black July
Combatants	Sri Lanka Army (LRRP) Navy Air Force Police Special Task Force Home Guards Attacks on civilians Assassinations LTTE Divisions Air Tigers Sea Tigers Black Tigers Attacks in the 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Assassinations Suicide bombings Other militants (list) ENDLF ENLF EPRLF EROS PLOTE TELO  India Indian Peace Keeping Force Paramilitary groups EPDP TMVP
Phases	Eelam War I Indian intervention Eelam War II III IV Eastern / Northern theatres
Major battles	Kokkilai Vadamarachchi Poomalai Pawan Jaffna University Helidrop Balavegaya 1st Elephant Pass Pooneryn Riviresa 1st Mullaitivu Weli Oya Sath Jaya Vavunathivu Jayasikurui Thandikulam–Omanthai 1st Kilinochchi Oddusuddan A-9 highway 2nd Elephant Pass Bandaranaike Airport attack Point Pedro Jaffna Thoppigala Vidattaltivu 2nd Kilinochchi 2nd Mullaitivu Puthukkudiyirippu
Major events	Air Lanka Flight 512 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord Expulsions from Northern province Assassination of Lalith Athulathmudali Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi Assassination of Ranasinghe Premadasa Temple of the Tooth attack Lionair Flight 602 Bandaranaike Airport attack Expulsions from Colombo 2009 suicide air raid on Colombo
Leaders	Sri Lanka Military Army Tissa Weeratunga Nalin Seneviratne Hamilton Wanasinghe Cecil Waidyaratne G. H. De Silva Rohan Daluwatte Srilal Weerasooriya L. P. Balagalle Shantha Kottegoda Sarath Fonseka Navy Asoka de Silva H. A. Silva Clancy Fernando D. A. M. R. Samarasekara H. C. A. C. Thisera Daya Sandagiri Wasantha Karannagoda Air Force Dick Perera Andibuduge Fernando Makalandage Gunawardena Oliver Ranasinghe Jayalath Weerakkody Donald Perera Roshan Goonetileke Civilian J. R. Jayewardene Ranasinghe Premadasa Dingiri Banda Wijetunga Chandrika Kumaratunga Mahinda Rajapaksa LTTE Militant Velupillai Prabhakaran Pottu Amman Soosai Karuna Amman Political Selvarasa Pathmanathan Anton Balasingham S. P. Thamilselvan India Military Harkirat Singh Ashok K. Mehta Kulwant Singh Depinder Singh Dalvir Singh Krishnaswamy Sundarji Civilian R. Venkataraman Rajiv Gandhi V. P. Singh Jyotindra Nath Dixit J. Jayalalithaa M. Karunanidhi Vaiko
Aftermath	Genocide Films NPC resolution LLRC Reactions (Protests) Remembrance Day UN Panel on Accountability War crimes Chemical weapons
Related topics	Casualties Assassinations Massacres Child soldiers Disappearances Office on Missing Persons Human rights Popular culture Terrorism Non-state State PTA Sexual violence Sixth Amendment Thirteenth Amendment 1988 Maldives coup attempt 1987–1989 JVP insurrection
Sri Lankan civil war at Wiktionary    Source texts at Wikisource    Textbooks at Wikibooks   Images and media at the Commons    Quotations at Wikiquote    News stories at Wikinews

Rise to power

The LTTE was founded in 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran and attracted many supporters amongst disenchanted Tamil youth. The LTTE carried out low-key attacks against various government targets, including policemen and local politicians. A notable attack carried out was the assassination of the Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiyappah. Initially the LTTE operated in cooperation with other Tamil militant groups which shared their same objectives, and in April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between itself, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).

TELO usually held the Indian view of problems and pushed for India's view during peace talks with Sri Lanka and other groups. LTTE denounced the TELO view and claimed that India was only acting on its own interest. As a result in 1986, the LTTE broke from the ENLF. Soon fighting broke out between the TELO and the LTTE, with clashes taking place between the groups over the next few months. As a result almost the entire TELO leadership and many of the TELO militants were killed by the LTTE. The LTTE attacked training camps of the EPRLF a few months later, forcing it to withdraw entirely from the Jaffna peninsula.

The LTTE then demanded that all remaining Tamil insurgents join the LTTE. Notices were issued to that effect in Jaffna and in Madras, India where the main headquarters of Tamil groups was located. With the major groups including the TELO and EPRLF eliminated, the remaining Tamil insurgent groups, numbering around 20, were then absorbed into the LTTE, making Jaffna an LTTE dominated city.

LTTE's practice such as wearing a cyanide vial for consumption if captured appealed to the Tamil people as dedication and sacrifice. Other practices by the LTTE also involved taking an oath of loyalty which reiteration of the LTTE’s goal of establishing a state for the Sri Lankan Tamils also gave them the edge on the support by Tamil people.

In 1987 the LTTE established the Black Tigers, a unit of the LTTE responsible for conducting suicide attacks against political, economic and military targets, and launched its first suicide attack against a Sri Lanka Army camp, killing 40 soldiers. Shortly afterwards, Hamas drew inspiration from the LTTE attack and carried out its own suicide bombing in Israel.

