Word: ltte
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Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who was declared killed by the Sri Lankan government on May 18, had decades to think about how his end would come. It could have come from the cyanide capsule that he - like many Tiger fighters - wore around his neck, a pledge to commit suicide in case of capture by the Sri Lankan army. He had been fighting a war for an independent homeland, or eelam, for the island's Tamil minority since 1983, and the army had pursued him throughout the jungles of the north...
...east of Sri Lanka and had its own system of taxes, roads and courts. By the final weeks of conflict, he was believed to be using thousands of Tamil civilians as human shields against the advance of the Sri Lankan military. At the time of his death, 250 core LTTE members stood with him. Few will mourn the end of a man who ruthlessly ordered the murder of his opponents, demanded absolute fealty and pioneered the use of suicide bombings...
...when it came, happened in an armored vehicle in which Prabhakaran was trying to flee with his trusted lieutenants, according to the Sri Lankan government. The group came under fire, and Prabhakaran was one of 18 top LTTE leaders killed in the early-morning ambush, the government said. On May 19, the army released images to Sri Lankan television of Prabhakaran's body, still in its uniform, in which his face is clearly visible. For the generation of Sri Lankans who have grown up knowing only a nation in conflict, the image of Prabhakaran has loomed over their lives, either...
...Prabhakaran's life as a fugitive began in 1975, with the assassination of Alfred Duraiappah, then mayor of the northern city of Jaffna. A group calling itself the Tamil New Tigers, of which Prabhakaran was a leader, claimed responsibility. The next year, Prabhakaran founded the LTTE. What began as a guerrilla movement escalated into full-scale civil war in July 1983. The LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan army troops in an ambush in Jaffna. In retaliation, as many as 3,000 Tamils, mainly in Colombo, were killed in several days of violence at the end of July. Human-rights groups...
...What's next for the Tigers? The government has raised the possibility of the remnants of the LTTE regrouping into a diffuse guerrilla operation. But without its top leadership, a personality-driven movement like the LTTE is unlikely to last long. It could also continue in some form in the Tamil diaspora, though its reason for being - the creation of a Tamil homeland, or eelam - is essentially destroyed. The leadership of what remains of the Tigers - mainly its international network - is likely to be assumed by Selvarasa Pathmanathan, who now heads the global operations but who was better known...