Left Flank

No, I'm not talking about The Wire! The US District Court in Baltimore convicted a member of the Tamil Tigers, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa, on conspiracy and attempted export of small arms.

Investigators posed as representatives of a defense company and lured a Singapore arms broker to Baltimore. In July 2006, they put Haniffa Bin Osman up at an Inner Harbor hotel and shuttled him to a shooting range in Harford County so that he could test-fire machine guns he wanted to buy. Bin Osman, who also pleaded guilty, was the one who brought in Varatharasa to inspect the arms before the deal was completed in Guam, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors say the arms dealers paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to export firearms and ammunition, surface-to-air missiles, night-vision goggles and other military weapons and gear. Most were to benefit the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group seeking a homeland for ethnic Tamils on Sri Lanka, an island in the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka's government officially gave notice Thursday that it is pulling out of a 2002 cease-fire agreement with the Tamil Tigers that has failed to quell the violence.

More than 70,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since the Tigers began fighting for an independent state for the ethnic Tamil minority in 1983, according to published reports. The Tamils claim that the Sinhalese majority discriminates against them. Despite the cease-fire, near- daily ambushes, assassinations and airstrikes have killed more than 5,000 people in the past two years.

In the Baltimore undercover operation, Varatharasa helped organize a plan to have at least part of the $900,000 worth of arms shipped to the Tamil Tigers by sea. Then, about 125 miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, the rebel group intended to send out its Sea Tigers naval force to pick up the weaponry, according to court papers.

Baltimore Sun