The IPKF period

In 1987, faced with growing anger amongst its own Tamils, and a flood of refugees, India intervened directly in the conflict for the first time by initially airdropping food parcels into Jaffna. After subsequent negotiations, India and Sri Lanka entered into an agreement. Though the conflict was between the Tamil and Sinahlese people, India and Sri Lanka signed the peace accord instead of India influencing both parties to sign a peace accord among themselves. The peace accord assigned a certain degree of regional autonomy in the Tamil areas with Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) controlling the regional council and called for the Tamil militant groups to lay down their arms. Furthermore, India was to send a peacekeeping force, named the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), part of the Indian Army, to Sri Lanka to enforce the disarmament and to watch over the regional council.

Even though the accord was signed between the governments of Sri Lanka and India, with the Tamil Tigers and other Tamil militant groups not having a role in the signing of the accord, most Tamil militant groups accepted this agreement. The LTTE rejected the accord because they opposed the candidate, who belonged to the EPRLF, for chief administrative officer of the merged Northern and Eastern provinces. Instead the LTTE named three other candidates for the position. The candidates proposed by the LTTE were rejected by India. The LTTE subsequently refused to hand over their weapons to the IPKF.

The result was that the LTTE now found itself engaged in military conflict with the Indian Army, and launched their first attack on an Indian army rations truck on October 8, killing five Indian para-commandos who were on board by strapping burning tires around their necks. The government of India then decided that the IPKF should disarm the LTTE by force, and the Indian Army launched number of assaults on the LTTE, including a month-long campaign dubbed Operation Pawan to win control of the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. The ruthlessness of this campaign, and the Indian army's subsequent anti-LTTE operations made it extremely unpopular amongst many Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The post-IPKF LTTE

The Indian intervention was also unpopular amongst the Sinhalese majority, and the IPKF became bogged down in the fighting with the Tamil Tigers for over 2 years, experiencing heavy losses. The last members of the IPKF, which was estimated to have had a strength of well over 50,000 at its peak, left the country in 1990 upon request of the Sri Lankan government. A shaky peace initially held between the government and the LTTE, and peace talks progressed towards providing devolution for Tamils in the north and east of the country.

Fighting continued throughout the 1990s, and was marked by two key assassinations carried out by the LTTE, that of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, using suicide bombers in both occasions. The fighting was briefly halted in 1994 following the election of Chandrika Kumaratunga as President of Sri Lanka and the onset of peace talks, but fighting resumed following the sinking of two Sri Lanka Navy boats in April 1995 by the LTTE. In a series of military operations that followed, the Sri Lanka Army re-captured the Jaffna peninsula, the heartland of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Further offensives followed over the next three years, and the military captured vast areas in the north of the country from the LTTE, including area in the Vanni region, the town of Kilinochchi and many smaller towns. However, from 1998 onward the LTTE hit back, reversing these losses, culminating in the capture of the strategically important Elephant Pass base complex, which is located at the entrance of the Jaffna Peninsula, in April 2000, after prolonged fighting against the Sri Lanka Army.

Mahattaya, a one-time deputy leader of the LTTE, was accused of treason by the LTTE and killed in 1994. He is said to have collaborated with the Indian Research and Analysis Wing to remove Prabhakaran from the LTTE leadership.

The 2001 ceasefire

In 2001 the LTTE dropped its demand for a separate state. Instead, they stated that a form of regional autonomy would meet their demands. Following the landslide election defeat of Kumaratunga and the coming to power of Ranil Wickramasinghe in December 2001, the LTTE declared a unilateral ceasefire. As a result the Sri Lankan Government also agreed to the ceasefire. In March 2002 both sides signed an official Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). As part of the agreement, Norway and the other Nordic countries agreed to jointly monitor the ceasefire through the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.

Six rounds of peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and Tamil Tigers were held but they were temporarily suspended after the LTTE pulled out of the talks in 2003 claiming "certain critical issues relating to the ongoing peace process".

In 2003 the LTTE proposed an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA). This move by the LTTE was welcomed by the international community. This proposal was based on self-governing authority. However, the Sri Lankan President rejected this offer.

In December 2005, the LTTE boycotted the 2005 presidential election. While LTTE claimed that the people under its control were free to vote it is alleged that they used threats to prevent the population from voting. The United States condemned this act.

Further peace talks were scheduled in Oslo, Norway, on June 8 and 9, 2006, but canceled when the LTTE refused to meet directly with the government delegation, claiming its fighters were not being allowed safe passage to travel to the talks. Norwegian mediator Erik Solheim told journalists that the LTTE should take direct responsibility for the collapse of the talks.

Rifts grew between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE which resulted in a number of ceasefire agreement violations by both sides during 2006. Suicide attacks, military skirmishes and air raids took place during the latter part of 2006.

Military confrontation continued into 2007 and 2008. On January 2008 the government officially pulled out of the Cease Fire Agreement.

2009 offensive

On January 2, 2009, the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, announced that that the Sri Lankan troops had captured Kilinochchi, which the LTTE had used for over a decade as their de facto administrative capital. It was stated that the loss of Killinochchi had caused a substantial dent in the LTTE's image. It was also stated that after the fall of Kilinochchi the LTTE was likely to collapse before long under unbearable military pressure on multiple fronts.

As of January 8, 2009, the LTTE were abandoning their positions on the Jaffna peninsula to make a last stand in the jungles of Mullaitivu, their last main base. The entire Jaffna peninsula was captured by the Sri Lanka Army by January 14, 2009.

