By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA
The
National and common presidential candidate had a series of successful and
highly attended meetings in the areas coming under the landscape popularly
referred to as ‘the Catholic Belt’ – kiribathgoda, Katana, Ragama, Negombo
etc., – in which Catholic MPs Nimal Lansa, Arundika Fernando and several others
made emotional speeches about the Easter Sundage carnage and the government’s
deliberate negligence to prevent the bomb blasts even at the last moment and
pointed out that government Ministers and MPs did not attend Easter Sunday
services in their neighbourhood churches on that day because they were well
aware what was going to happen on that melancholic day. It was also pointed out that Minister Harin
Fernando had told the media that he did not attend church on that day because
his father told him that there will be bomb blasts in churches on that day.
They said not a single government Minister or
MP despite their awareness of the looming carnage did not take any action at
least to keep the priests of the churches informed. All the MPs emphasized that all Ministers and
MPs in the government should be held responsible for the unfortunate deaths of
over 250 people and nearly 500 people injured and colossal damages done to the
churches. They also stated that some of the injured people are still
hospitalised and some have become disabled.
Addressing
the meeting held in Negombo, which is considered as Sri Lanka’s Vatican, on
October 19th Saturdat, Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa promised to fulfil
His Eminence Cardinal’s request.
He asserted that under his administration, he would appoint the
presidential commission that His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith had been
requesting for, to uncover the persons responsible for the Easter Sunday terror
attacks.
Mr. Rajapaksa also vowed to restore the disrupted security
measures and to make the country a safe haven again.
Attending a public meeting held in Ragama, Mr. Rajapaksa claimed
that the incumbent government failed to prevent the Easter Sunday attacks
despite receiving all the necessary information on the date and the venues
where the attacks would take place.
Toda,
October 21st in the date this article was written it is exactly 6
months from the Easter Sunday carnage.
Up to now the government has not apologized for the havoc. The ignoramus UNP candidate Sajith Premadasa
keeps on shrieking and thumping on the chest at his meetings uttering nonsense
but so far bot a single word of apology has been made on behalf of the
unfortunate victims of this butchery.
Killing people is not a matter to be regretted for this man who proudly
calls himself as the son of his father Ranasinghe Premadasa and the one who is
possessing the genes of Premadasa who was responsible for the death of over
60,000 southern youth.
His
Eminence Cardinal Dr. Malcolm Ranjith who became very annoyed and saddened over
this carnage urged that all officials who received prior information about the
bombings but did not take any action to prevent them should be removed along
with the country’s leadership, The
Archbishop made these commands at a
Sunday mass held at St. Lucia’s Cathedral in Kotahena to commemorate
those killed in the Easter Sunday attacks and invoke blessings on the injured.
The
prelate said that the Easter Sunday bombings had come as a shock to him and he
was still grief-stricken like millions of others. He emphasized that not only
the officials who had not acted on an intelligence warning of terror attacks
but also the rulers were responsible for the tragic incidents.
The
cardinal added that a large number of people had been killed and injured in the
attack not because of God’s will but because of the evil of men and those who
were incapable of taking responsibility must be removed from their positions
and from the leadership of the country.
He
said some terrorists were still at large and they thought they could escape
punishment and if they were not punished by courts, there would be divine
justice. Those who failed to punish those involved in acts of terror would be
punished by God .
The
cardinal added that those who were trying to use the tragedy to get their
personal gains and political agendas fulfilled would also be punished by God.
A
large number of relatives of the victims of the bombings attended the mass.
Addressing
a seminar held at Bolawalana, the Archbishop while blaming the government for its deliberate negligence to prevent the
suicide bombings, said that they are not
bothered about whether an election is held or not but what they want is to know
the truth about the background to this carnage and the innocent people, men,
women and children were massacred in this manner?
