LTTE’s financial network of support still operating - US

The US State Department says that Sri Lankan security services’ focus on a possible LTTE resurgence affected the government’s attention to emerging threats, such as reports of Sri Lankan foreign terrorist fighters joining the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

The US State Department on Thursday issued a long report in which details of terror activities in various countries is given, including Sri Lanka.

In July, Sri Lanka saw the first confirmation that Sri Lankans had joined ISIL when social media announced the death of Sharfaz Shuraih Muhsin, an ISIL fighter from Sri Lanka, after he was killed in coalition airstrikes in Syria. 

“Thauqeer Ahmed Thajudeen – Muhsin’s brother-in-law and fellow Sri Lankan national – was later identified as a member of ISIL in Syria. According to media reports quoting Turkish government sources, 10 members of Muhsin’s family went to Iraq through Turkey,” 

Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi said that although there were reports of Sri Lankans joining ISIL, there was no concrete evidence to suggest the group was operating in Sri Lanka.

Regarding the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the report said that  the terrorist organisation’s financial network of support continued operations in 2015; the group used its international contacts and the large Tamil diaspora in North America, Europe, and Asia to procure weapons, communications, funds, and other needed supplies. 

“The group employed charities as fronts to collect and divert funds for its activities.”

According to the report, there have been no known attacks in Sri Lanka that could verifiably be attributed to the LTTE since the end of the war, but a total of 13 LTTE supporters, several of whom had allegedly planned attacks against U.S. and Israeli diplomatic facilities in India, were arrested in Malaysia in 2014. 

Additional LTTE members were arrested in Malaysia and India in 2015, one of whom was accused of exhorting other Sri Lankans to fund and revive the LTTE.

On April 30, a Court of Appeals sentenced five members of the Dutch chapter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers. The five persons (aged between 43 and 60) were convicted of participation in a terrorist organization, having a leadership position in the Dutch chapter of LTTE, and raising funds for LTTE (often through coercion). 

The suspects were acquitted of recruitment, extortion, and incitement. The prosecutor appealed the incitement ruling. The prison sentences range from nineteen months to six years and three months, slightly higher than the 2011 district court ruling.