On January 25, 2009 SLA troops "completely captured" Mullaitivu town, the last major LTTE stronghold.

As a result of the offensive, there is increasing belief that the final military defeat of the LTTE is near, although the LTTE may launch an underground guerrilla campaign if they are defeated as a conventional force.

Dissension

In the biggest show of dissent from within the organization, a senior LTTE commander named Colonel Karuna (nom de guerre of Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan) broke away from the LTTE in March 2004 and formed the TamilEela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal amid allegations that the northern commanders were overlooking the needs of the eastern Tamils. The LTTE leadership accused him of mishandling of funds and questioned him about his recent personal behavior. He tried to take control of the eastern province from the LTTE, which caused clashes between the LTTE and TEMVP. The LTTE has suggested that TEMVP is backed by the government, and the Nordic SLMM monitors have corroborated this.

Organisation and activities

Structure

The LTTE is organized into three main divisions, namely, a military wing, political wing and the fund raising wing. A central governing body oversees all of the above divisions, which is headed by the LTTE supreme leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Military

In the LTTE, recruits are instructed to be prepared to die for the cause, and are issued with a cyanide capsule to be swallowed in the case of capture. The LTTE also has a special squad of suicide bombers, called the Black Tigers, which it deploys for critical missions.

The military wing contains following specific subdivisions, which are directly controlled and directed by the central governing body:

• Sea Tigers - an amphibious warfare unit focusing on utilization of naval firepower and logistics, mainly consisting of lightweight boats.
• Air Tigers - an airborne group, consisting of several lightweight aircraft. It is known to be the world's first air force controlled by an organization proscribed as terrorists.
• Black Tigers - a suicide commando unit.
• An intelligence wing.
• A political wing.

Sea Tigers

The Sea Tigers is the naval force of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and is lead by Colonel Soosai. The Sea Tigers are believed to have about 2,000 personnel and have become a potent threat to the Sri Lankan Navy at Sea. In a 2006 publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Politics and International Studies reckons that they have destroyed 35-50 percent of the Sri Lankan Navy's coastal craft.

Following its northern offensive, the Sri Lankan military reported that it captured Sea Tiger main base in Mullaitivu and several boat yards. In early February 2009, the military reported once again that it captured the last major Sea Tiger base killing three senior commanders in the process thus limiting Sea Tiger operations. Several days later it was claimed that Sea Tigers leader Soosai and several top aids were killed in a Sri Lanka Air Force raid on a command center.

Air Tigers

The Air Tigers is the air force of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Air Tigers are believed to operate five light aircraft. The Air Tigers were revealed on 2007 when it conducted its first air raid on the Sri Lankan Air Force base. Since then they have conducted another four air raids. With the Air Tigers the Tamil Tigers became the first non state organization to establish an air force. Despite Sri Lankan Army's capture of Killinochi on Jan 02 2009, they were not able to locate the LTTE aircraft.

Administrative

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.

Even though the LTTE was formed as a military group, it has later transformed itself to a de facto government. The LTTE controls sections in the north of the island, especially the regions lying around the cities of Killinochchi and Mulathivu.

The LTTE has implemented a judicial system that consists of courts to adjudicate in criminal and civil matters. Currently the Tamil Eelam judicial system consists of district courts, high courts and supreme court as well as a court of appeal. The district courts handle civil and criminal cases. The two high courts handles criminal cases such as rape, murder, treason and arson. The supreme court has jurisdiction over the whole of Tamil Eelam. The Tamil Eelam courts are said to be effective and people who have a choice go to the Tamil Eelam courts rather than the Sri Lankan courts. LTTE also releases law books that are updated.

LTTE has also established a police force. The Tamil Eelam police is the other key factor in maintaining law and order. The Tamil Eelam police was formed in 1991 and currently has its headquarters at Killinochi. Police stations have been established in all areas that are controlled by the LTTE. The LTTE claims that their police force is the reason for the low crime rate but critics of LTTE claim that the police force is an integrated arm of the LTTE armed force and that the crime rate is low as a result of LTTE authoritarian rules. However, everyone agrees the Tamil Eelam police force and the judicial system is reason for high degree of rule of law in the areas controlled by the LTTE.

Another state function of the LTTE administration is social welfare. This humanitarian assistant arm is funded by tax collection internally. LTTE has also established an education and health sector that offers services to the people under their control. They have also created a human rights organization, called Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights, that functions to advocate the rights of Tamils. Though not recognized by international government it acts as a human rights commission. The commission has communicated with the LTTE regarding complaints of child recruiting which has resulted in the release of the recruit. The Planning and Development Secretariat (PDS) was established in 2004 which acted as a needs assessment body which was responsible for studying the needs for people and formulating a plan for effective action in areas that needed humanitarian assistance. There are also many civil servants who work in the LTTE-controlled areas who are directed by the LTTE but are paid by the Sri Lankan government.. Furthermore, a customs service is also operated at the "border" by the Tamil Tigers.

In addition to the civil administration LTTE also runs its own radio and television stations. These entities are named the Voice of Tigers and National Tamil Eelam Television respectively. Both the radio and television channel are aired from the areas under LTTE control.

