(AFP) Fifteen people including six children died in a battle between Sri Lankan security forces and suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the latest fallout from the Easter attacks, police said Saturday.
Three men set off explosives that killed themselves, three women and six children inside what was believed to a jihadist hideout near the eastern town of Kalmunai on Friday night.
“Three other men, also believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead outside the house,” police added in a statement. The three outside were shot dead by security forces, police officials added.
Security forces tried to storm the house and a one-hour long gun battle ensued before the explosions, a military official said.
Police and troops have stepped up raids after the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels, which killed least 253 people and injured 500.
Kalmunai is in the same region as the home town of the jihadist Zahran Hashim who founded the group accused of staging the attacks.
The operation followed a tip-off that people linked to the attacks were in the town, 370 kilometres (230 miles) east of the capital.
Video on state television showed explosives, a generator, a drone and a large quantity of batteries inside the house.
The clashes came hours after security forces raided a nearby location where they believe Hashim and the other bombers recorded a video pledge of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before carrying out the attacks.
Police said they found an IS flag and uniforms similar to those worn by the eight fighters for the video. IS released the video two days after the attacks.
Authorities named Hashim’s group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), as the perpetrators of the attack, but announced Friday he had been killed in the bombing of the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo.
The government is on the defensive over its failure to heed a foreign intelligence warning that NTJ was planning suicide bombings on churches.
Police chief Pujith Jayasundara became the second top official to resign over the blunders Friday, after top defence ministry official Hemasiri Fernando also stepped down.
Sri Lanka’s Catholic leader, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, has said he felt “betrayed” by the government’s failure to act on the warnings.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe apologised on Friday.
“We take collective responsibility and apologise to our fellow citizens for our failure to protect victims of these tragic events,” the PM wrote on Twitter.
Amidst fears of new attacks, the Roman Catholic church has suspended all public services across the country until security is guaranteed by the government, with the archbishop appealing to Catholics to stay home and say private prayers.
Security has been stepped up at churches and mosques across the South Asian nation.
Some groups were expected to hold public vigils in Colombo and Negombo, where St Sebastian’s Church suffered some of the worst casualties in the bombings.
The military have poured troops onto the streets to back up police as they search for suspects using newly granted powers under a state of emergency.
At least 94 people are in custody, including a man believed to be the father of two of the bombers. Authorities warned the hunt would contine.
“We now have info that there are about 140 people in Sri Lanka linked to the Islamic State. We can and we will eradicate all of them very soon,” President Maithripala Sirisena said Friday, announcing new legislation on extremist groups.
– Tourism hit –
Dozens of foreigners died in the attacks and the government has said it expects the number of overseas tourists to fall by 30 percent this year, at a cost of $1.5 billion in revenues.
Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the island — which depends on tourism as a cornerstone of its economy — could take up to two years to fully recover.
The US State Department on Friday escalated its travel warning for Sri Lanka and ordered the departure of all school-age family members of US government employees.
Other nations including Israel, Australia and Britain have already warned against visiting Sri Lanka.
Colombo, April 27 (newsin.asia): The United States has said that while applying improved safety mechanisms to protect Sri Lanka’s citizens from new threats, it is imperative that the Sri Lankan government do so in ways that also protect rule of law and that do not infringe upon the human rights of individuals or groups, or limit their ability to worship, communicate and to live together in peace.
The US Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Alaina Teplitz, stated in her call for unity on April 25: These terrible attacks are the work of a few individuals and not of an entire community. Sri Lankans of all backgrounds and faiths have come together to condemn these atrocities. Unity is the most powerful answer to terrorism.”
Ambassador Teplitz further underscored that while we work together to bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice, we must remain vigilant in defending the democratic ideals that form the pillars of a strong society. And we must do so without destroying communities of peaceful, innocent people who share the faith of the attackers, but not their warped ideology. We must always respect the wonderful diversity of Sri Lanka and fortify the culture of unity that the country needs to thrive.”
Short Term Collaboration
On Saturday, the US said: At the request of the Sri Lankan Government, U.S. experts are already working closely with their Sri Lankan partners on fulfilling short term, specific objectives related to the recent attacks and to bringing the perpetrators to justice. This cooperation does not indicate a larger, long term presence of US security teams in the country,” a press release from the US embassy said.
As Sri Lanka looks to the future and to implementing changes in security and communications procedures to prevent future atrocities, the United States stands ready to assist with lessons learned from our own past tragedies and through our ongoing cooperation with local authorities.”
