Tamil Eelam Liberation Army

The Tamil Eelam Liberation Army (TELA) was the military wing of one of the formerly large Tamil militant groups, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO). In 1982, a small faction of TELA broke away from TELO, led by "Oberoi" Devan. Shortly after the split, TELA aligned itself with PLOTE, another Tamil militant group that had fought both the LTTE and TELO in the past. The group, however, was short-lived; after the death of Devan in 1983 by two suspected LTTE militants, the group went into decline. By 1985, TELA had succumbed to in-fighting, split into two, and was finally disbanded.