LTTE also runs a bank named the Bank of Tamileelam which uses the Sri Lankan rupee as its currency but offers higher rates than any bank on the island.

Following the Sri Lankan Army's capture of the claimed LTTE administrative capital Kilinochchi on 2 January 2009, the LTTE's administration system has been dismantled.

Funds for administration are levied through a system of heavy taxes, and allegedly, extortion.

Humanitarian assistance

After the Asian Tsunami in 2004 the Tigers set up a special task force called tsunami task force. The newly established force was responsible for humanitarian assistance to the people affected by the tsunami. The Planning and Development Secretariat (PDS) was responsible for needs assessments for various humanitarian organization to maximize effectiveness of resettlement reconstruction and rehabilitation. After the tsunami the PDS was responsible of coordinating and directing the various NGO's that were involved in Tsunami relief work. Furthermore, according to Tsunami Evaluation Coalition the key NGO's who responded also claimed that the LTTE forces provided extremely efficient and focused leadership and support to the relief effort in the areas controlled by the Tigers.

During the second round of negotiation between Tigers and the Government of Sri Lanka an agreement was reached for a joint Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS). This mechanism would allow the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to share funds for tsunami relief. However, this agreement was bitterly opposed by hardliners in the Sri Lankan government and some moderates. As a result the P-TOMS was challenged in the Sri Lankan supreme court. The Sri Lankan supreme court put the P-TOMS on hold.

Political

The 2002 Cease Fire Agreement made the LTTE shift its struggle for self-determination from militant to more political means. The LTTE's own political wing was the result of this. This political wing also played a critical role in regard to both the peace process and local state building. However, LTTE's political wing did not participate in Sri Lankan parliamentary elections. The LTTE instead openly supported the Tamil National Alliance. The Tamil National Alliance won overwhelmingly in 22 out of 25 electorates in the North-east and won over 90% of votes in the electoral district of Jaffna

Women in LTTE

In 1984, LTTE created a unit of female squad called the Freedom Birds (Suthanthirap Paravaikal). This unit was the first group of women to be given military training in India. The LTTE advocates equality for women from both male oppression and social oppression. The support of the LTTE for equality attracted many women into the LTTE ranks. As a result LTTE became the first Tamil militant group to employ women as soldiers in the battlefield. The main belief of the Tamil women fighter is that their participation in the armed struggle will bring them advantage in the future, peaceful society and allow them to take part in "liberating" their society. The proportion of female combatants in the LTTE was small until June 1990 but increased rapidly afterward. Freedom Birds' first operation was in October 1987 and the first woman combatant to die was 2nd Lt. Maalathi, on October 10, 1987, in an encounter with the IPKF at Kopai on the Jaffna peninsula. An estimated 4000 women cadres have been killed since then, including over a hundred in 'Black Tiger' suicide squads. Apart from military roles, the female soldiers have also produced numerous publications and many of them are described as rich in culture and writing.

List of commanders

Following people are/were the senior commanders of the organization. Some of the names are aliases that don't reflect the person's religious background.

Other LTTE Formations

Evidence of links to other designated terrorist organizations

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As far back as the mid 1970's, LTTE rebels were widely known to have trained members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Southern Lebanon, where concepts of suicide bombings, taxation, and war memorials were imparted to PFLP fighters. After the 1990 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Indian government officials claimed to have discovered a covert link between the PLO and the LTTE, as the former had questionably plead for Mr. Gandhi to accept a proposal from the LTTE - advice which raised eyebrows at the time, but was largely ignored until his assassination shortly thereafter.

As late as 1998, the Tigers clearly stated:

... the LTTE has resolved to work in solidarity with the world national liberation movements, socialist states, and international working class parties. We uphold an anti-imperialist policy and therefore we pledge our militant solidarity against western imperialism, neo-colonialists, Zionism, racism and other forces of reaction.

Because of this perceived anti-West, anti-Israel attitude, some experts have alleged the existence of connections between the LTTE and other internationally designated terrorist organizations including al-Qaeda.

The Westminster Journal further states:

Intelligence agencies are well aware that the LTTE was involved in the 1990's in training the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) both of which are closely linked to al-Qaeda. In 1995 and 1998, an LTTE combat tactician and an LTTE explosives expert accompanying groups of al-Qaeda Arabs was recorded training members of MILF. In 1999, an LTTE combat tactician accompanying a group of al-Qaeda Arabs was recorded training members of the ASG. At the apparent behest of al-Qaeda, the LTTE is recorded training members of Al Ummah (An Islamic terrorist group formed in India in 1992, believed to be responsible for bombings in southern India in 1998) in Tamil Nadu, India.

The Times of India, in a 2001 article, highlights an alleged nexus between al-Qaeda and the LTTE, and claims that " are the first instance of an Islamist group collaborating with an essentially secular outfit". Additionally, the US-based research organisation, "Maritime Intelligence Group," said the Indonesian group, Jemaah Islamiya, which has known links to al-Qaeda, had been trained in sea-borne guerrilla tactics by LTTE sea tiger veterans.

