As Israel struggles with the issue of “eliminating Hamas” and ending its rule in the Gaza Strip, Col. (res.) Dr. Moshe Elad, a Middle East expert and former security coordinator of the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts in the South Lebanon Security Zone, spoke to Maariv on Wednesday about the prospects of successfully dismantling terrorist organizations.
Elad drew on international case studies to explore whether such a goal is truly achievable—and pointed to one case that few in the West are comfortable discussing.
According to Elad, the global debate about whether terrorist organizations can be completely dismantled, or whether “total victory” is ever feasible, appears largely resolved in the context of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah.
The intense international pressure placed on Israel, he said, over accusations such as the starvation and dehydration of Gaza’s population, the destruction of southern Lebanese villages, and the branding of every Israeli sanction as a humanitarian crisis, serves to undermine Israel’s capacity to pursue absolute military success. In his words, “Let’s be honest—the world does not allow Israel to win a total victory over them.”
Elad identified four terrorist organizations from history that were effectively dismantled through various means: The Black Hundreds in Tsarist Russia, suppressed through both military and political means; Peru’s Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), nearly eradicated in the 1990s; Germany’s Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group), which disbanded voluntarily; and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which transitioned into a political movement aligned with Sinn Féin.
Yet Elad pointed to a fifth, seldom discussed example: the Sri Lankan government’s elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, a group that posed one of the most resilient armed threats in South Asia for decades.
He described the Sri Lankan case as exceptional due to both the comprehensiveness of the victory and the extreme—and often morally fraught—measures used to achieve it.
The Tamil Tigers waged a 26-year campaign (1983–2009) to carve out an independent Tamil state in the north and east of the island. The group developed sophisticated military capabilities and basically pioneered the use of suicide bombers, some of whom were women and children.
Following the election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005, Sri Lanka shifted strategy from seeking a negotiated settlement to pursuing total military defeat of the LTTE.
How Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers and what it means for Israel
Between 2006 and 2009, the government embarked on a massive military campaign. Resources were reallocated to significantly expand the army, purchase advanced weaponry, and recruit thousands of soldiers. Operations took place across multiple fronts in LTTE-held territory, and special forces carried out incursions into enemy areas.
In parallel, the government mounted a successful diplomatic effort to block the LTTE’s external support—targeting diaspora funding networks, especially in Canada, the UK and Scandinavia. It persuaded several Western states to officially designate the LTTE as a terrorist organization, shutting down many of the group’s support structures.
Psychological operations played a crucial role. Disinformation was used to sow discord between the LTTE leadership and the Tamil population. Defectors were recruited as spies and informants. Yet these efforts, according to Elad, were not the decisive factor in the group’s defeat.
The final blow came through means that remain deeply controversial. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed during the final months of the war, many in designated “safe zones” that were nonetheless subjected to heavy bombardment. International organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, documented war crimes by the Sri Lankan army, including the targeting of hospitals, the use of civilians as human shields, and the disappearance of detainees.
Elad emphasized that the Tamil Tigers were not merely pushed back—they were annihilated. Their territory was reclaimed, their leadership eliminated, and the movement has shown virtually no resurgence since 2009. In Elad’s words, it was done “without a Supreme Court or B’Tselem, Sri Lankan-style.”
UN estimates from 2011 suggest that between 40,000 and 70,000 civilians were killed in the final months of fighting, particularly between January and May 2009. The Sri Lankan government has never confirmed these numbers, insisting that most of the casualties were LTTE combatants.
Humanitarian organizations reported being blocked from the conflict zones, journalists were barred, and witnesses were silenced or exiled. Evidence was allegedly destroyed. While the LTTE did use civilians as human shields, complicating moral and legal assessments, the scale of civilian deaths remains one of the most troubling aspects of the conflict’s end.
The international response was muted. Although there were calls from Western states and human rights groups for international investigations, these were simply rejected by the Sri Lankan government, which faced few consequences. Elad called it one of the rare and most complete instances of a terrorist organization’s total defeat, yet one marred by a heavy humanitarian price.
Elad suggested that geopolitical dynamics, rather than justice, shaped the West’s response. In the post-9/11 era, many countries were sympathetic to Sri Lanka’s framing of its war as a campaign against terrorism. The LTTE’s own record—pioneering suicide bombings, recruiting child soldiers, extorting Tamil communities abroad, and assassinating regional leaders like former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi—left it widely reviled. Sympathy for the Tamil cause declined as it became associated with a group perceived as particularly brutal.
Attempts by Tamil diaspora groups to raise awareness and pressure governments met with limited success. Only Canada and the UK imposed moderate sanctions or suspended aid. No comprehensive international investigation followed.
Sri Lanka also successfully portrayed the conflict as a domestic issue, arguing that its actions were necessary to preserve national sovereignty and not as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign.
Western countries, facing their own foreign policy fatigue after Iraq and Afghanistan, largely chose containment over confrontation. Sri Lanka’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean and growing ties with China may also have dissuaded Western governments from applying real pressure.
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