The

Government of Sri Lanka The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) (; ) is a Semi-presidential republic determined by the Constitution of Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Constitution. It administers the island from both its commercial capital of Colombo and the administrative capital o ...

maintains intelligence agencies that conduct intelligence activities to support the

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

of Sri Lanka. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of national security, military planning and law enforcement. The main organisations are the State Intelligence Service and the Directorate of Military Intelligence. These intelligence agencies are coordinated by the Chief of National Intelligence (CNI), who reports to the Secretary of Defense.

Current agencies

* State Intelligence Service *

Sri Lanka Police Sri Lanka Police (; ) is the civilian national police force of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The police force is responsible for enforcing criminal and traffic law, enhancing public safety, maintaining order and keeping the p ...

Special Branch Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence in Policing in the United Kingdom, British, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, ...

Criminal Investigation Department The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of a police force to which most plainclothes criminal investigation, detectives belong in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations. A force's CID is disti ...

**Terrorist Investigation Division **Criminal Intelligence Analysis and Prevention Division *

Sri Lanka Army The Sri Lanka Army (; ) is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The army was officially established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, though the army traces its roots back in 1881 when Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers was created; ...

** Directorate of Military Intelligence ** Military Intelligence Corps ** Sri Lanka Signals Corps *

Sri Lanka Navy The Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) (; ) is the navy, naval arm of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and is classed as the country's most vital defence force due to its island geography. It is responsible for the maritime defence of the Sri Lankan nation and its ...

**Department of Naval Intelligence *

Sri Lanka Air Force The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF; ; ) is the air force, air arm and the youngest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. It was founded in 1951 as the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) with the assistance of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The SLAF played a major r ...

**Directorate of Air Intelligence *

Central Bank of Sri Lanka The Central Bank of Sri Lanka ( CBSL; ), known until 1985 as the Central Bank of Ceylon, is the central bank of Sri Lanka. It was established in 1950 under the Monetary Law Act No.58 of 1949 (MLA) and in terms of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Ac ...

**Financial Intelligence Unit (Sri Lanka),

History

Colonial era

Formal intelligence gathering within the island started in the 19th century by the British colonial government of Ceylon with the enactment of the ''Police Ordinance No.16 of 1865'' which gave the

Ceylon Police Force Sri Lanka Police (; ) is the civilian national police force of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The police force is responsible for enforcing criminal and traffic law, enhancing public safety, maintaining order and keeping the p ...

provisions to "collect and communicate intelligence affecting the public peace". With the establishment of the

(CID) within the Ceylon Police Force in 1870, intelligence gathering and investigations pertaining to

internal security Internal security is the act of keeping peace within the borders of a sovereign state or other Self-governance, self-governing territories, generally by upholding the national law and defending against internal security threats. This task and rol ...

were undertaken by the CID.

World War II

In the 1920s, the

Royal Corps of Signals The Royal Corps of Signals (often simply known as the Royal Signals – abbreviated to R SIGNALS) is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield communications an ...

established a

SIGINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly u ...

unit in Ceylon, this was followed by the Admiralty which established a

direction finding Direction finding (DF), radio direction finding (RDF), or radiogoniometry is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertent source, a naturall ...

station at

Trincomalee Trincomalee (; , ; , ), historically known as Gokanna and Gokarna, is the administrative headquarters of the Trincomalee District and major resort port city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Located on the east coast o ...

. During the war SIGINT operations were carried out from sites in

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

, Peradeniya,

and

Hambantota Hambantota (, ) is the main city in Hambantota District, Southern Province, Sri Lanka, Southern Province, Sri Lanka. This area was hit hard by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and underwent a number of maj ...

. HMS Anderson was established to operate Royal Navy code breakers that read Japanese naval signals, including the main Japanese fleet code IN25. It became one of three major allied SIGINT centers that worked on Japanese naval signals with the other two being

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

OP-20-G OP-20-G or "Office of Chief Of Naval Operations (OPNAV), 20th Division of the Office of Naval Communications, G Section / Communications Security", was the U.S. Navy's signals intelligence and cryptanalysis group during World War II. Its mission ...

Washington DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

and the Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne. HMS Anderson remained operational as a

listening station A radio listening station (also: listening post, radio intercept station or wireless intercept station, W/T station for wireless telegraphy) is a facility used for military reconnaissance, especially telecommunications reconnaissance (also kn ...

after the war, moving to a new facility in Perkar north of Trincomalee until it was shut down in 1962 after it was handed over to the Royal Ceylon Navy.

Post independence

Following Ceylon's independence in 1948, the police department came under the

Ministry of External Affairs and Defence The Ministry of External Affairs and Defence was a cabinet ministry of the Government of Ceylon that conducted and managed all of Ceylon's relations with other countries and its military matters from 1947 to 1977. History The ministry was for ...

and the CID continued its traditional role in domestic intelligence gathering as the

security agency A security agency is a governmental organization that conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a state. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies, and typically conduct counterintelligence to thwart other ...

