COLOMBO: The Tamil Tigers were once ranked among the world’s most formidable and disciplined rebel outfits, but the guerillas are now facing a rout at the hands of the Sri Lankan military.

Just two years ago, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) appeared indestructible, controlling a large swathe of territory in the north of the island with all the trappings of a separate state.

They had their own naval unit, the Sea Tigers, and even managed to smuggle in light aircraft and launch the Air Tigers -- an air force capable of hitting as far south as the capital and then returning to jungle airstrips unscathed.

They were also courted by diplomats and peace-brokers, despite their well-documented use of child soldiers, extortion, suicide attacks and assassinations in their decades-long struggle for a Tamil homeland.

Apparently sitting pretty in the north, observers say that the LTTE seemed to get over-confident -- while the government in Colombo took a tougher approach and eventually staged an all-out offensive.

“They projected a facade of invincibility,” said retired Sri Lankan army brigadier general Vipul Boteju.

“They had also underestimated the military, which had learnt from their mistakes in the past,” he said, referring to earlier offensives in the conflict, when the army never came up with a coordinated, long-term plan to fight the LTTE.

“Their collapse has been as spectacular as some of their attacks. I did not expect them to go down so quickly. I thought they would put up a better fight.”

Former rebel-turned-politician Dharmalingam Sithadthan believes the LTTE -- now confined to a small triangle of jungle on the north-eastern coast and surrounded by government troops -- never managed to become a fully-fledged conventional fighting force. “They projected a big image and tried to be a big conventional force. That was not their strength,” Sithadthan said.

“They managed for so long because no previous government really went all out against them. I don’t see the Tigers getting back their military power or the political clout they had before.” The tide turned with the 2005 election win of President Mahinda Rajapakse, a Sinhalese nationalist who was initially committed to making peace.

The president -- along with his hawkish brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse as defence secretary -- eventually decided to step up the war.

New weapons were bought, despite the punishing economic consequences. A mass recruitment drive was launched, and new tactics were adopted -- bringing a sense of purpose to a long-frustrated army.

The awkward presence of aid workers and journalists on the battlefield was also dealt with by travel bans, meaning the army and air force could do their job unhindered by fears of attracting negative publicity.

Domestic critics in the independent press and rights groups have also been silenced.

The rebels also suffered internal problems, with signs of dissent around their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54 -- whose de facto number two, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, defected to the government in 2004.

On the international front, the LTTE were outlawed as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union, Australia and India.

This in turn led to more intelligence sharing on rebel arms procurement overseas and a squeeze on their fund-raising network.

Last year, Sri Lanka’s navy claimed sinking the entire fleet of 10 merchant vessels used for smuggling weapons. That was largely thanks to foreign intelligence support, according to official sources.—AFP