ABSTRACT
Suicide terrorism was one of many progressive and innovative tactics that was employed by several terror outfits. These outfits either realised the strategic importance of the craft, or the symbolic value that it held to mobilise support and attention to their cause. Tamil Students League changed to the Tamil New Tigers in 1973–1974 after becoming more radical. Its leader was arrested in 1975 and thereafter the organisation came under the sway of Vellupillai Prabhakaran, who changed its name to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 1976. Al Qaeda defined the global jihadist movement, posing the biggest threat to the world’s superpower, the United States of America. The ethnic tension between the Tamils and the Sinhalese only emerged in the 19th century. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam came to be known as the masters of suicide bombing in the 1990s with their systematic and thorough use of the tactic during the ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka.