The US statement follows a warning by an opposition MP Dinesh Gunawardene that the US may post its troop in Sri Lanka in the guise of helping Colombo fight Islamic terror.
When asked about the possibility of US stationing troops in Sri Lanka, President Maithripala Sirisena said that no foreign troops would be allowed to be deployed and that Sri Lanka would only seek cooperation in intelligence.
Profile pictures have been changed to National flags and white flags, Pray for Sri Lanka” posts have gone viral, people are lining up to donate blood, everybody is weeping for the Easter Sunday terrorist attack victims in unison; shedding petty racial, religious and political differences.
All of us collectively condemn the attacks and convey condolences to families of the victims. Could we prevent further attacks of this kind by merely mourning and helping each other? The crystal-clear answer is a big ‘no’. In order to prevent repetitions, we should find the reasons for this debacle and eliminate the same.
Sri Lanka witnessed a terrorist attack exactly after a decade. There was no terrorist attack in Sri Lanka after the defeat of LTTE terrorism on 19 May 2009.
When powerful nations were worrying about terrorist attacks, we boasted about the security in our country. Unfortunately, national security was put into reverse gear after change of Government on 8 January 2015.
Intelligence officers, who act as eyes and ears of the nation, are the first to receive information about terrorist activities. Government politicians now ask where the intelligence officers were.
They conveniently forget that they put intelligence officers behind bars soon after coming into power.
The Government not only demoralised intelligence officers, but the entire security forces by arresting several groups of intelligence officers in an indecent manner. So the Government lost the chance of receiving informing well in advance.
The Government used the judicial system to harass the military top brass who won the war, including the then Defence Secretary by levelling baseless allegations. The message received by the Forces was that defeating terrorism was a punishable offense.
The Government did not stop there; it joined hands with the former terrorists to accuse our troops of war crimes at the UNHRC. Sri Lanka set a record by being the first Government to go against its own military.
Terrorists were encouraged
The Government not only discouraged the Military but also encouraged the terrorists in every possible way. A law was enacted to pay compensation for terrorists and to legalise commemorations of fallen terrorist leaders.
While soldiers were arrested, the terrorists were pardoned and released. Encourage your child to be a terrorist instead of a soldier” was the message given by the Government to the general public.
For the first time in our history, we became victims of Islamic extremist terrorism instead of Tamil separatist terrorism; it has been a new experience for us. It was however, a result of making an atmosphere conducive for terrorism during the last four years. When there is wet fertile soil, nobody needs to plant weeds – they grow without any effort. Similarly, brutal terrorism is the unavoidable end result of actions taken by the Government during the recent past.
A warning, unheeded
Joining the Halal debate, I warned in this column in 2014 that international Muslim extremism had reached Sri Lanka and urged Muslim community leaders to look after their people.
Unfortunately Muslim scholars and politicians blamed me, accusing me of seeing crocodiles in the tea cup, instead of being vigilant about the warning.
Similarly, Parliamentarians Wimal Weerawansa and Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa were heavily under attack by Muslim leaders for pointing out the growing extremism in Muslim society.
Venerable Gnanasara, who had been warning about Muslim militancy, was imprisoned for 19 years. All was set for free growth of Islamic militancy without any obstacle.
When several Muslims were arrested for vandalising Buddhist shrines and possessing explosives, the Government had a golden opportunity of tracing terrorists responsible for the Easter Sunday Attack.
The terrorists have reportedly attacked Christians in Sri Lanka in retaliation to the attack that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand. Why did they choose Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka had the best atmosphere for such a terrorist attack having a weakened security setup.
Hope
A Silver ray can be seen in the gloomy sky. He is Ali Sabri PC, a rising Muslim leader. He warned Muslim society that Muslims are being isolated and Muslim youths are increasing attracted to extremism.
He was bold enough to speak the truth because he loves this country and his community more than himself. In order to ensure a secured future for Muslims, the community should be led by the people, in the calibre of Ali Sabri.
The UNP has been in a shameless attempt to avoid responsibility claiming We were not aware of anything. Intelligence was received by Police, and the IGP is directly under the President”.
They have conveniently forgotten that the present IGP was selected by the UNP, ignoring seniors. His name was recommended to the President by the Constitutional Council of which the majority is with the UNP.
