"Prabhakaran: The Life and Death of a Tiger"

A biography of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, from Time's Jyothi Thottam.

The rest of the world might never understand the violence Prabhakaran stood for, but its imprint on Sri Lanka is wide and deep. At the height of his power, just before the 2002 ceasefire, Prabhakaran was the unquestioned leader of a de facto government that controlled more than 15,000 square kilometers of territory in the north and east of Sri Lanka and had its own system of taxes, roads and courts. By the final weeks of conflict, he was believed to be using thousands of Tamil civilians as human shields against the advance of the Sri Lankan military. At the time of his death, 250 core LTTE members stood with him. Few will mourn the end of a man who ruthlessly ordered the murder of his opponents, demanded absolute fealty and pioneered the use of suicide bombings.