Word: tamil
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...more than a quarter-century, the Tamil Tigers have waged a guerilla war against the Sri Lankan government in their attempt to establish an independent state - which they call Eelam - for minority Hindu Tamils in the north and east of the island nation. Suicide bombings and assassinations have been the group's calling cards, all orchestrated by Velupillai Prabhakaran, who founded the insurgent group in the mid-70s. Now, a months-long push by the Sri Lankan military appears to have mortally wounded the group, considered by the United States a terrorist organization, trapping the Tigers (and thousands of Tamil...
...teenager, Prabhakaran either dropped out of school or was suspended. Either way, he went on to found a small rebel group called the Tamil New Tigers in 1972. Three years later, Prabhakaran assassinated the mayor of Jaffna, a northern Sri Lankan province, by walking up to him outside of a Hindu temple and shooting him at close-range. In 1976, the Tamil New Tigers were redubbed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a name it holds to this day. (Watch TIME's video of civilians caught in the Sri Lankan civil...
...have practically invented suicide bombers. His "Black Tiger" bombers - almost half of them women - have killed thousands, including former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Ranasunghe Premadasa. The elite Black Sea Tigers perform underwater suicide bombings to sink enemy ships. (Read "A Brief History of the Tamil Tigers...
...Lanka War Traps Civilians As the island nation's military battles to crush a decades-old rebellion by the Tamil Tigers, civilians have become increasingly endangered. The U.N. recently reported that more than 150,000 people are trapped in the northeast region and are being denied aid, though Sri Lankan officials say the estimate is inflated...
...Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has staked his political future on achieving a military victory over the Tigers, following the collapse of a 2002 cease-fire. The Tigers have been fighting since 1983 to establish a separate homeland in the island's ethnic Tamil-majority areas, a conflict that has claimed more than 70,000 lives. To capture Prabhakaran - dead or alive - would symbolize the successful conclusion of a military offensive that began late in 2006 but has since dragged, despite the capture of nearly every town under Tiger control. Rajapaksa had one message for the Tiger leadership - above all Prabhakaran...