Many
religious, social and political analysts have pointed out that Sri Lanka is
fortunate to have a person in the stature of His Eminence Cardinal Dr. Malcolm
Ranjith as the Archbishop of the country at the time of the Easter Sunday
carnage and if there was a myopic person in his place there could have been a horrendous bloodbath in the
country and religious riots. They said
that all Sri Lankans should be immensely thankful for Cardinal Dr. Malcolm
Ranjith for preventing such a calamity and ensuring peace and harmony in the
country.
In
a special appeal to the Muslims in Sri Lanka the Archbishop called on all Muslims in the country to personally
minimise and shed their cultural differences and integrate with the rest of
society and the common culture, as one people and citizens of the country. He
said that Muslim politicians, should be authentic in their faith and the core
values of Islam instead of using religion as a label or for selfish purposes.
The Cardinal along with several Buddhist religious leaders, also
claimed that regional level leadership of various political parties and
politically aligned groups and agents at the base and grassroots level were the
lynch mobs who fuelled and motivated by the provision and consumption of
alcohol behind the spate of tense and riotous situations and violent attacks,
in the past couple of days, targeting Muslim properties, including shops and
mosques, in certain areas which led to the imposition of curfew and arrests.
They thus called on all leaders of political parties to rein in and control
their Party members and henchmen.
Advocating on behalf of the private nature of religion and
worship, and the separation of religion from politics and vice versa, the
religious leaders also reiterated their call to ban all national level
political parties which contained references to race, ethnicity or religion in
the names of their Parties as it only served to cause further divisions. They
emphasised that, political candidates representing minorities should be able to
contest from national level Parties for even the Presidency and Premiership,
and should respect diversity.
It was also the view of the Cardinal and other religious leaders
that all affairs pertaining to religion should be brought under the purview of
one Government Ministry as was previously the case as opposed to having
separate Ministries per religion.
These views were expressed by Archbishop Ranjith and Chief
Prelate of the Kotte Chapter of the Siam Sect, Ven. Ittepane Dhammalankara
Thera at a Media conference convened at the Archbishop’s house in Colombo to
make a special appeal for the public to refrain from giving vent to their
emotions and causing chaos, taking the law into their own hands owing to a
misguided sense of faux heroism and thereby disturbing the peace and unity, and
instead act intelligently and patriotically, keeping emotions in check,
maintaining calm, exercising compassion, love and patience, respecting dignity
and individual liberty and freedom, and allow and assist the law enforcement
authorities to carry out their duties, including search operations and obey
their orders as that would constitute the highest tribute to be paid to those
whose lives were sacrificed in the 21 April Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks
on churches, hotels and elsewhere.
Archbishop Ranjith urged all to allow for Buddhists and Muslims
to celebrate their forthcoming festivals, Vesak and Ramadan,
respectively.
When questioned as to Tamil National Alliance MP, President’s
Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran’s recent statement that the Easter Sunday carnage was
partially the result of the grievances of the minorities not being addressed by
the Government, Archbishop Ranjith whilst acknowledging that minorities had
legitimate problems which should be separately discussed and resolved. He
pointed out that there was no evidence to indicate a direct link between the
Easter Sunday attacks and unaddressed issues facing the minorities, and that
therefore Sumanthiran’s claim was a case of overreach.
The Archbishop also took the security forces personnel to task
over the recent incidents which revealed that areas and places previously
searched and swept by law enforcement during search ops had revealed more
weapons. We told them to do a thorough search area by area, house by house,
irrespective of religion, yet this went unheeded, he noted. The searches have
not been done properly, he further added.
He also bemoaned that their call to appoint a commission to
probe the assets of politicians had fallen on deaf ears.
On Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s recent claim that Sri Lanka is
not a Buddhist country, and not a Sinhalese country the two religious leaders
said that such a view was one bereft of even the most rudimentary understanding
of the country, its history and culture. The Archbishop also cited examples of
how well Christians and Catholics were treated in Sri Lanka when compared to
the treatment afforded them in other Christian and Catholic countries (example
– separate seats for clergy in public transportation).