Furthermore, the IGP can be removed only by Parliament which is in control of the UNP. Moreover, Police Department had been under UNP ministers until October 2018. Hence, the UNP cannot shed the responsibility away.
This brutal terrorist attack is the harvest of seeds sowed by the Government for the last four years. Unfortunately, innocent people had to sacrifice their loved ones for the Government’s blunders. We have no more tears to shed. We have no further strength to weep.
Hence, the Government should revisit its policies and attitudes towards terrorism.
Sri Lankans have been left in shock following the ruthless killing of 253 innocent people, including children, on Easter Sunday, by a zero-tolerant homegrown Islamic militant group.
Since 2014, the local Media has been highlighting about possible Islamic militant infiltration in Sri Lanka. But, the Media exposures were ignored.
Now it seems that there are many who have come forward to tell the world that they ‘knew’ about a home grown extremist group óperating’ in Sri Lanka, mainly in the Eastern Province.
Some Islamic religious organisations have also distanced themselves from the extremists, while some politicians from the community deny knowing them, which is extremely shocking.
In Ceylon Today’s 26 July, 2015 edition, the writer in an article, ‘How Nilam Took Turkey Visa to Join ISIS’ broke the news story of the first Sri Lankan ISIS militant to be killed in Syria in a US coalition airstrike.
Well, it has not taken too long for the ‘Salafi Jihadi’ extremist militant group, of the Islamic State (IS), to infiltrate our tiny isle. It has now become a mind jolting reality.
Ceylon Today has repeatedly, in the not too distant past, been highlighting the fact of the ominous possibility of the ISIS reaching in beyond our doorstep and recruiting personnel for their sordid deeds.
The Maldives, is one of the South Asian bases for recruiting IS men. Former Speaker and Foreign Minister of the Maldives Abdulla Shahid told Ceylon Today that his country was ‘fertile ground’ for recruitment.
Very little known Sharfaz Nilam Muhsin (37), aka Abu Shuraih Sailani (his Caliphate name), was the first Sri Lankan militant to migrate to Syria with his family through the Turkish Embassy in Colombo.
As soon as he was killed, we checked his Facebook account and found out that many of his followers were praising his closeness to becoming a martyr in a foreign land.
He had a handsome number of followers from Kandy and Colombo too. He was referred to as their ‘master ‘mainly because he was a Karate Master and as well as a principal of a leading international school in Colombo.
Islamic radicalisation
The writer then informed the Police Media spokesman about Nilam’s followers and urged him to track down and inform their respected mosques before they become radicalised.
In the last six years or so, Islamic radicalisation became apparent through social media and Sri Lankan Muslims were seemingly connected to the IS. There were about 32 Sri Lankan Caliphate fighters in Syria, noted the then Minister of Education Wijayadasa Rajapakshe.
There was media exposure about Maldivians using the Bandaranaike International Airport as their transit hub to reach Syria. Some were arrested and the Government said they were repatriated to the Maldives.
There were no answers to whether these Maldivian youths remained in Sri Lanka and for how long before taking their flights to Syria.
There was also a news about a girl from Pune, India wanting to reach Syria through Sri Lanka and her travel documents and visa was arranged’ by a travel agency in Colombo.
It was speculated that they were the ‘recruiting agency’ to send ISIS fighters to Syria. The Police said the some in the agency were arrested, but were they released later, we don’t know.
National Thowheed Jamaat (NTJ) is a small outfit that gained notoriety only last year for defacing Buddha statues in Mawanella and although it was a tiny group, the fact that there was media exposure of imminent IS links with Sri Lankans, was an easy guess based on the media reports of IS infiltration in the country.
Despite the NTJ not claiming the Easter Sunday attacks on Churches till today, top military officials say that could be due to fear of being tracked down because their activities were visible and highlighted on local media last year.
Last week the All Ceylon Jammiyathul Ulama (ACJU), holding a press briefing said that Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jama’ath, the Ceylon Thowheeth Jama’at and the National Thowheeth Jama’ath pose a threat to the peace and unity of Sri Lanka and should be banned.
They condemned all forms of terrorism and the Easter Sunday attacks. The ACJU urged the Government to ban these organisations but in the past remained silent.
On 22 July 2015, the ACJU issued a statement against the ISIS. They also said that they had continuously informed the defence authorities about religious extremism in their community and had urged that action be taken against Zahran Hasheem of Katankuddy, who was involved.
