Comparison Of The IRA, ETA, And LTTE

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The IRA, ETA, and LTTE have a common ground on which they stand. All three of these groups originated from people of a certain ethnic or religious backgrounds wanting to break away from the current nations that they were part of to form new ones based on their beliefs. Each group used forms of terrorism in trying to accomplish their objectives.
The IRA got its start in Ireland in 1919 as the Irish Volunteers. This organization has been around in one form or another since that time. The original IRA, as the military arm of Sinn Fein, fought a guerilla war against British forces in Northern Ireland in hopes of rejoining Ireland as part of the Catholic state. (Roy 1991). Over the years this organization devolved into many different groups. Currently there are the Real IRA, The Continuity IRA, and the Provisional IRA. The first two, CIRA and RIRA, are radical off shoots of the PIRA (FSA 2004). The main …show more content…

Coming from the Tamil region of Northern Sri Lanka the LTTE was formed in 1976 as the growth of a student group which advocated the violent over throw of the Sri Lankan government (about.com). The LTTE fought a civil war with the government of Sri Lanka from 1983 until 2009 at which time the government declared it over after the LTTE conceded defeat (Council on Foreign Relations, CFR). The LTTE received a large amount of initial training through the Indian government and supported their own efforts through drug trafficking and dealings with organized crime in India (CRF). The LTTE has perpetrated over 200 suicide bombings. They are known as the inventors of the suicide belt, used by terrorist the world over, and they pioneered the use of women as suicide bombers. The LTTE’s worst crime is their use of child soldiers, forcing children as young as 8 or 9 to fight battles for