Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, a Tamil who was highly respected by foreign diplomats and who had been sharply critical of the LTTE, was assassinated at his home on 12 August 2005, allegedly by an LTTE sniper. His assassination led to the marginalization of the LTTE from the international community, and is generally considered to be the moment when the LTTE lost much of its sympathy in the eyes of foreign nations. Hence the silence of the international community when the Sri Lankan government took military action against the LTTE in 2006, when the latter closed the Mavil aru sluice.