Tamil Tigers

LIBERATION TIGERS OF TAMIL EELAM

aka Ellalan Force; Tamil Tigers

Description: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on October 8, 1997. Founded in 1976, the LTTE became a powerful Tamil secessionist group in Sri Lanka. The LTTE wants to establish an independent Tamil state in the island’s north and east. Since the beginning of its insurgency against the Sri Lankan government in 1983, it evolved its capability from terrorist and guerilla tactics to conventional warfare. Although the LTTE nominally committed to a 2002 cease-fire agreement with the Sri Lankan government, it continued terrorist attacks against government leaders and dissident Tamils. In spite of losing the 2009 war on the ground in Sri Lanka, the LTTE’s international network of financial support was suspected of surviving largely intact. However, the international network likely suffered a serious blow by the arrest in southeast Asia and rendition to Sri Lanka of Selvarajah Patmanathan (aka KP), the LTTE’s principle financier and arms supplier. This network continued to collect contributions from the Tamil diaspora in North America, Europe, and Australia, where there were reports that some of these contributions were coerced by locally-based LTTE sympathizers. The LTTE also used Tamil charitable organizations as fronts for its fundraising. The Sri Lankan Navy sunk a number of LTTE supply ships during the war, and confiscated at least one such ship, the Princess Chrisanta, after the end of the war. 

Activities: LTTE integrated a battlefield insurgent strategy with a terrorist program that targeted key personnel in the countryside and senior Sri Lankan political and military leaders in Colombo and other urban centers. It has conducted a sustained campaign targeting rival Tamil groups, and assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India in 1991 and President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka in 1993. Although most notorious for its cadre of suicide bombers, the Black Tigers, the organization included an amphibious force, the Sea Tigers, and a nascent air wing, the Air Tigers. Fighting between the LTTE and the Sri Lanka government escalated in 2006 and continued through 2008. The LTTE was blamed for a claymore mine on a crowded bus near Colombo on June 6, 2008, killing 22 civilians and wounding more than 50 others. Political assassinations and bombings were commonplace tactics prior to the 2002 cease-fire and have increased again since mid-2005. Most LTTE attacks targeted Sri Lankan military and official personnel but, as illustrated by the June 2008 bombing, the LTTE appeared to continue to target civilians. In 2009, there were more than 40 attacks attributed to the LTTE, including: a February suicide bombing that killed 30 people and injured 64 in an attack at a Mullaithivu IDP Rescue Center; a February air raid in Colombo that killed three people and injured 45 after an LTTE plane, reportedly engaging in kamikaze-style tactics indicating a suicide attack, was hit by anti-aircraft gunfire and crashed into the Inland revenue Building; and a suicide bombing in March that killed 14 and injured 46 people during a religious procession at a mosque in Matara. In early 2009, Sri Lankan forces re-captured the LTTE’s key strongholds and killed LTTE’s second in command. As a result, the Sri Lankan government declared military victory over LTTE in May 2009.