The ACJU said that in the name of Thowheeth, there are many organisations but they didn’t know the number of members in these oraganisations operating under different Thowheeth names. The ACJU added that registering Thowheeth organistion is not their job.
The ACJU also declared that it was a member of the NTJ who was behind the attacks and not all. The ACJU said in 2016, the people of Katankudy lodged a complaint about the individual Zahran.
They also said that many other Thowheeth groups, who did not follow Zahran’s, extreme religious views, complained to the Police. They noted that the Government had not officially revealed the name of the terrorist group that had committed this mass crime. They also admitted they don’t know the number of different Thowheeth organisations that exist in Sri Lanka.
There are many Thowheeth organisations working with the ACJU and the NTJ has nothing to do with them,” the ACJU said.
They added that the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jamaat has no links with them and never comes for discussions with them and they will not accept the suicide bombers’ bodies for the last rituals.
The ACJU overwhelmingly stated that it’s only one individual that should be blamed for the blasts and it was about him and his activities that they have informed to the Police. However, this statement by the ACJU, though strong, comes too late.
The ACJU claimed that they have informed the Police about a growing threat. However, this is the first time that they sought for the banning of these groups and organisations. They did nothing about it in the past.
One of the main tasks of the ACJU is to provide religious guidance to the Muslims of Sri Lanka. They cannot distance themselves from that.
One of the most important aspects for the Muslim community at this time is the Islamic education to quote from their website. The ACJU has established 25 district and 102 divisional branches, and enrolled over 5,000 theologians, most of whom are holders of doctorates, special degrees, master’s degrees or 1st degrees and are involved in community service.
Their utmost contribution is to be in unity and peace and distancing themselves from other Muslim organisations, because the ACJU wants to be the sole representative of the Muslims. This is intolerable notes a Muslim civil society on condition of anonymity. The Muslim Civil Society said that at their convenience they urged the Muslims to remove their burka and wear it is simply not a right gesture.
Hapless Muslims
Looking at the Eastern provinces, the hapless Muslims seems to have been caught between the devil and deep sea. Although the Muslims of Katankudy took to streets against the satanic Zahran, who has been preaching his extreme religious views, their constant attention to get him arrested had been weak. There were no Muslim Ministers joining such protests to call on the Government to arrest him, that could have attracted attention, many say.
Strongmen Cabinet Minister Rishad Bathiudeen from Mannar and Minister Rauff Hakeem could have called for his arrest, joining the people of their constituencies.
Keeping the matter under wraps and sharing their information secretly with the government, has not done any good to the people of Sri Lanka.
Some argued the very same interest in talking about Islamic extremism was not propagated by the Muslims politicians as they do now, after the terrorist committed a brutal attack on three churches and three hotels involving eight suicide bombers.
At last week’s press conference, held by the Muslim politicians, Minister Rauf Hakeem said he ‘knew ‘about these radicals six months ago. He and Minister Bathiudeen and many of their political party associates, who were gathered there, narrated that the Government did not take action despite highlighting the issue.
Have they shared with the mainstream media their report? One of the Governors has been harboring the Katankuddy extremists, says a Civil Society, that works for the North and East Muslims and they added that this has been reported to the government.
It is also said that top Muslim politicians have been visiting Ibrahim, the father of the two blood brothers of Dematagoda, who blew themselves up at Shangri La and Cinnamon Grand. According to information, Ibrahim has funded the Muslim politician for his political career.
The Civil Society says that these politicians have groomed everyone and they know a lot more than others about the current situation of the country. They should be arrested and questioned, the Muslim Civil Society said.
The Muslim Civil Society that did not want to be named also noted that the Muslims operate in isolation. Fanaticism does not arise overnight and this is known to the families if they are together.
Unless the sons and daughters are in isolation in different countries or places, a family cannot miss seeing their children being radicalised while living amongst them.” they noted.
The Muslim Civil Society, further added that other civil society organisations also alerted the Government and Muslim religious leaders about the growing religious extremism in the East. They added that even in the Vanatavillu case there was political influence for the release the suspect.
Government’s inaction
Adding that the current Government’s inaction in the past four years added to the religious extremism, they said It’s an easy guess that Muslim votes will swing if stern action is taken against them. They will crossover if they are put to test.”
According to them, Islamic extremism grew with the end of the war and not six months ago. They also submitted Zharan’s extreme religious views that he had uploaded to the YouTube in February last year. We informed the Government about him and his followers.”