D6espite these conciliatory and pacifying moves by these two
religious leaders and many other religious leaders and erudite scholars the
vicious elements similar to Sumanthiran, some Sumanthirams in the Sinhala
community also attempted to espouse hatred and communalism among the Sinhalese
as well. They were only blood thirsty
and were not concerned at all about that could cause to this country. A person calling himself as Ratanapala”
without giving his full name or proper identification writing an article to
Lankaweb news-site under the title Easter Sunday bombings – Islamic terror and
R2P – clash of the Barbarians”. Exract
from the opening paragraph of his article and writer’s comments are given
below:
On 21 April 2019 Easter Sunday – on the
holiest day in the Christian Calendar, suicide bombers simultaneously attacked
three Catholic Churches and three 5 – Star Hotels in Sri Lanka killing over 250
including nearly 40 foreigners visiting the island. The reason for attacking
the Catholics and White Foreigners can be adduced to ISIS losing territory in
the Middle-east to Christchurch massacre of Muslims by a white nationalist in
New Zealand.
It seems that the so-called Ratanapala
unfortunately does not know who the ISIS are, who invented this terror group
and for what purpose it was invented?
ISIS was a strategic terrorist group invented by the United States when
they found Russian influence is increasing in Iraq and Syria extensive and
these two countries would become appendages of Russia and it is necessary to
install American puppet regimes in these two countries. American aspirations have not succeeded and
the ISIS has suffered heavy casualties recently. At the same time, America is also very much
worried about increasing Chinese influence in South Asia and was looking
forward to destabilise these countries and establish a base in lieu of the
Diego Garcia island in order to arrest and contain the Chinese influence.. Accordingly they have chosen Sri Lanka as the
ideal location and the Easter Sunday carnage was a part of their plan to foment
Muslim-Catholic clashes in the country thus paving the way for them to assume
the role of peace keepers and establish a command base and maintain a puppet
government in the country. Do you think
that it was because they like you and me and other Sri6 Lankans they proposed
t0 grant U.S.$ 480 Million grant under a project named MCC.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe was to
sign the SOFA agreement even without cabinet approval under which comes the MCC
project on 27th October, 2019 and President Maithreepala Sirisena
forced to dodge it by appointing Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa on the previous day of
the Ranil-American D-Day and launching Sri Lanka’s October Revolution. After
getting re-instated with the help of the TNA Ranil attempted to get cabinet
approval twice for the SOFA agreement but it was stalled by the President.
President’s Counsel Ali Sabry commenting on the Easter Sunday
carnage said that the number of members in terrorist leader Zahran Hashim’s
group grew significantly following the ethnic clashes in March last year and
that this goes to show extremism feeds extremism.
He said Zahran’s terrorist group had only 20-25 members in the
past, but after last year’s unfo6rtunate clashes in Digana a large number of
youths had joined them and this has been confirmed through intelligence
reports.
It is also pertinent to present here a comprehensive investigative
report on the Easter Sunday carnage posted by the Colombo correspondent of the
Indian daily The Hindu” Meena Srinivasan.
Meera says that at first, they were nameless. Nine suicide bombers,” is all authorities would
reveal. In
a little over a week, the police identified each of them and their stories
began coming out. A month after a messy web of disgruntled radicals
emerged, throwing up troubling hints of how readily rage can court terror.
She
says that Zahran Hashim, 33, was a radical preacher and was the
alleged ringleader, who f6ound
little acceptance in his hometown Kattankudy, in eastern Batticaloa. Mosques in
the predom6inantly Muslim town rejected him outright and their members even
complained to authorities, before he went absconding in 2017 after a clash with
a fellow priest who challenged his interpretation of Islam.
But soon, a team of young Muslim men — and one woman — from
other, mostly Sinhala-majority, areas eagerly joined him on his Easter mission
to carry out a suicide attack on churches and high-end hotels in and around
Colombo and Batticaloa. All nine bombers were in their 20s and 30s.
