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by Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

Japan's National Police Agency said Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been supplied with weapons by Afghanistan's Taliban regime which is guarding Osama bin Laden now.

Laden is the main suspect in the September 11 terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

The Taliban, Afghanistan's conservative regime of mullahs has been cited as a source of weapons for the Sri Lankan terrorist group in a white paper issued by Japan's National Police Agency, reported, Yomiuri Shimbun, a prestigious newspaper in Japan.

Quoting from the Police Agency White paper Yomiuri Shimbun said when six Sri Lankan nationals were arrested in Ichikawa and Funabashi in Chiba prefecture in June 2000 on suspicion of illegally staying in Japan, Police confiscated 11 video tapes and documents describing terrorist acts by the LTTE.

Yomiuri Shimbun said the investigators had discovered that the terrorist group in Sri Lanka had received 45 million yen from this group over a period of ten years. The newspaper said the six arrested admitted to the Police of sending money to the terrorist group.

Quoting the Police white paper the report said, Foreigners involved in terrorists organisations have come to Japan because of its economic power and are working here to support the LTTE financially.

According to public safety authorities, the LTTE is a radical group calling for the independence of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. The LTTE is believed to be supplied with weapons by the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist regime said to be protecting bin Laden.

The newspapers said according to the white paper, the UN security council sanctioned a resolution in December 2000 demanding that the Taliban hand over bin Laden, who is believed to be the mastermind behind several radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organisations. The report stressed the need for international cooperation in exchanging information.

The report said Abu Sayyaf, MILF, and IMU are believed to have received funding from bin Laden.

The White paper reportedly said Islamic radicals were setting up a global network that reached as far as the former Soviet Union and South East Asia.

The document officially released by the Police Department on Friday September 21, entitled 2001 Police White Paper noted that suicide attacks such as the ones practised by the Tamil Tigers were becoming rampant.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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