Many of the politicians are talking about the Katankudy people who protested against Zharan and are allegedly trying to shield behind that protest saying the Muslims have informed the Government.
Today, there are other places like Sammanthurai, Ampara, Ninthavur, Sainthamaruthu, etc, where Islamic militants’ hideouts were raided and a couple of them were killed.
In Sainthamaruthu, a family had been blown up. That is the worst form of death in the name of a religion, it is reported.
There were several other places like Colombo Negombo, Maskeliya, Puttalam and Nuwara Eliya where devices used for destructions were detected.
Despite the Government being criticised for being ignorant, they are back on track. Military spokesperson Sumith Atapattu said civil security is on alert and all possible measures have been taken but that does not mean everything is safe.
True enough, because religious extremism is about warring against a mindset that is invisible. It’s only the people around those who have extreme religious ideologies can notice it.
Had Ibrahim informed the authorities about his two sons, who were probably in isolation and involved in secret activities, the Easter carnage could have been avoided. Arresting of religious extremists will only create more hatred in the families and that is not the only solution.
A best way to solve is to keep track on the activities of our bloved ones at home and in the community. The ACJU should join hands without discarding any other Islamic organisation and together introduce a system where young ones are not radicalised but follow Islam in its true form.
Media and Government can do little about religious extremists. It’s a collective mission if we want a safe Sri Lanka. Defending secularism, citizenship and universal rights is the only way forward.
Three suspects were taken into Sri Lanka Navy custody with one kilogram of C-4 explosives and a three-wheeler near the Wellawatte railway station today, Navy Spokesman Isuru Suriyabandar said.
He told Daily Mirror that the suspects were handed over to the Army and they would handover them to the police. (
Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga yesterday called for the banning of Madarasa Islamic Schools in Sri Lanka saying the children are taught extremism in those institutions.
Ms. Kumaratunga expressed these sentiments at the all party-all faith conference held at the parliamentary complex last evening.
Madarasa schools have been existing in Sri Lanka for the last ten years. Children are taught extremism in these schools. I informed about these to the present regime as well but no action was taken,” Ms. Kumaratunga said.
I have been told that some Muslim children who were studying at Ladies College have left that school and had joined a Madarasa school,” she added.
She then said children of all religions should be allowed to go into government schools such as Ananda, Nalanda and Vishaka.
Only Buddhist children go to these schools and I propose that a quota should introduced when it comes to the intake of students where at least five percent of non Buddhist students should be taken in,” she added.
Several Buddhist Monks including Thiyawala Palitha Thera said the Madarasa schools should be regulated. He said the Education Ministry should take steps to this effect.
Anunayaka of Malwathu Chapter Most Venerable Dimbulkumubure Wimaladhamma Thera said IS is out to seize power in Sri Lanka.
Venerable Thera therefore stressed the need for collective effort of all political parties to avert such an eventuality.
Mawlavi Faris Farook said the name ‘Madarasa’ means the ‘Daham Pasal’. Anyone is invited come and visit these schools,” he said. Mowlavi added that Islam has nothing to do with any extremist group. What the extremist groups teach is no Islam,” he said.
President Bishop’s Conference Rev. Winston Fernando said the President, the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition and parliament have to be responsible for the mayhem. He said an impartial investigation should be carried out on the matter. (
Three suspects allegedly radical Islamist extremists and two weapons of the two Policemen killed at a checkpoint in Vavunathiwu on November 29, 2018 were recovered by officers of the Criminal Investigations Department today.
Sources confirmed that the three suspects were arrested in Kalmunai and the weapons were recovered in the Vavunathawilluwa area.
” They were members of the radical Islamist Organisation” a high ranking source told the Daily Mirror.
Two Policemen were shot by a unknown assailants and their weapons were taken away at a routine checkpoint in Vavunathiwu on November 29, 2018.
The deceased were 28-year-old police constable Dinesh Alagaratnam and a 35-year-old Niroshan Indika, a father of one from Galle.
Sources confirmed that the three suspects arrested were a part of a a radical Islamist ideology. (
UPDATE: (3.24 p.m.) – UNP Colombo Municipal Councillor Noordeen Mohamed Thajudeen, who was arrested over the discovery of 46 sword in Slave Island, has been handed over to the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD), according to the Police Spokesman.
Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) member, Noordeen Mohamed Thajudeen, has been arrested in connection with the 46 swords discovered in the Slave Island area.
The UNP councillor was taken into custody by police this morning in connection with the incident, police confirmed.
A suspect was arrested yesterday (26) along with 46 swords during a search operation carried out by security forces in the Slave Island area.
A person has been arrested along with 51 sticks of water-gel explosives, 215 detonators and a motorcycle during a search operation at Erakkandi, Trincomalee.
The suspect was arrested with the explosives by Sri Lanka Navy personnel, who were carrying out a search in the area
Police have recovered 49 knives from the premises of a mosque in the Maskeliya area during a search operation carried out this morning.
The police officers who engaged in a search operation of the mosque premises had discovered 49 knives and 3 small axes inside a storage room.
The person in charge of the said storage room was taken into custody as he had failed provide an explanation with regard to the possession of these weapons.
All day people were coming in and out of the house with the pale-pink walls, and neighbours were becoming suspicious. An elder in the village of the eastern Sri Lankan city of Kalmunai was summoned to confront the men who had rented the property a few weeks before.
The discussion soon became tense, and a tall, well-built man whom the elder did not recognise walked out of the house carrying an automatic weapon. You have no business being here,” he said, according to the elder, firing a few rounds into the air and sending neighbours fleeing.
By the early hours of Saturday, 15 people were dead, including three children, and the walls of the house were blackened by the force of three explosions from the suicide bombers who had been cornered inside.
Reuters reported on Saturday that a woman and child injured in the fighting were the wife and daughter of Mohammed Zahran Hashim, the extremist preacher identified as the leader of the terrorist cell responsible for killing at least 253 people in a string of bombings of churches and luxury hotels. Police sources said the woman was in a serious condition.
The 90-minute gun battle in the city, about seven hours’ drive from the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, is part of an ongoing hunt for accomplices and sympathisers of the suicide bombers that has led to dozens of arrests and controlled explosions of suspicious vehicles and packages.
Sri Lankan leaders have estimated there are at least 70 people still at large, some capable of exploding themselves”, the country’s prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, told the Observer. Both the US and India stepped up their travel warnings for nationals seeking to visit Sri Lanka on Saturday.
The house in Kalmunai had been rented by a man claiming to be a telecommunications engineer, the landlord, who asked not to be named, said. He had paid cash, but unusually, had not asked for a discount for doing so. Money had not appeared to be a problem.
On Friday night a civilian was killed in the crossfire between police and the men inside and at least three others were injured, police said.
On Saturday afternoon, a video started to be shared on Islamic State’s online channels purporting to show three men inside the house. Those who try to destroy us will be a taught a lesson,” says one man, who appears to have just one eye and several mangled fingers. Children can be heard in the background.
The next man speaks holding a rifle in one hand and his toddler son in the other. Those who wish to do us harm are surround us now,” he says. Even if we are destroyed this movement will not be stopped.” It is not clear when the video was shot and its authenticity has not been verified.
Since Sunday’s attack by the radical network, led by Hashim, a previously obscure radical preacher, police are re-examining a series of incidents that they now view as possible red flags that militants in the country were becoming more violent and brazen.
Authorities are now actively investigating whether the murder of two policemen last year at a remote police checkpoint in Vavunathivu, a town in the eastern district of Batticaloa, was also committed by members of the network, sources inside the investigation revealed on Saturday. A gun thought to belong to one of the murdered officers was found inside the house that was raided in Kalmunai on Friday night, sources said. At the time, the murder was suspected to be the work of remnants of the Tamil Tigers.
The vandalism of four Buddhist statues in Mawanella, a central town, about a month after the shooting of the officers is also being seen a crucial change in tactics: the first time men linked to Hashim turned their ire on people of another faith, after years of harassing other Muslims.
This may have been a tryout,” Wickremesinghe said. We know that before the Buddhist images there were attacks on Sufi mosques. So they appeared to be going step by step. First their own Muslims, then the Buddhists, and there was something in a small church near Kandy, information that they wanted to damage the church.”
Authorities received multiple warnings about Zahran from Muslim community leaders and specific intelligence in the weeks, days and possibly hours before the 21 April attacks that the extremist was planning to target churches.
Why those warnings were ignored has been the subject of recriminations this week inside Sri Lanka’s bitterly divided government.