Ms. Srinicasan states that they were radicalised at different
times, for different reasons, and in varying measures and they encountered
Hashim on social media or in person. She adds that in him they saw a mentor who
could give their lives purpose and direction. With time and interaction, their
shared cause acquired considerable weight — enough for them to pledge their
lives for it.
She states that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and
Terrorist Investigation Division (TID), w6ho conducted the probe, have traced all nine to two jihadist organisations — National Tawheed Jamaath (NTJ), led by
Hashim, and Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim (JMI), a less formal group of youth who
had met on social media.
Marred by internal power struggles,Meera says that the two
organisations gradually became less relevant for Hashim’s team as its focus
shifted to a new mission in the last six months. They were bound by ideology
and connected by technology.
And on April 21, the nine bombers killed over 250 people, including 45 children,
drawing attention to the underground terror network they had built quietly and
efficiently, even as the rest of Sri Lanka was enjoying a relative post-civil
war calm.
Ishana Exports is a nearly three decade-old spice export
company. Its founder Y.M. Ibrahim is widely known as 6a millionaire with modest
beginnings, and an ever-ready philanthropist. He has friends of all political
hues, and they all respect him. In natural course, his sons would have
inherited his business, fortune, and possibly all that goodwill. Instead, they
chose to become suicide bombers. The CID has detained their father for questioning.
An extremely mild-mannered and polite young man.” That is how a
senior staff member at Ishana Exports remembers his boss’s son Inshaf Ahmed
Mohamed Ibrahim. Even as a child he was not mischievous. He was a lovely child,”
said a family member.
Inshaf, 33, went to D.S. Senanayake College, he didn’t go to
university but learned the tricks of the spice trade.
Of nine siblings, only Inshaf and Ilham — the second and third
sons — were directly involved in the business. Both were on the board of
directors. Inshaf was more actively engaged, said company sources. Th6e two
often travelled on work, including to India.
Though he [Inshaf] was technically our boss, he never gave
orders. He would say ‘can you please do this’, as if he were asking a favour,”
said an employee, who asked not to be named. Ilham, 31, on the other hand,
doesn’t seem to have evoked a similar warmth. Ilham was a loner, he rarely
showed up at family events or spoke to people. He was very introverted. We
hardly even know him,” said a family member.
It was not until a year ago that employees and family noticed a
change in the two brothers.
Inshaf often objected to his father’s practice of taking
short-term loans on interest for rotating cash. He said our 6religion does not
permit borrowing money on interest and we must stop it,” a senior employee
rec6alled. It’s something Muslims often hear their preachers say, but their
father — with a practical business sense — did not consider it an offence.
- At least two arrests made after the attacks suggest that young
IT professionals were among those associated with JMI.
- Investigators say they suspect Aadhil Ameez, 24, a software
engineer who might have provided technical and logistical support to the
bombers, to have been a link between different jihadist units.
- A Reuters report reveals that Ameez — who calls himself Aadhil
Ax — has been under Indian surveillance from 2016, when he was found to be in
touch with two suspects linked to a plot targeting Ahmedabad and with three
Indians promoting the IS.
- Ameez was from Dharga Town, near Aluthgama on the southern
coast, where Muslims faced large-scale, targeted violence in 2012. As in Digana
in 2018, the attacks seemed part of a pattern. It was repeated6 last week in
parts of Kurunegala and Gampaha, when mobs torched Muslim-owned shops and
homes.
- Ameez is believed to have interned with IT company Virtusa in
2013, where one employee was recently arrested for suspected links with the
Easter attacks. We don’t know if he played a role, but there are indications
that this employee met Hashim on April 6,” said a senior investigating officer.
Inshaf continued to run a copper factory that he had set up some
five years earlier, in Wellampitiya, 5 km from the family’s plush villa in the Colombo
suburb, Dematagoda. Ilham managed a part of the spice sourcing for his father’s
company.
