The audacious bombing Tuesday inside Sri Lanka's main military base, in which a female member of the Tamil Tigers feigning pregnancy blew herself up, was just the latest attack blamed on the ruthless rebel group.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have so far commemorated over 240 suicide bombers since they launched their first kamikaze mission in July 1987 when a cadre rammed a truck into an army camp, killing 40 soldiers.
Although not credited with starting the lethal form of guerrilla or terrorist attack, the Black Tiger unit has staged some of the world's most spectacular suicide bombings and has been described as the most effective unit of its type anywhere in the world.
But unlike the Al-Qaeda network and many other Islamic groups in the Middle East, they are not driven by the idea of holy war.
It is the veneration of 51-year-old Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and the dream of a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils that drives cadres to give their lives.
Prabhakara