. A short lived Ministry of Internal Security was established by Prime Minister

Wijeyananda Dahanayake 'Wijeyananda Dahanayake'' ( ; 22 October 1902 – 4 May 1997) was a Sri Lankan politician. He was the Prime Minister of Ceylon from September 1959 to March 1960. Born as one of the twin children to a conservative family in Galle, Don Wijeyana ...

operating from 1959 to 1960 following the Bandaranaike assassination. The police failed to detect the attempt military coup in 1962 until CID was notified in the eleventh-hour by one of the plotters, allowing CID and loyalist elements in the regular armed forces to prevent the coup from taking place. In 1966, the CID was able to detect another possible attempt coup. The

was created as part of the CID in 1966, however it was disbanded by

Sirimavo Bandaranaike Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (; ; ; 17 April 1916 – 10 October 2000), commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan politician. She was the List of elected and appointed female heads of state and government, world's first fe ...

after she was elected as

prime minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

in 1970. Bandaranaike felt the Special Branch officers were loyal to the previous administration and deeply distrusted the military officers following her experience in 1962. She had a Field Security Detachment formed within the

Ceylon Army The Sri Lanka Army (; ) is the oldest and largest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The army was officially established as the Ceylon Army in 1949, though the army traces its roots back in 1881 when Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers was created; t ...

tasked with internal security.

1971 JVP Insurrection

Although CID investigations had taken place in to the ''Che Guevara clique'' and the arrest of JVP leader

Rohana Wijeweera Patabendi Don Jinadasa Nandasiri Wijeweera (; 14 July 1943 – 13 November 1989), better known as Rohana Wijeweera, was a Sri Lankan Marxist–Leninist political activist, revolutionary, and founder of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP; ). W ...

; the police failed to gauge scale and magnitude of the JVP insurrection which was launched in April 1971 taking the Bandaranaike government off-guard. In the months that followed, the government gained the assistance of British

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

counterinsurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN, or NATO spelling counter-insurgency) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the ac ...

operations against the JVP. The police with the armed forces carried-out internal security operations to identify JVP carders and sympathizers in the community and within the government. Notable arrests included

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Ravi Jayewardene Captain Ravindra "Ravi" Vimal Jayewardene (22 April 1936 – 2 April 2017) was a Sri Lankan aviator and sports shooter. He was the son of President J. R. Jayewardene and served as the National Security Adviser in his father's administratio ...

S. D. Bandaranayake Samuel Dias Bandaranayake (1 December 1917 – 3 June 2014) was a Sri Lankan socialist politician and a member of Parliament of Sri Lanka, parliament representing Gampaha Electoral District (1947–1989), Gampaha. Early life and education Born ...

and Susil Siriwardene. Following the JVP insurrection, the Police Department established the Intelligence Services Division at 10 Cambridge Place, Colombo 7 to create an intelligence staff and network within the island.

Tamil militancy

Following the assassination of Alfred Duraiappah on 27 July 1975, CID began gathering intelligence on Tamil militant groups with the formation of the CID TULF desk which lead to some of its members being massacred at Murunkan. Thereafter the Police Special Branch functioning under the Intelligence Services Division of the

, undertook national (local) intelligence functions.

Civil War

The perceived failure of the Intelligence Services Division during the riots of July 1983 led the J.R. Jayawardene government to reevaluate the nation's intelligence network, and in 1984 the President Jayawardene established the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB). The new organization combined intelligence units from the army, navy, air force, and police. It was headed by a deputy inspector general of police who reported directly to the Ministry of Defence. As the

LTTE The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; , ; also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam ...

began using radio communications, the Sri Lanka Signals Corps began a SIGINT role, along with the

that used its naval vessels to gather SIGINT. In 1990, the Directorate of Military Intelligence and the Military Intelligence Corps was established formalizing the ad-hoc

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis List of intelligence gathering disciplines, approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist Commanding officer, commanders in decision making pr ...

units that existed prior to it. Military intelligence units had been involved in counterinsurgency operations with the police during the early stages of the

Civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

in the north and east of the island and the 1987–89 JVP Insurrection in the south of the island, leading to the capture of JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera. The NIB which had been deemed ineffective with major military and intelligence setbacks during the third phase of the war. It was restructured in 2003 as the State Intelligence Service (SIS) bringing all military and police intelligence agencies under the preview of the newly created post of Chief of National Intelligence under the

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

. Significant intelligence triumphs during the war included the defection of Karuna amman; capture of

Kumaran Pathmanathan Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingam (; alias Selvarasa Pathmanathan, Kumaran Pathmanathan, or simply KP; born 6 April 1955) is a former prominent member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Pathmanathan was on Interpol's most wanted list ...

aka KP, who was involved in arms procurement for

, was captured in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and moved to

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

via

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

by the SIS; interception of LTTE arms supplies in the high seas and killing of

S. P. Thamilselvan Suppayya Paramu Thamilselvan, commonly known as S. P. Tamilselvan, (sometimes transcribed as "Tamilchelvan"),''Sunday Times''Situation Report: SLAF regains its image with powerful strike/ref> was the leader of the political wing of the Liberatio ...

by an airstrike.

References

{{Authority control Lists of intelligence agencies

Intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

Intelligence communities