Inshaf continued to visit the office, dealing with employees as
cordially as before. A company source said there was no drastic change in
Inshaf’s appearance. He only sported a slightly longer beard, I noticed. But
ma6ny people do that.” He wore formals or the usual jeans and T-shirt.
He came last on April 18.” That was four days before he blew
himself up at Colombo’s Cinnamon Grand Hotel, just as Ilham and mastermind
Hashim did at the nearby Shangri-La hotel.
The same day, Ilham’s pregnant wife Fathima blasted explosives
strapped to her body as the police surrounded the Dematagoda house, where
Ilham’s family lived on the top floor. Their three children as well as three
policemen died on the spot.
Investigators believe the brothers came in contact with Hashim
via Facebook and private chat rooms. The bond seems to have grown over time,
with Ilham becoming a key funder of the Easter plot, according to a top
officer.
The CCTV footage from Taj Samudra that Sri Lankan television
played, showed a restless Abdul Latheef Jameel M666ohamed seated at a
restaurant, fiddling with his backpack. Minutes later, he walked out after a
botched suicide attack. Without a clue of the terror he was carrying on his
shoulders, staff helped him wheel out his bigger bags to the porch. Five hours
later, he blew himself up in a small hotel in a southern suburb of Dehiwala,
killing at least two other guests.
As a teenager, Jameel was a motivated student. He pursued
aerospace engineering at Kingston University in southwest London from 2006 to
2007, and later went to Melbourne for postgraduation. Australian immigration
records show that he left Australia in 2013.
Jameel’s sister Samsul Hidaya told Daily Mail that
he was normal” when he went to study in Britain. But after Australia, he
returned to Sri Lanka a different man,” she was quoted as saying. The
Australian reported that the police had marked Jameel for his
apparent terrorist leanings, based on evidence linking him 6to IS recruiter
Neil Prakash, one of Australia’s most wanted jihadists.
Others, however, believe Jameel was radicalised earlier, in the
U.K., where he met notorious British Islamist Anjem Choud66ary. Jameel’s
friends also told media that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 had deeply
affected him when he was in his early 20s.
According to investigators, Jameel returned t0 Sri Lanka in
2014, after a failed attempt to travel to Syria. He could go only up to
Turkey,” an officer said. Back home, he lived with his wife and four children
in Wellampitiya, the Colombo suburb where Inshaf’s copper factory is located.
Jameel and the Ibrahim brothers knew each other well,” said a
senior investigator. Initially, it was Ilham who linked up with Jameel online.
Later, they were all part of JMI.”
Like Jameel, Alawdeen Ahmed Muath too was a motivated student.
He graduated in law from a college in Colombo and was registered to practise.
Following his wedding a year ago, Muath mostly lived in Sainthamaruthu, his
wife’s hometown in the Eastern Province. The town, less than an hour’s drive
from Kattankudy, where Hashim was based, came into focus when troops found 15
bodies inside a house on April 27. After an overnight gun battle between
security forces and suspects, three suicide bombers triggered explosions,
killing themselves, six children and three women inside.
Among the dead were Hashim’s father and two brothers, including
Rilwan Hashim, later identified by investigators as an explosives expert”. The
jihadists were tenants on the first floor of a small house in a crammed tsunami
resettlement colony. Muath, officers say, likely met the Hashims in
Sainthamaruthu.
Muath would visit us now and then. He last came [home] on April
14 to see his sister’s newborn. His wife was pregnant, their baby was also due
soon. Muath bought baby clothes and left for Sainthamaruthu,” his father said
in court.
On Easter morning, Muath’s wife called the family to ask if they
knew where he was. Then came news of the blast. On M6ay 5, Muath’s baby was
born, a fortnight after the father took his life and that of many others, at
St. Anthony’s church in Colombo.
Hashim’s network was not restricted to the nine Easter bombers.
