Terrorism normally makes frontpage news in Britain, so it was odd that the four Asian men charged with terrorist offences last month scarcely made the papers. The charge-sheet explains why: the men bundled out of their homes at dawn are suspected of procuring equipment for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel group that has fought a decades-long civil war against the Sri Lankan state and is now banned in Britain. The police took pains to emphasise that there was no link to al-Qaeda; after that, interest dried up.rnThe Tigers may be little known in Britain, but it is one of their most important constituencies. War has driven a quarter of Sri Lanka's minority Tamils abroad and Britain has the biggest share after Canada: up to 200,000 Sri Lankans (including a big second generation), most of them Tamils. Professionals have thrived in London since the 1950s, helping to hatch the Tigers' nationalist ideology. The movement's international headquarters, now presumed defunct, were in London and Paris.
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