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LTTE linked to al-Qaeda?
From Neville de Silva in London
The LTTE may be linked to al-Qaeda, the Osama bin Laden led organisation believed to be responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US and other atrocities, a prestigious international think-tank revealed last week.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) says so in its latest publication launched last Tuesday.

In the chapter titled Non-State Armed Groups, the IISS publication “Military Balance 2005-2006” notes that the LTTE has “Possible al-Qaeda link” and notes that the Tigers practise suicide attacks.

The IISS does not elaborate on the information on which it bases this observation or the source of the information. The IISS was one of the first, if not the first, international institute to state categorically about four years ago that the LTTE possessed aircraft.

This is perhaps the first time that a well-known international think tank has linked the LTTE to the now notorious al-Qaeda. Diplomatic sources said this publicly declared information might well be used by some member states of the European Union as proof of the LTTE’s international terrorist links.

The LTTE is under scrutiny by the EU that last month issued a tough declaration not only banning LTTE delegations from being received in the capitals of member-states but also stating that the EU is actively considering banning the group as a terrorist organisation.

Although not all the attacks have been directly traced to al-Qaeda, counter terrorism experts believe that many of the groups that carried out attacks have some links to al-Qaeda and therefore pose a serious threat.

The IISS also identifies India’s Tamil National Retrieval Troops (TNRT) as a “LTTE sponsored group to establish a Tamil homeland in India” and cites the World Tamil Association and the World Tamil Movement as front organisations.
Previously the LTTE had been linked with other armed groups but not al-Qaeda.

Four years ago “The Sunday Times” newspaper here carried a report by its defence correspondent titled “Killing in Company;Terrorism Goes Global” which said that the LTTE was using its UK office to establish links with other terrorist groups for training and expertise. Defence Correspondent James Clark said the Tigers had forged links with the Spanish terror group ETA and Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) from which the LTTE had received Stinger missiles.

The same article claimed that the LTTE had close links with the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction (FARL) that had been developed with the help of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, a Marxist-Leninist group.

A former additional secretary in India’s Cabinet Secretariat and now a director of the Institute for Topical Studies in Chennai, B.Raman contended in an article that since 1983 the LTTE has had links with “various Palestinian terrorist organisations, the Hamas and the Hizbollah.”

Raman also contended that the LTTE had no qualms about allowing its fleet of ships to be used for narcotics-running by drug barons from Afghanistan and Pakistan or for gun-running to the Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front of the Philippines.Terrorism experts believe the Abu Sayyaf group was linked to al-Qaeda.

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