Over the years, he had found allies and fans in different cities. For instance,
the Abdul-Haq brothers in Mawanella, some 25 km from Kandy, who were on the run
from December 2018. That’s when Buddha statues in Mawanella, which is home to a
sizeable Sinhala-Buddhist population, were vandalised. At least six people were
arrested, but Mohammad Sadik Abdul-Haq and Mohammad Shaheed Abdul-Haq went into
hiding. They were caught days after the Easter terror attacks.
Military intelligence sources said they have not found any
evidence of the duo’s role in the Easter bombings, but other investigators
indicated that Sadik likely trained some of the bombers.
of their role, their backstory gives a peek into how some
crucial links in Sri Lanka’s Islamist radical m6atrix go
back years. Their story also reveals how raging anger can swiftly morph into a
thirst for revenge, making an indoctrinator’s job easy.
Hashim visited a mosque near Mawanella over eight years ago and,
typically, made more enemies than friends before being barred from preaching
there. Hashim would frequently argue that our preachers were wrong in their
practice of Islam. After a point, they realised he was a trouble-maker and asked
him not to come,” said an official at the Mawanella masjid.
The brothers grew up in Mawanella in a pious family. Their
father Ibrahim Moulavi was a well-respected preacher and a member of the local
Jamaat-e-Islami, an influential socio-religious organisation. Sadik failed his
A Levels but was known for his karate skills. He was very athletic,” the source
said. Sadik and Sha6heed met Hashim once or twice” at that time, said a source
close to the family.
Investigators can’t confirm these earlier meetings, but believe
the brothers gravitated towards Hashim later, in 2017, enticed by his doctrinal
videos. From our investigation, it appears they got close in 2018, months
before getting the statue vandalising assignment from Hashim,” a senior officer
said.
Meanwhile, friends of the brothers were aware of their growing
radicalism. In fact, the Jamaat-e-Islami and its youth wing, Sri Lanka Islamic
Students’ Movement, expelled them four years ago. Sadik went to Turkey on a
scholarship and promised to return in three months but stayed on for over four
months. We heard he went to Syria from there,” said one member.
On his return, Sadik tried usurping leadership of the
organisation, and was expelled. He grew a long beard, his wife began to wea6r
the face veil, not very common among Muslims in Mawanella. Shaheed too changed
his attire. Their father tried bringing them back on track. Instead, they
tactfully drew Moulavi to their radical line,” said a relative. The father had
to be expelled from Jamaat-e-Islami less than a year ago. He challenged our
constitution,” said a member.
Then, the defacing of the Buddha statues put them back in the
spotlight. Friends and family members of the duo point to two likely triggers
for the brothers’ growing slant towards radicalism.
Mawanella experienced a spate of violent anti-Muslim attacks in
2001 that shook the town. Fearing more losses to business and property, Muslims
did not retaliate. Sadik and Shaheed were in their late teens at the time.
In 2018, Digana, located 40 km east of Mawanella, witnessed one
of the worst targeted attacks on Muslims in years. Following a ro6ad rage
incident, at least one Muslim youth died, and Muslim-owned property worth
millions was burnt down. Many saw the incident as a crude expression of a
resurgent Sinhala-Buddhist extremism.
It must have impacted Sadik very much. Why Sadik, it affected
all of us. I was very disturbed that these hardline groups were getting away
with such deplorable actions,” says a young professional, in his early 30s, who
knew the brothers from childhood. We all felt the same rage. The only
difference was in how we chose to express it — emotionally or rationally. Sadik
was always emotional and aggressive, the kind whose hands would speak first
even when someone violated traffic rules.”
A few others in Mawanella, Kattankudy and Colombo echoed similar
sentiments. As much as they vehemently condemned the terror attacks, they
seemed to appreciate why their friends or relatives had turned radical. They
say radicalism and terrorism have many roots. The feeling of injustice must
surely be one,” said the young p6rofessional.
He recalled Hashim’s Facebook cover picture from late 2018. I
remember it said in Arabic ‘we are going to conspire against your statues’. It
must have spoken directly to Sadik and Shaheed’s anger.” As it turned out,
Hashim — who staunchly opposed idol worship — chose the brothers for the statue
vandalism that investigators, in retrospect, see as an important precursor to the
Easter attacks.
