It is finally over for the mis-named Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.
From Reuters:
Tamil Tiger founder Prabhakaran dead at 54
In the end, Tamil Tiger leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran appeared to have no time to bite the cyanide capsule he wore to take in case of imminent capture.
The architect of Asia's longest-running civil war had vowed never to be taken alive, and on Tuesday, Sri Lankan army Commander General Sarath Fonseka said soldiers had killed the island's most wanted -- and until now -- most elusive man.
For 37 years, Prabhakaran had done one thing better than anything else on his fearsome resume: avoid capture. But on Tuesday, there was little doubt about the elusive Tiger chief's whereabouts, even though an LTTE official denied he was dead.
Video footage showed what the military said was Prabhakaran's corpse with the top of his head blown off. The founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was shot and killed on Monday, the government said.
Before meeting his end near a marshy lagoon in the land he fought three decades to establish as a separate nation for Sri Lanka's Tamils, Prabhakaran had almost single-handedly propelled one of the world's most brutal and intractable wars.
He sent thousands of foes and followers to their deaths, either by signing off on their assassinations or ordering them to blow themselves up with a bomb strapped to their chest.
The man known to friends as "Thamby", or little brother in Tamil, started out with a few friends by robbing banks to fund their rebel group in the 1970s, and eventually turned it into one of the world's most well-funded and well-armed irregular groups.
The LTTE at its peak ruled a quarter of Sri Lanka's land mass, maintaining a standing army, navy and even a combat air wing of small planes that carried out attacks in the capital and elsewhere during its two years aloft from 2007-2009.
A stocky man who brooked no dissent from his own organisation or the wider Tamil community, Prabhakaran has been accused of eliminating all of his opponents, including lieutenants.
The list included nearly every moderate Tamil politician in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, and former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
And of course, just like all the other "people's" revolutionary leaders:
Shortly before the end, troops recovered his personal photo album and the Defence Ministry published pictures showing him frolicking with his eldest son, Charles Anthony, in a pool, or dining in relative luxury with his family.
Sending children off on suicide attacks while living the life of luxury at home. The Reuters article makes no mention of his political alliance -- making it sound as though all he wanted was a separate homeland for "his people"
In reality, they have links with all of the "A" list terrorist organizations, PLO, al-Qaeda, Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf Group. At heart, they are Maoists.
Good riddance to sociopathic scum...