The head of an advocacy group known as "Norwegians Against Terrorism," further described how the Tamil community in Norway, at the behest of the LTTE, sold fake and stolen Norwegian passports to al-Qaeda members. The LTTE itself acquired a fake passport for Ramzi Yousef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

Publicly, the LTTE refuses association with any terrorist organization, claiming that LTTE is only a liberation front. Despite the fact that LTTE is formally a secular organization with no interest in helping establish Islamic regimes, it has allegedly cooperated with groups such as al-Qaeda, the PLO, and JI. While a secular-Islamist alliance seems awkward, al-Qaeda is known to have links to other secular groups such as the Kurdish PKK, and the Palestinian PFLP.

A Council on Foreign Affairs article by Preeti Bhattacharji stated, "the secular nationalist LTTE currently has no operational connection with al-Qaeda, its radical Islamist affiliates, or other terrorist groups," although he continues: "In its early days, experts say the LTTE did train with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The group may still interact with other terrorist organizations through illegal arms markets in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia."

LTTE tactics in other terrorist organizations

Some of LTTE's attacks in Sri Lanka have been copied by, or taught to, other proscribed groups. Some examples are:

• The similarities between previous LTTE attacks against Sri Lanka Navy ships and the al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole which killed 17 US Navy sailors. The incident has raised suspicions of connections between the two groups. The "Maritime Intelligence Group," based in Washington DC claims to have unearthed substantial evidence that the LTTE trained Indonesian Islamists in the technique of maritime suicide bombings. The group, linked to al-Qaeda, is believed to have then passed the technique it learned from the LTTE to al-Qaeda itself.

• The website "South Asian Terrorism Portal" claimed that the LTTE provided forged passports to Ramzi Yousef, the man who was one of the planners of the first attack against the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. The allegation has been backed by the Westminster Journal as well.

• The website "South Asian Terrorism Portal" also states that there are increasing intelligence reports that the LTTE was smuggling arms to various terrorist organizations, including Islamic groups in Pakistan and their counterparts in the Philippines, using their covert smuggling networks, and findings by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that they were building commercial links with al-Qaeda and other militants in Afghanistan, and that several cadres were spotted in Afghan militant camps.
• Falk Rovik, accused the LTTE stole Norwegian passports and sold them to the al-Qaeda organization (in Algeria) to earn money to fund their arms purchases. He further alleged that funds from Government of Norway had been inadvertently diverted to the LTTE.

• India's National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan, alleges that the group raises money through the smuggling of Narcotics. A recent arrest of LTTE operatives in Colombia corroborates this claim.

• According to an "anti-LTTE" website, Glen Jenvey, a former employee of the government of Sri Lanka and a specialist on international terrorism claimed that al-Qaeda has copied most of its terror tactics from the LTTE He highlighted the LTTE as the mastermind that sets the pattern for organizations like al-Qaeda to pursue. However, the Maritime Intelligence Group in Washington goes further, and states that al-Qaeda did not merely copy, but actually learned the tactic through LTTE contacts teaching Indonesians the methods.

• According to Asian Tribune, attacks on civilians in buses and trains in Sri Lanka were copied in the attack on public civilian transport during the July 2005 bombings in London.

• The LTTE's ethnic cleansing campaigns against Muslims in northern Sri Lanka from 1985-1992 provided the inspiration for, and model by which, Kashmiri separatists would evict Hindus from Kashmir in late 1989-1990.

Assassinations

The LTTE has been condemned by various groups for assassination of political and military opponents. The victims include Tamil moderates who coordinated with Sri Lanka Government, Tamil paramilitary groups assisting Sril lankan Army. Most notably the assassination of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who is the head of Sri Lanka, is attributed to LTTE.

LTTE sympathizers justify some of the assassinations by arguing that the people attacked were combatants or persons closely associated with Sri Lankan military intelligence. Specifically in relation to the TELO, the LTTE has said that it had to perform preemptive self-defence because the TELO was in effect functioning as a proxy for India.

Human rights violations

The United States Department of State states that its reason for banning LTTE as a proscribed terrorist group is based on allegations that LTTE does not respect human rights and that it does not adhere to the standards of conduct expected of a resistance movement or what might be called "freedom fighters". The FBI has described the LTTE as "amongst the most dangerous and deadly extremist outfit in the world". Other countries have also proscribed LTTE under the same rationale. Some countries cite that LTTE attacks civilians and recruits children.

Attacks on civilians

The LTTE has launched attacks on civilian targets several times. Notable attacks include the Aranthalawa Massacre, Anuradhapura massacre, Kattankudy mosque massacre, the Kebithigollewa massacre and the Dehiwala train bombing. Civilians have also been killed in attacks on economic targets, such as the Central Bank bombing.

Child soldiers

The LTTE has been accused of recruiting and using child soldiers to fight against Sri Lankan government forces. The LTTE was accused of having up to 5,794 child soldiers in its ranks since 2001.

Amid international pressure, the LTTE announced in July 2003 that it would stop conscripting child soldiers, but both UNICEF and Human Rights Watch have accused it of reneging on its promises, and of conscripting Tamil children orphaned by the tsunami. However, since 2007, the LTTE has claimed that it will release all of the recruits under the age of 18 before the end of the year. On 18 June 2007, the LTTE released 135 children under the age of 18. UNICEF claims that 506 child recruits remain under the LTTE and notes, along with the United States, that there has been a significant drop in LTTE recruitment of children. A report released by the LTTE's Child Protection Authority (CPA) in 2008 reported that less than 40 soldiers under the age of 18 remained in their forces.

