Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Sri Lankan Rebel Leader's Fate a Mystery

Vijay Joshi (AP)


Rebel leader's jungle hideout in idyllic Sri Lanka (a predominantly Buddhist island nation) seems far better suited for successful meditation than failed guerrilla war.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – At the height of his power, the Tamil commander ran a shadow state. His guerrilla force, backed by artillery, a navy and a tiny air force, reportedly took in hundreds of millions from donations and smuggling.

Rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (BBC)

Now he is hiding in a jungle. Or he has fled to Malaysia. Or maybe he is dead.

With his rebel separatist group on the brink of defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan military, Velupillai Prabhakaran's fate remains a mystery. But then, he has lived most of his life in the shadows.

What happens to Prabhakaran could be crucial to the future of the ethnic Tamil rebel group he founded. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is so centralized that without a leader it would almost certainly spin into disarray and the war would come to a swift close. More>>

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