On this day 44 years ago, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was founded.
Then 21-year-old Velupillai Prabhakaran rebranded his militant organisation the Tamil New Tigers, into the LTTE.
The organisation, was one of many militant groups formed at the time, but grew to become the largest and spearheaded the Tamil struggle for an independent state.
Today, we share a selection of original photographs from Kilinochchi of the LTTE throughout the years. Many of these photographs are being released into the public domain for the first time.