The LTTE argues that instances of child recruitment occurred mostly in the east, under the purview of former LTTE regional commander Colonel Karuna. After leaving the LTTE and forming the TMVP, it is alleged that Karuna continued to forcibly kidnap and induct child soldiers. Its official position is that earlier, some of its cadres erroneously recruited volunteers in their late teens. It says that its official policy is now that it will not accept child soldiers. It also says that some underage youths lie about their age and are therefore allowed to join, but are sent back home to their parents as soon as they are discovered to be underage.

Suicide bombings

The LTTE have carried out more suicide bombings than any other group in the world - more than Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda combined. They pioneered the use of concealed suicide bomb vests. According to Jane's Information Group, between 1980 and 2000, the LTTE carried out a total of 168 suicide attacks causing heavy damage on economic and military targets.

Many of these attacks have involved military objectives in the north and east of the country, although civilians have been targeted on numerous occasions, including during a high profile attack on Colombo's International Airport in 2001 that caused damage to several commercial airliners and military jets, and killed 16 people. The LTTE was also responsible for a 1998 attack on the Buddhist shrine, and UNESCO world heritage site, Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy that killed 8 worshipers. The attack was symbolic in that the shrine, which houses a sacred tooth of the Buddha, and is the holiest Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka. Other Buddhist shrines have been attacked, notably the Sambuddhaloka Temple in Colombo that killed 9 worshipers.

Relatively speaking, there have been fewer operations in the south where most of the Sinhalese live, including the capital Colombo, although such attacks have often engaged high-profile targets and attracted much international publicity as a result.

The LTTE's Black Tigers has been attributed with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed in 1991 using a prototype suicide vest, and Ranasinghe Premadasa, assassinated in 1993.

Ethnic cleansing

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The LTTE is responsible for forcibly removing, or "ethnically cleansing", Sinhalese and Muslim inhabitants from areas under its control, including the use of violence against those who refuse to leave. The evictions happened in the north in 1990, and the east in 1992. Tamil sources openly state:

Islam, however, is not being practised presently , as the Muslims have been asked to leave the Tamil Eelam territory until the independence of Tamil Eelam. The Muslims supported the aggressive Sri Lankan Sinhala and Muslim Military against the freedom of Tamil Eelam.

Ironically, however, Muslim and Tamil communities in the North of Sri Lanka had participated together in the early days of the Tamil movement, and Muslim ironmongers in Mannar fashioned weapons for the LTTE, and local Tamil leaders were disturbed at the LTTE’s call for the eviction of Muslims. However, as Tamil intellectuals began viewing Muslim as outsiders, rather than a part of the Tamil nation as they had been referred to previously, the LTTE undertook its anti-Muslim campaigns.

In the LTTE's 1976 Vaddukodai Resolution, the group condemns the Sri Lankan government for, as it claimed, "unleashing successive bouts of communal violence on both the Tamils and Muslims." In 2005, the "International Federation of Tamils," claimed that the Sri Lankan military purposefully stroked tensions between Tamils and Muslim, in an attempt to undermine Tamil security. As Tamils turned to the LTTE for support, the Muslims were left with the Sri Lankan state as their sole defender, and so in the eyes of the LTTE, the Muslims had legitimized the role of the state, and were thus viewed as Sri Lankans.

Beginning in 1985, the LTTE forcibly occupied 35,000 acres of Muslim-owned farmland in the north of Sri Lanka, before systematically evicting the Muslims from areas under LTTE control.

Although anti-Muslim pogroms had occurred in the north and east of Sri Lanka since 1985, the LTTE embarked on a campaign to expel Muslims from the North in 1989. The first eviction notice was sent to the Muslims of Chavakacheri on October 15, 1989, after the LTTE entered the local mosque and threatened Muslims a few weeks earlier. Afterward, the houses of evicted Muslims were ransacked and looted. On October 28, 1989, the Muslims of Mannar, in the North of Sri Lanka, were told,

"All Muslims living in Mannar island should leave by 28th October. Before leaving, they must seek permission and clearance at the LTTE Office. The LTTE will decide their exit route."

The deadline was extended by four days after pleas from local Tamil Catholics, who were left to look after many Muslims' property in anticipation of looting by the Sri Lankan army - although the Catholics themselves were later robbed by the LTTE of both their own, and the Muslims’ property. On the 28th, while Muslims were preparing to leave, the LTTE barred Hindus from entering Muslim villages and dealing with them. The areas were reopened on the November 3, after Muslims had been packed onto the boats of Muslim fisherman, and sent southwards along the coast.

After a lull in ethnic cleansing, the LTTE on August 3, 1990, sealed off a Shiite mosque in Kattankady, the Meera Jumma and Husseinia, and opened fire through through the mosque's windows, leaving 147 Muslim worshipers dead, out of 300 gathered for Friday prayers. Fifteen days later, LTTE gunmen shot dead between 122 and 173 Muslim civilians in the town of Eravur

The culmination of the ethnic cleansing occurred on October 30 1990, when the LTTE forcibly expelled the entire Muslim population of Jaffna. LTTE commanders from the East announced at 7:30 A.M. that all Muslims in Jaffna were to report to Osmania stadium, where they were to be addressed by two LTTE leaders, Karikalana and Anjaneyar.. After listening to the leaders denigrate Muslims for allegedly attacking Tamils in the east, the leaders explained to the community that they had two hours to evacuate the city. The community was released from the stadium at 10 A.M., and by noon, and were only allowed to carry 500 rupees, while the rest of their possessions were seized by the LTTE after they were forced to report to LTTE checkpoints upon exiting Jaffna.

