The Sri Lankan Civil War (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ත්‍රස්තවාදය; Tamil: ஈழப் போர்); was a civil war fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers), which fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end