COLOMBO, 26 July 2007 — The Tamil Tigers use a worldwide network of fake charities and a sophisticated smuggling operation to raise up to $300 million (216.87 million euros) a year to fund its separatist battle with the Sri Lankan government, Jane’s Intelligence Review reported in its August edition.
The London-based journal said the Tigers’ fundraising prowess enabled the group to develop “one of the most sophisticated insurgencies in the world,” which includes an army, navy and even a primitive air force of a few light aircraft.
The group has been fighting for more than two decades for a separate ethnic Tamil state in the northern and eastern part of this island nation off the southern coast of India in a war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people. As part of its fight, the group has carried out more than 240 suicide bombings and has been listed as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
An international crackdown on funding for terror groups in recent years was thought to have battered the Tigers’ fundraising, but Jane’s reported that the group still managed to make between $200 million and $300 million a year.
The group uses fake charities to raise money from Tamil expatriates and also smuggles arms, drugs and possibly even people through the nearby southern Indian province of Tamil Nadu, the report said.
Cambodia is a major source of the militant group’s weapons, though it is also believed to smuggle arms in from North Korea, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine and other Southeast Asian nations, Jane’s reported.
The Tigers are expected to use a wave of unrelenting government airstrikes against their de facto state in northern Sri Lanka to appeal for further fundraising, so they can buy anti-aircraft technology, Jane’s reported.