The many hazy links Hashim had with radical youth appear to have
firmed up into an informal alliance in 2016, at a wedding. Investigators said:
It was at a wedding in Kattankudy. Many JMI members went for it. We think Ilham
and Jameel were also there.” Beginning then, most in the group stayed in touch
largely through WhatsApp and Telegram, even after Hashim went into hiding in
2017.
But the real close circle,” investigators said, was formed
mid-2018, with no specific mission but probably as some sort of preparation”
for a future attack. Investigators point to the clue they saw in the huge cache
of explosives unearthed in January in Wanathawilluwa town, near Wilpattu
national park.
The Easter plot itself seems to have come to shape much later.
From our interrogation of suspects, it is evident that Hashim spoke of
attacking churches,” said a senior officer. He thinks the plot was provoked by
the Christchurch killings in New Zealand in which over 50 Muslims, kneeling in
prayer, were shot dead.
Others are less certain. The Christchurch attack was mid-March.
A well-coordinated, sophisticated attack of this nature will need meticulous
planning and longer preparation time,” said a senior officer. There is little
evidence to support that theory.”
In fact, one of the main questions that remains is whether the
suspects had a direct channel to the IS leaders6hip,” he said. Evidence shows
that some suspects, including Jameel and Hashim’s brother Rilwan, were in touch
with two of the five main Sri Lankan IS fighters who went to Syria some years
ago. But none of the bombers had direct links with the IS leadership.
One of the Sri Lankan jihadists that Rilwan had been speaking to
died in 2017; and another, whom Jameel knew, is in custody, reportedly in
Turkey. They were two of the first five fighters who left from 2015 to Turkey
and Syria. They left with their entire families. That is how politicians came
up with that number,” he said, referring to the over 30 Sri Lankan youth” who,
politicians say, joined the IS.
It is unclear if Hashim was independently in touch with the IS
leadership. He often claimed to have received instructions from Sham,”
referring to Syria, in his videos and conversations with recruits.
Investigators are also grappling with another contradiction —
the target. Why did the Islamist radicals choose to attack a fellow minority
community with whom they had no enmity?
In the raid in Sainthamaruthu, troops not only found explosives,
but also white dresses that Buddhist women usually wear for temple visits or
prayers. This has sparked doubts of whether the attacks were planned for the
Buddhist festival of Vesak — May 18-19 — or for the July Kandy Perahara, known
for its procession of traditional dancers and parades of elephants. Every year,
tens of thousands of people are on Kandy’s streets to witness this spectacle.
Some investigators wondered if an initial plot, planned against
Sinhala-Buddhists, had been hijacked by an external element” at a later stage.
In other words, did an individual or group abroad use an already activated
local radical group to put out its own message to the Western world? There are
no clear answers yet.
It also looks as if JMI members initially hoped to join the IS
in Syria. But after the ‘fall’ of the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, they had to
put off the plan, an official source said. Ever since, Ilham was desperate to
execute an attack in Sri Lanka. He found his answer in the Easter plot.”
His brother Inshaf appears to have been roped in at the last
stage. He had flight tickets booked for himself and his family for Mecca this
May.
It was only weeks before the Easter weekend that they have
evolved into a proper team, with their specific roles charted out. In the final
weeks, they communicated using ‘Threema’, an encrypted messenger service
considered highly secure, according to an officer.
Now, after extensive searches and key arrests, officers are
confident of having virtually eliminated the threat. However, investigators
continue to connect the dots — old and new — to deconstruct the deadly
operation. Gaps remain,” a senior officer admitted.
Further probes will reveal if the plot was accelerated after
Christchurch or if the target shifted at some point, but what is clear is that
the suicide bombers had harboured enough rage in recent years to willingly
embrace terror and execute a ruthless act. After that, the date, venue and
target were merely details.(END)
