'Terror groups copied Tiger funding methods'

COLOMBO: Al Qaeda has learned quite a lot about terrorism from the LTTE and the LTTE pioneered fund raising and procurement techniques have greatly aided Islamic terrorists, the respected military website Strategy Page said yesterday.

The LTTE developed methods which enabled them to raise large amounts of money from expatriate Tamils.

It was the technique of pretending to collect money for charity work, then using it to fund terrorism, that really caught al Qaeda's attention, Strategy Page said.

All this eventually caught the attention of counter-terror organizations in many countries, leading to the LTTE being declared a terrorist organization, and many of its fund raising operations shut down.

As that was done, more and more evidence (documents, and interrogations) piled up showing that the LTTE had worked with Palestinian, Kurdish, Taliban, Al Quaeda, Eritrea, Filipino, and other Middle Eastern groups to obtain illegal weapons, and learn how to use them.

The LTTE also became the primary weapons purchaser, and transporter for many of these other terrorist groups.

The LTTE maintained hundreds of small, and a few large, boats for transporting these weapons to LTTE controlled parts of the island country of Sri Lanka, and other parts of the world as well, Strategy Page said.