ABSTRACT
South Asia remains a fertile ground for insurgencies and terrorism. Sri Lanka has not been immune to this phenomenon. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) demanded a separate homeland and to achieve this goal adopted insurgent and terrorist activities that posed a challenge to national security. The military defeat of the LTTE concluded on 18 May 2009, with the demise of its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and his closest deputies on the battlefront. The period January 2015–October 2019 was marked by instability, economic downturn and a collapse in national security. The strategic location of Sri Lanka, just 27 kilometers off the southern tip of South India’s state of Tamil Nadu, was home to over 80 million ethnic Tamils. South Asia remains a fertile ground for insurgencies and terrorism. Sri Lanka has not been immune to this phenomenon. The Sri Lankan government continued to maintain security based on domestic and foreign intelligence, country reports&incidents that were unfolding internationally and locally.
