Capture of Kilinochchi

Date: January 2, 2009 • Location: Kilinochchi District, Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan civil war: The Sri Lankan army captured the town of Kilinochchi from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, concluding the Battle of Kilinochchi.

The Sri Lankan civil war was an armed conflict 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.