January
12, 2008 'Ruthless'
LTTE Inspired Al Qaeda in Iraq, says FBI By P.K.
Balachandran
Colombo
The "ruthless tactics" of the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers have inspired
terrorist networks worldwide, including the Al Qaeda in Iraq, says
the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In an appeal to the American public to report on Tiger operatives
who might be lurking under cover, the FBI said that the LTTE had
perfected the use of suicide bombers; invented the suicide belt;
pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks; murdered some 4,000
people in the past two years alone; and assassinated two world
leaders - the only terrorist organization to do so.
"Needless to say, the Tamil Tigers are among the most dangerous and
deadly extremists in the world," the US investigating agency said in
its website Thursday.
"For more than three decades, the group has launched a campaign of
violence and bloodshed in Sri Lanka. Its ultimate goal is to seize
control of the country with the Sinhalese ethnic majority, and
create an independent Tamil state."
"Along the way, it has launched suicide attacks, assassinated
politicians (including a government minister this week and even the
Sri Lankan president), taken hostages and committed all kinds of
crimes to finance its operations. The resultant civil war has taken
the lives of nearly 70,000 Sri Lankans on both sides of the conflict
since 1983," the FBI said.
"We are determined to stop them, using the full range of our
investigative and intelligence capabilities," it vowed.
It said that an "important blow" was dealt to the LTTE's activities
in the US in April 2007, when the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New
York arrested the alleged Director of the Tigers. The FBI had also
arrested eleven Tiger-related suspects in the New York City region.
And in Baltimore, a pair of Indonesian men were sentenced for
exporting surface to air missiles, state of the art firearms,
machine guns and night vision goggles to the LTTE.
The FBI had also discovered that the LTTE used the December 2004
tsunami to collect funds for itself in the guise of donations for
the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of the Boxing Day
disaster.
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