Coat of Arms of Tamil Eelam - Links To Other Designated Terrorist Organizations

Links To Other Designated Terrorist Organizations

LTTE was believed to have few connections with other terrorist groups, with no military association with al-Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist organizations. But the group maintained interactions with other terrorist organizations through illegal arms markets in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. It had also smuggled weapons from Pakistan-based Islamists to their counterparts in the Philippines. During the mid-1970s, LTTE rebels were known to have trained from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Southern Lebanon.

LTTE also had connections with Maoist Naxalite movement, which is fighting to establish a Marxist Indian state, and Khalistan movement, which is fighting to create a separate Sikh state in India. LTTE's shipping fleet has provided logistics support to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistani group with al-Qaeda affiliations, to transport a consignment of weapons to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines. They also maintain close contact with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). LTTE had also sent two combat tacticians and explosive experts to the southern Philippines to train members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The Times of India, in 2001, highlighted an alleged nexus between al-Qaeda and the LTTE, and claimed that " are the first instance of an Islamist group collaborating with an essentially secular outfit". The US-based research organisation "Maritime Intelligence Group" said the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiya, which has known links to al-Qaeda, had been trained in sea-borne guerrilla tactics by LTTE Sea Tiger veterans.

"Norwegians Against Terrorism" led by Falk Rune Rovik, described how the Tamil community in Norway, at the behest of the LTTE, sold fake and stolen Norwegian passports to al-Qaeda members. The LTTE itself acquired a fake passport for Ramzi Yousef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. He further alleged that funds from Government of Norway had been inadvertently diverted to the LTTE.