US, Canada relentless in hunting the LTTE down in North America
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a
terrorist organisation whose suicide bombings and political
assassinations have killed 4,000 people in the past two years, have
quietly established a US presence to help bankroll and equip its brutal
secessionist campaign in Sri Lanka, authorities said.
Designated as terrorists by the State Department in
1997, the group has sought for more than three decades to violently
overthrow the Sri Lankan Government and create an independent State.
To that end, its political wing has established
"branches" in at least 12 countries, including the United States, as
part of a global expansion in which the LTTE seeks to purchase millions
of dollars worth of anti-aircraft weapons, automatic rifles, grenade
launchers, ammunition, explosives and other military equipment,
according to federal law-enforcement authorities.
That expansion has included operations in Maryland,
New York and New Jersey in an effort to help raise cash and procure
weapons.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in New
York in April 2007 in the arrest of a senior LTTE member in the United
States said he raised money and arranged meetings between U.S. financial
backers and the organisation's senior leadership in Sri Lanka.
The 32-page document said the LTTE relied on
"sympathetic Tamil expatriates" in the US, Canada, Britain, Australia,
France and other countries to raise and launder money; smuggle arms,
explosives, equipment and technology to Sri Lanka; obtain intelligence
about the Sri Lankan government; and spread propaganda.
A Tiger suicide bomber hit a marathon event on Sunday
killing Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, 13 others and wounding
100 as the blast struck amid athletes, officials and spectators.
Described by the FBI as one of the "most dangerous and
deadly" extremist organisations in the world, the LTTE grabbed the
attention of US authorities in August 2006 when eight people were
charged in the New York case with conspiracy to provide resources and
material support - including Russian-made SA-18 surface-to-air missiles,
missile launchers and AK-47 assault rifles - to terrorist associates in
Sri Lanka.
The complaint said the weapons were to be used in a
"rapidly escalating conflict against the Sri Lankan military," and the
US operatives were acting at the direction of the organisation's senior
leadership.
A separate complaint said they also sought to obtain
classified information and conspired to bribe US public officials to
remove the LTTE from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist
Organisations.
"Its ruthless tactics have inspired terrorist networks
worldwide, including al Qaeda in Iraq," the FBI said in a recent
profile, adding that the group had "placed operatives right here in our
own backyard, discreetly raising money to fund its bloody terrorist
campaign overseas."
The US operatives have raised funds under a variety of
cover organisations, often posing as charities, the FBI said, adding
that "a great deal of money" was raised after the 2004 tsunami that
devastated Sri Lanka and many other countries.
Last year, FBI agents in New York arrested Karunakaran
Kandasamy, described as the "director" of U.S. operations, accusing him
of raising money and arranging meetings between LTTE leaders in Sri
Lanka and prominent US fundraisers.
FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon, who heads the
bureau's New York field division, said at the time Kandasamy "hasn't
merely supported the Tigers' cause, he orchestrated US support.
"We can no sooner allow terrorists to raise funds here
than we would allow them to carry out acts of terrorism here," he said.
US Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf, in announcing
Kandasamy's arrest, said he operated out of an office in Queens, where
he raised cash by staging fundraisers for tsunami victims through an
organisation known as the World Tamil Coordinating Committee.
Mauskopf said the LTTE has "covertly operated within
the United States" for years, drawing on the country's financial
resources and technological advances to further its war of terror.
She said the organisation had undertaken a major
worldwide campaign to raise money for its offensive against the Sri
Lankan Government. In Maryland, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, a Sri
Lankan national, was sentenced in January to 57 months in prison on
charges of conspiracy to provide support to the LTTE and the attempted
exportation of arms and munitions.
In a sting operation, he and three others negotiated
to buy a laundry list of weapons from an undercover business in
Baltimore.
A criminal complaint said Varatharasa conspired to
export $900,000 worth of machine guns, ammunition, surface-to-air
missiles, night-vision goggles and other military weapons to Sri Lanka.
A co-conspirator, Haniffa Osman, who lives in
Singapore, even travelled to Baltimore to test fire some of the weapons
at a range in Havre de Grace with undercover U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
A plea agreement in the case said if delivery of the
first purchase was successful, undercover ICE agents were assured that a
second order could be worth as much as $15 million.
"They had a well-organised establishment, but working
with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, we took a good bite out of them
with the last several cases," said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in
Washington.
However, he said the Tigers have "more fundraising and
organisational desires" in the United States.
"Fortunately, we haven't seen a strong will to attack
in the US, but that's not [impossible]," he said. "That's why we have to
stay on top of it."
In the Maryland case, the plea agreement said
Varatharasa and the others negotiated the purchase with undercover
agents at a Baltimore business of 53 military weapons for the LTTE in
Sri Lanka.
It said they later met in Saipan with the undercover
agents to inspect several machine guns and sniper rifles they had
ordered in Baltimore.
After the inspection, a deal was made to transfer the
money into an undercover bank account in Maryland. None of the weapons
were ever delivered. The FBI credits the LTTE with perfecting the use of
suicide bombers and being the first to use women in suicide attacks.
It also is the first terrorist group to assassinate
two world leaders - former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991
and the 1993 assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
Peter Chalk, senior terrorism and insurgency analyst
at Rand Corp., said the LTTE may have learned a lesson from the US
arrests and pulled its operatives out. He said the US venture was
"probably an experiment," adding that the group is "smart enough to
learn from its mistakes."
Chalk also noted that the LTTE has "always had a
large, prolific international network" and has been "quite prolific in
Canada for fundraising."
Canada is home to many former Sri Lankans, and
Canadian authorities said the organization has blackmailed many of the
expatriates for money, threatening to harm relatives at home.
Courtesy: Government Information Department |
