The quickest way to end a war is to lose one, but the Sri Lankans took 25 years to fell Prabhakaran and at enormous cost. Over 1 lakh civilians, 22,000 soldiers and 30,000 LTTE rebels were killed in the war and these are numbers that will now remain the vital stats of Asia's longest war. But behind these numbers is the tale of the rise and fall of the world's most dreaded terrorist organisation - Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - reduced from 15,000 square kilometres to a 60 X 40 box.
The LTTE was born amid Tamil despair as Sri Lanka, driven by chauvinist Sinhala politicians who swung the state towards a policy favouring the Sinhala majority. As Tamil aspirations were snuffed out, 18-year-old Vellupillai Prabhakaran - a school dropout and *Clint Eastwood*<http://connect.in.com/profile/Clint_Eastwood/671>fan - launched the LTTE in the Jaffna jungles. Prabhakaran later said: "I entered politics as an armed revolutionary. I named the movement 'Liberation Tigers' since the tiger emblem had deep roots in the political history of the Tamils. The tiger symbol also depicts the mode of our guerrilla warfare." The LTTE pioneered the use of unconventional tactics and were the first to use improvised explosive devices. they had ideologically driven suicide bombers and at least in the intitial years they were armed, trained and fed by an *Indian* <http://connect.in.com/profile/Indian/302225> establishment determined to pay Colombo back for its pro-Pakistan policies. The rebels learnt their lessons well. In 1983 in their first major attack they killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in Jaffna triggering anti-Tamil riots in Colombo which left 3,000 Tamils dead. Over 1 lakh Tamils then fled to India for refuge. For Prabhakaran, it was the bugle call to herald the first Eelam War. But the India-Prabhakaran relationship was a difficult one. He resented any attempt to control him and the crunch came with the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 when *Indian* <http://connect.in.com/profile/Indian/302225> troops landed in Tiger territory to oversee an autonomy plan for the Tamil majority in the north and eastern provinces. Prabhakaran would not cooperate, refused to disarm and paid the price by being driven out of Jaffna. Three years later the *Indian* <http://connect.in.com/profile/Indian/302225>troops had left and this time Prabhakaran would not be held back. He took back Jaffna and in 1991, sent an assassination squad of the Black Tigers to India. The target was then prime minister *Rajiv Gandhi*<http://connect.in.com/profile/Rajiv_Gandhi/227615>who was blown to bits in a rally in Sriperambadur by a female suicide bomber. Two years later it was the turn of President Premadasa in Colombo. Selectively hardline Sinhala Sri Lankan ministers were also targeted and Tamil opposition politicians were killed. Prabhakaran, it seemed, would tolerate no rivals. By mid-1995 with then president Chandrika Kumaratunga in charge, the Sri Lankan army took complete control of Jaffna and the rebels were driven into the Wanni jungles. The tide reversed in 1997 when the Sri Lankan army was driven out of Killinochchi, which went on to become the headquarters of the rebels. There followed an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Kumaratunga in December 1999. She survived, losing just one eye. The next year the LTTE seized control of the strategic Elephant Pass and held the initiative in the war. But terrorism was becoming a bad word overseas and after 17 years with more than 1 million people displaced, Sri Lanka's war was getting internationalised. Then 9/11 gave Colombo what it needed the most - recognition of the LTTE as a terrorist group. In 2002, the LTTE had to agree to a permanent ceasefire agreement brokered by Norway giving hope for the much-eluded peace. In 2004, LTTE's Eastern commander Colonel Karuna defected taking along 5,000 cadres. Karuna, now a minister, claims that the LTTE had by then lost 70 per cent of its firepower, its international funding had also been cut down with the European Union and the West banning the organisation. The island's general elections in the same year brought a man to power who came with Prabhakaran's death warrant - the hardliner Mahinda Rajapaksa who vowed 'honorable peace for the island nation'. The government unliterally terminated the 2002 ceasefire in January 2008 and President Rajapaka ordered the begining of final phase of the war, telling his troops to go for the kill. Five army divisions got into the act in January moving in from the north and the south. They cleaned up the Northwest, finally capturing Pooneryn by November 2008. By January 2009, the strategic town of Paranathan was taken over bringing the troops closer to the LTTE headquarters of Kilinochi - which fell the next day. The all important A-9 highway was by then completely secure. A week later, the strategic Elephant Pass was captured and the Jaffna Peninsula was reconnected with rest of the country. With the rebels confined to the Wanni jungles, forces then captured Mullaitivu by January end. By April began the final assault in the 17 sq km strip called the no fire zone. By May 18, Prabhakaran, the LTTE and the dream of Eelam was found dead and buried in the Nanthakadal Lagoon.
