Sri Lanka battles a weakened Tamil Tigers

According to the FBI, these men also tried through a front organization to seek information to purchase other equipment like unmanned aerial vehicles for jamming radio and radar and global positioning system equipment.

Although Washington declared the LTTE a terrorist organization in 1997, the group is believed to maintain networks in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia that use Tamil expatriates overseas to acquire weapons.

"The operation has severely impaired the Tamil Tigers' ability to acquire funding and weapons for their ongoing terror operations in Sri Lanka," says Leslie Wiser Jr., the FBI special agent who carried out recent crackdowns.

"The LTTE can now no longer act with impunity in the US," says Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism analyst from the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

The Tigers also face greater isolation beyond the US, with the European Union and Canada recently imposing bans on the group. Although members of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission have criticized the bans as harmful to diplomatic efforts, others say this was necessary to prevent the Tigers from carrying out terror operations.

As Norway is not in the EU, and is still brokering the mediation effort, says Robert Rotberg, director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict at Harvard University, the move hasn't hurt diplomacy. "In fact, the ban has only further impeded the flow of funds to the LTTE."

"If this trend continues, the LTTE will die a natural death in a few years," says Rohini Hensman, a Sri Lankan analyst. Yet, Ms. Hensman emphasizes, the LTTE can only be beaten politically, not militarily. Drawing an analogy with Hizbullah, which could not be vanquished by the more advanced Israeli army, Hensman says, "Even an overwhelming military might cannot wipe out a guerrilla movement as long as it has support from a section of the population."

Narayan Swamy, author of "Tigers of Lanka: From Boys to Guerrillas," points out that the LTTE has faced several reverses in the past – only to rally with remarkable resilience.

"If the Sri Lankan security forces were capable enough to crush the LTTE, they wouldn't need to ask for international mediation," he points out.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is widely believed to have asked Tony Blair on a visit last week to urge India to mediate in the crisis.

In the short term, the fall of Sampur may deepen the conflict. "They [the government] are not honoring the cease-fire agreement," said S. Puleedevan, head of the LTTE peace secretariat after the Sampur defeat. "They are forcing it to the brink of collapse."

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