Sri Lanka: Armed Tamil Tiger (LTTE) troops in the back of a camouflaged pickup truck somewhere in the Wanni region c. 2006.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, commonly known as the LTTE or the Tamil Tigers, was (and still may be) a separatist organisation formerly based in northern Sri Lanka. Founded in May 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran, it waged a violent secessionist campaign that sought to create Tamil Eelam, an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. This campaign evolved into the Sri Lankan Civil War, which was one of the longest running armed conflicts in Asia until the LTTE was defeated by the Sri Lankan Military in May 2009. At the height of their power the Tigers possessed a well-developed militia and carried out many high profile attacks including the assassinations of several high-ranking Sri Lankan and Indian politicians including Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

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