In total, over 12,700 Muslim families, roughly 75,000 people, were forcibly evicted from LTTE controlled areas on the Jaffna Peninsula, with several thousand more families evicted from Mannar.

In 1992, the LTTE embarked on a campaign to create a contiguous Tamil-Hindu homeland that stretched from the North of Sri Lanka, and downwards along the Eastern Coast. A large Tamil speaking Muslim population inhabited a narrow strip of land between the two entities, and so a pattern of "ethnic cleansing" emerged in Eastern Sri Lanka, as was already done in the North. "The LTTE unleashed violence against the Muslims of Alinchipothanai and killed 69 Muslim villagers. This led to a retaliatory violence against the Tamils in Muthugala , where 49 Tamils were killed allegedly by the Muslim Home guards." Later in the year, the LTTE attacked four Muslim villages (Palliyagodalla, Akbarpuram, Ahmedpuram and Pangurana) and killed 187 Muslims. The Australian Muslim Times later commented on 30 October 1992: “The massacres, eviction and the atrocities by the Tamil Tigers are carried out in order to derive the Muslim Community from their traditional land in the Eastern province as they have done it in the northern province and then set up a separate state only for Tamils”.

In 2002, the LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran had formally apologized for the expulsion of Muslims from the north and asked the Muslims to return. Some families have returned and re-opened the Osmaniya College and two mosques are functioning now. Since the apology, TamilNet, which is widely seen as an LTTE mouthpiece, has featured numerous stories Muslim civilians coming under attack from Sinhalese forces. However, the stories may simply reflect crime, and not the ethnic hatred that TamilNet suggest.

The LTTE are also accused of organizing massacres of Sinhala villagers who settled in the Northeast under the dry lands policy.

LTTE attacks during the anti-Muslim campaigns of 1990

During the summer of 1990, the LTTE killed over 370 Muslims in the North and East of Sri Lanka in 11 mass killings Numerous mosques were attacked, and dozens of pilgrims from the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia were killed. The number of Muslims killed in individual attacks, rather than massacres and high-profile murders, remains unknown. For a list of attacks, see LTTE anti-Muslim pogrom of 1990.

Proscription as a terrorist group

32 countries have listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization including Sri Lanka. As of January 2009, these include:

• India (since 1992)
• United States (designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the Department of State since October 8, 1997. Named as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) since November 2, 2001)
• United Kingdom (designated as Proscribed Terrorist Group under the Terrorism Act 2000 by the Home Secretary since 2000)
• European Union (since 2006; 27 countries)
• Canada (since 2006)
• Sri Lanka (since Jan 1998 - September 4 2002,, reimposed on January 7, 2009)
• Australia (since 2001) and other countries have listed the LTTE as a terrorist group in accordance with Resolution 1373. Canada does not grant residency to LTTE members on the grounds that they have participated in crimes against humanity.

The first country to ban the LTTE was its early ally, India. The Indian change of policy came gradually, starting with the IPKF-LTTE conflict, and culminating with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. India is opposing the new state "Tamil Eelam" that LTTE wants to establish saying that it would lead to Tamil Nadu's separation from India though the leaders of Tamil Nadu are opposing it. Sri Lanka itself lifted the ban on the LTTE before signing the ceasefire agreement in 2002. This was a prerequisite set by the LTTE for the signing of the agreement.

The European Union banned LTTE as a terrorist organization on May 17, 2006. In a statement, the European Parliament said that the LTTE did not represent all the Tamils and called on it to "allow for political pluralism and alternate democratic voices in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka".

Criminal activities

On the 10th of January, 2008, the FBI stated that the Tigers (LTTE) have raised funds under a variety of cover organizations, often by posing as charities. A great deal of money, for example, was raised for the Tigers following the 2004 tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka and many other countries..

One factor that has benefited the LTTE greatly has been its sophisticated international support network. While some of the funding obtained by the LTTE is from legitimate fund raising and extortion among the Tamil diaspora, a significant portion is obtained through criminal activities, involving sea piracy, human smuggling, drug trafficking and gunrunning.

Credit card fraud

The LTTE has also been accused of committing credit card fraud in a number of countries including India, Kenya and the United Kingdom. In April 2007, the Sri Lankan High Commission in London also accused the LTTE of being behind a credit card scam, however a police spokesman said there was no definite link to the LTTE or Sri Lankan gangs. Williams, a writer at US Institute of Peace Press, alleged the LTTE of crimes such as organized crime, social security fraud, counterfeit currency trading.

Three Sri Lankan men arrested in 2007 were convicted in September 2008 for using stolen credit card information to steal $250,000. The prosecutors claim that they were also planning to steal tens of millions more from ATMs worldwide. The men had bought a large number of petrol stations and used sophisticated devices to skim credit card data from customers who paid for their fuel. One of the men a British passport holder was jailed for four and a half years and the other two men were jailed for three years each and deportation was recommended. The prosecutors further alleged that these individuals had LTTE links. However, the defense lawyers deny these claim and insist that they were local criminals.

