Sri Lankan Civil War
Long civil war between the Sri Lankan state and Tamil Tigers, active into the first decade of the 2000s.
Historical overview
Overview adapted from a Wikipedia summary and stored locally on May 11, 2026.
The Sri Lankan civil war was fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island in response to continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the predominantly Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka.
Theater countries
Actors
Tags
Border context
Late Cold War conflict belt
Major wars stretch from Afghanistan and the Gulf to southern Africa, Central America and South Asia.
The Iran-Iraq War hardens Gulf security politics. Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan precedes the end of the Cold War.Post-Cold War state breakup
The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia collapse, producing new borders, new states and violent secession wars.
The Balkans and Caucasus become major border-change theaters. The Gulf War restores Kuwait's sovereignty after Iraqi occupation.Post-9/11 intervention era
Counterterror wars, state-building campaigns and unresolved post-Soviet disputes dominate the early twenty-first-century map.
Afghanistan and Iraq become the central intervention theaters. Congo, Darfur and the Caucasus remain active conflict zones.Arab uprisings and insurgency expansion
Uprisings, regime collapse and insurgencies spread across the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel.
Syria and Libya enter civil war. Mali and Lake Chad become major insurgency theaters.