Jan. 27--DOHA, Qatar -- The conflict between Sri Lanka's government forces and armed Tamil rebels has raged for nearly 60 years. Thousands have died and many more have been made homeless by the fighting.

Here we answer questions about the Tamil rebels, their composition and their stated goals.

When was the LTTE formed?

Since Sri Lanka's independence from Britain in 1948, the Tamil minority has felt increasingly marginalised and politically disenfranchised. In that very year, Solomon Bandaranayake, the country's first prime minister, made Sinhala, which is spoken by the majority of Sri Lankans, the official language.

After 1948, the Tamils also became the targets of numerous riots that swept through the island nation. Believing that these riots were instigated by the Sinhalese authorities, Tamils began calling for an independent state and for an organisation to protect their rights.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was one of the many groups that came into existence to fight for Tamil rights.

Formed in 1975 with its base in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, the group vowed to form a separate state called Tamil Eelam.

Is the LTTE the only armed Tamil rebel group?

No, initially the LTTE was one of many Tamil armed groups.

Other prominent armed groups included the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOT), the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation (EROS) and the Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF).

These armed groups lost ground and became obsolete as the LTTE killed their leaders and absorbed their trained cadres.

What is the organisational structure of the LTTE?

It is very hierarchical.

The LTTE has two wings -- the political and the military.

Both of these wings are controlled by a Central Governing Committee (CGM) headed by Vellupiali Prabhakaran who decides all aspects of organisational policy -- supposedly in consultation with CGM leaders.

The CGM deliberates both on operational military strategies as well as the administrative governance of LTTE-held territories.

The political wing of the LTTE oversees the civil administration of its territory through departments like the police force, law courts, administrative offices, planning and reconstruction, television and radio broadcasting stations, and so on.

The political wing also has an international secretariat, which runs the global LTTE network and its foreign relations cell.

LTTE military ranks and grades are similar to those of the Sri Lankan army. These include two grades of enlisted ranks, non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers.

The units also follow a similar structural pattern with squads as the smallest and the regiment as the largest military unit.