ABSTRACT
By the early-1980s, Sinhala-Tamil ethnic animosities in Sri Lanka had erupted into open conflict. Dozens of armed Tamil groups across the Tamil-speaking regions of the North and East1 were engaging the Sinhala-speaking Sri Lankan Army (SLA) simultaneously on different fronts. Initially, the SLA seemed caught on the back foot. But things soon began to go wrong for the militants. By early-1986, in their bid for hegemony over the Tamil struggle, the militarily-ascendant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) turned its guns on other armed groups, one by one.