Sea piracy

The LTTE has been accused of hijacking several vessels in waters outside Sri Lanka including the Irish Mona (in August 1995), Princess Wave (in August 1996), Athena (in May 1997), Misen (in July 1997), Morong Bong (in July 1997), MV Cordiality (in Sept 1997), Princess Kash (in August 1998) and MV Farah III (December 2006). The MV Sik Yang, a 2,818-ton Malaysian-flag cargo ship which sailed from Tuticorin, India on May 25, 1999 was reported missing in waters near Sri Lanka. The ship with a cargo of bagged salt was due at the Malaysian port of Malacca on May 31. The fate of the ship's crew of 15 is unknown. It is suspected that the vessel was hijacked by the LTTE and is now being used as a phantom vessel. Likewise the crew of a Jordanian ship, MV Farah III , that ran aground near LTTE-controlled territory off the island's coast, accused the Tamil Tigers of risking their lives and forcing them to abandon the vessel which was carrying 14,000 tonnes of Indian rice.

Arms smuggling

The Mackenzie Institute claimed that one of LTTE's secretive international operations is the smuggling of weapons, explosives, and "dual use" technologies. The part of the LTTE responsible for these activities is given the nickname "KP Branch", taking the initials of its high level operative, Kumaran Padmanathan. The workers for the KP Branch are from outside the fighting wing of the LTTE, since the identities of those fighters are recorded and available to law enforcement and counter-intelligence agencies by India's RAW, who had helped train many Tiger cadres in the early 1980s. The KP Branch operates secretively by having the minimum connection possible with the LTTE's other sections for further security. It hands over the arms shipments to a team of Sea Tigers to deliver them to the LTTE-dominated areas.

The Mackenzie Institute further claimed that in order to carry out the activities of international arms trafficking, the LTTE operates its own fleet of ocean-going vessels. These vessels only operate a certain period of time for the LTTE and in the remaining time they transport legitimate goods and raise hard cash for the purchase of weapons. The LTTE initially operated a shipping base in Myanmar, but they were forced to leave due to diplomatic pressure. To overcome the loss of this, a new base has been set up on Phuket Island, in Thailand.

Furthermore, The Mackenzie Institute claimed that the most expertly executed operation of the KP Branch was the theft of 32,400 rounds of 81 mm mortar ammunition purchased from Tanzania destined for the Sri Lanka Army. Being aware of the purchase of 35,000 mortar bombs, the LTTE made a bid to the manufacturer through a numbered company and arranged a vessel of their own to pick up the load. Once the bombs were loaded into the ship, the LTTE changed the name and registration of their ship. The vessel was taken to Tiger-held territory in Sri Lanka's north instead of transporting it to its intended destination.

Western countries are the main territory for fund raising activities of the LTTE. The money raised from donations and enterprises are transferred into bank accounts of the Tigers and from there to the accounts of a weapons broker, or the money is taken by KP operatives themselves. LTTE's need for resources is mostly fulfilled by the Tamils who reside outside Sri Lanka. In 1995, when the LTTE lost Jaffna, their international operatives were ordered to increase, by 50%, the amount raised from Tamils outside of the island.

See also

• Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War
• Black July
• Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups
• Military use of children in Sri Lanka
• List of attacks attributed to the LTTE

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Further reading

• Balasingham, Adele. (2003). The Will to Freedom - An Inside View of Tamil Resistance. Fairmax Publishing Ltd. 2nd ed. ISBN 1-903679-03-6.
• Balasingham, Anton. (2004). War and Peace - Armed Struggle and Peace Efforts of Liberation Tigers. Fairmax Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-903679-05-2.
• de Votta, Neil. (2004) Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4924-8.
• Gamage, Siri and I.B. Watson (Editors). (1999). Conflict and Community in Contemporary Sri Lanka - 'Pearl of the East' or 'Island of Tears'?. Sage Publications Ltd. ISBN 0-7619-9393-2.
• Hansard Australia. (2006). Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Debates. Senate Transcript for 16 June 2006.
• Hellmann-Rajanayagam, D. (1994). The Groups and the rise of Militant Secessions, in Manogaram, C. and Pfaffenberger, B. (editors). The Sri Lankan Tamils. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-8133-8845-7.
• "Child Soldier Use 2003: A Briefing for the 4th UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict". Human Rights Watch. January 2003. Archived from the original on 2007-05-16. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
• La, J. 2004. Forced remittances in Canada's Tamil enclaves, Peace Review 16:3. September 2004. pp. 379-385.
• Narayan Swamy, M. R. (2002). Tigers of Lanka: from Boys to Guerrillas. Konark Publishers; 3rd ed. ISBN 81-220-0631-0.
• Pratap, Anita. (2001). Island of Blood: Frontline Reports From Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-302906-9.

External links

• Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
• Council on Foreign Relations background information on the Tigers
• International Crisis Group, an advocacy group, has information on the conflict.
• Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence Map showing extent of area controlled
• Tamilnet
• Tamil Eelam News

• Articles with dead external links from February 2009
• Articles with dead external links from July 2008
• Articles needing cleanup from June 2008
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from June 2008
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from June 2008
• Articles needing cleanup from February 2009
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from February 2009
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from February 2009
• Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
• Sri Lanka