How Sri Lanka defeated the LTTE

[Jedburgh]

The Washington Times, 7 Apr 08: Sri Lankan Rebels Set Up US Branch

.....Mrs. Mauskopf said the LTTE has "covertly operated within the United States" for years, drawing on the country's financial resources and technological advances to further its war of terror. She said the organization had undertaken a major worldwide campaign to raise money for its offensive against the Sri Lankan government.

In Maryland, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, a Sri Lankan national, was sentenced in January to 57 months in prison on charges of conspiracy to provide support to the LTTE and the attempted exportation of arms and munitions. In a sting operation, he and three others negotiated to buy a laundry list of weapons from an undercover business in Baltimore.

A criminal complaint said Varatharasa conspired to export $900,000 worth of machine guns, ammunition, surface-to-air missiles, night-vision goggles and other military weapons to Sri Lanka. A co-conspirator, Haniffa Osman, who lives in Singapore, even traveled to Baltimore to test fire some of the weapons at a range in Havre de Grace with undercover U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.....

[Rex Brynen]

Hundreds Killed in Sri Lanka Battle, al-Jazeera English, 24 April 2008.

Heavy fighting between Tamil separatists and government soldiers has subsided in northern Sri Lanka after intense battles left hundreds dead or wounded.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) claimed on Thursday they killed more than 100 soldiers, wounded about 500 and lost only 16 of their fighters in a 10-hour firefight the day before.

But the defence ministry said its forces killed more than 100 Tigers and reported losing 43 soldiers, with another 33 missing in action.

It was the security forces' biggest loss in a single offensive since October 2006.

[Jedburgh]

ICG, 15 Oct 08: Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province: Land, Development, Conflict

....The province is Sri Lanka’s most ethnically complex region and has been at the heart of post-independence conflicts. It features a Tamil-speaking majority split equally between ethnic Tamils and Muslims, as well as a sizeable Sinhala minority who mostly moved there from the south under state irrigation and resettlement schemes. Lying at the intersection of competing Tamil and Sinhala nationalisms, the east has seen some of the worst of Sri Lanka’s inter-ethnic violence and remains at risk for more.

For Tamil nationalists, the province is an integral part of the Tamil homeland, but has been subject to deliberate state attempts to change the ethnic balance and undermine its Tamil character. The October 2006 Supreme Court decision to separate the Eastern from the Northern Province, temporarily merged under the terms of the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord, and subsequent provincial council elections in May 2008 were a major blow to Tamil nationalists. For Sinhala nationalists, the province should be equally open to all Sri Lankans, and its hundreds of ancient Buddhist sites and rich Sinhala cultural heritage should be defended and preserved. The east is also home to an emergent Muslim nationalism, largely a product of Muslims’ insecurity relative to Tamil armed groups and the Sinhala-dominated government.....

[Entropy]

I have to admit that I don't know much about this conflict, but the news reports of the LTTE "navy" and "Air Force" are fascinating. Here's the latest:

The air wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out two attacks within an interval of about 90 minutes on a military target in the North and an economic target in Colombo on the night of October 28,2008. This is the seventh operation by the LTTE's air wing since it went into action in March last year.