US suspects LTTE’s global financial network still intact: US State Dept.

WASHINGTON: Over a year after Sri Lanka won the war against the LTTE, the US still suspects that the international financial support network of the Tamil Tigers remains largely intact.

However, the State Department, noted that the network likely suffered a serious blow with the arrest of Kumaran Padmanathan, who is alleged to have controlled the arms network of the now vanquished terror outfit. 

In its Congressionally-mandated ‘Country Reports on Terrorism for the year 2009’, the State Department said: “In spite of losing the war on the ground in Sri Lanka, the LTTE’s international network of financial support was suspected to have survived largely intact.” 

“However, the international network likely suffered a serious blow by the August arrest in Southeast Asia and rendition to Sri Lanka of Selvarajah Patmanathan (aka KP), the LTTE’s principle financier and arms supplier,” it said. 

The international 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 sympathisers. 

“The LTTE also used Tamil charitable organizations as fronts for fundraising,” the State Department said in the report. 

The report noted that the Sri Lankan government was criticised for using former LTTE paramilitary organisations that relied on abduction, extra-judicial killings and other illegal tactics to combat the LTTE and their suspected sympathisers. 

“As the military recaptured the remainder of the LTTE-held territory, the LTTE reverted increasingly to more asymmetrical tactics, including suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks, some of which caused serious civilian casualties,” it said. 

The report said the Sri Lankan government effectively dismantled much of the LTTE, after cornering remaining LTTE fighters and several hundred thousand civilians in the northeast of the island. 

“Though the government declared victory on May 18, in completing this military campaign, both sides suffered heavy losses,” it said adding that earlier in the year, the LTTE carried out a number of attacks, including suicide bombings and an air raid on Colombo, but no further attacks occurred following the end of the war. 

On a number of occasions after May, the government announced the capture of suspected LTTE forces, often stating that those captured were intending to carry out violent attacks, it said. 

Military and Sri Lankan Police Service personnel discovered large caches of weapons, ammunition, and military grade explosives that had been abandoned and left uncontrolled throughout the country, the report said.