There was a communications breakdown because nothing was being shared with me and the prime minister,” said Ruwan Wijewardene, Sri Lanka’s defence minister, who had been excluded from security council meetings since a constitutional crisis cleaved the government into factions last October.
The country’s president, Maithripala Sirisena, who chairs the security council meetings, says he was never told of the threat either. Blame has fallen on the country’s top defence bureaucrat, Hemasiri Fernando, and the chief inspector of police Pujith Jayasundara.
Fernando quit on Thursday evening after submitting a defiant resignation letter. I have disseminated the information I received and carried out my responsibility, however, certain officials and relevant departments have not acted accordingly, and as a result we had to face this terrible tragedy,” he wrote.
In past months, Sirisena has been deploying the resources of the country’s security apparatus towards a war on drugs inspired by the brutal campaign of the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte. A vast network of military and intelligence officials are also spread out through the country’s north, keeping watch on Tamil civilians the embers of the Tamil Tigers militia.
Drugs have always been an issue to us, but we also had to be on our guard against terrorism, global terrorism,” Wickremesinghe said. Some people were looking really at the re-emergence of the [Tigers] but I couldn’t see that.”
Late on Saturday, Sirisena announced he was banning two groups allegedly linked to the Easter bombings under emergency powers that came into effect on Tuesday. His office said National Thawheed Jammath, or NTJ, and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem, or JMI, would be banned by presidential decree.
Presidential spokesman Dharmasri Ekanayake said the move allowed the government to confiscate any property belonging to the two organisations.
The one-week mark since the devastating attack will be quietly honoured, with churches advised not to hold Sunday masses. A small service will be led by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith in Colombo, and broadcast on national television. His eminence [the cardinal] has advised us not to gather people in churches,” said a spokesman. In place of that, his eminence is expecting the faithful to watch the mass in spirit.”
Another service is scheduled to be held in a tent outside St Sebastian’s church in Negombo, where last week, a bomber with a backpack entered the middle of the church towards the end of the service, turned his back to the congregation, and detonated himself. More than 100 people were killed there.
President Maithripala Sirisena has taken steps to ban two local Islamist groups in Sri Lanka suspected of carrying out the attacks on churches and hotels on Sunday.
In terms of powers vested in him as the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka under Emergency Regulations No. 01 of 2019, the President has taken steps to declare the organizations National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) banned in Sri Lanka.
As such, all activities of those organizations as well as their property will be seized by the government the President’s Media Division said.
Steps are being taken to ban other extremist organizations operating in Sri Lanka, under Emergency Regulations, the statement said.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks that killed more than 250 people and wounded about 500.
The authorities in Sri Lanka have said the attack had been carried out by a local group, National Thowheed Jamath, with help from international militants and possibly another local militant group, Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.
Colombo, April 27 (Reuters): The wife and daughter of Mohamad Zahran Hashim, the suicide bomber cum mastermind of the serial bombings in Colombo and two other cities on April 21, were injured in the explosion in the Islamic State safe house at Sainthamarudu in Eastern Sri Lanka on Friday night.
The shootout at a safe house erupted as police hunted for people linked to Mohamed Zahran Hashim who has been named as the ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings.
Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack,” said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya , sister of Zahran. I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go, ” she told Reuters from the town of Kattankudy in the east.
Police officials said the injured were believed to be Zahran’s relatives.
At least 15 people including six children were killed in the gun battle, a military spokesman said earlier.The shootout at a safe house erupted on Friday in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district on the east coast as police hunted for people linked to Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, who has been named as the ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings.
Yes, the wife and daughter were injured in the attack,” said Mohamed Hashim Mathaniya , sister of Zahran. I was asked to come to identify them but I am not sure I can go, ” she told Reuters from the town of Kattankudy in the east.
Police officials said the injured were believed to be Zahran’s relatives.
At least 15 people including six children were killed in the gun battle, a military spokesman said earlier.
Sixteen members of the family, including seven children and Zahran’s parents, had gone missing three days before the Easter Sunday blasts.
Madhaniya at her home in Batticaloa. (Express photo: Arun Janardhanan)
A day after 15 individuals, including six children, were reported killed in suicide blasts at a suspected Islamist safe house in the Sri Lankan town of Kalmunai, a plainclothes military intelligence officer arrived at the home of Madhaniya, the 26-year-old sister of Zahran Hashim, the suspected mastermind of the coordinated terrorist bombings that killed over 250 people on Easter Sunday.
The officer asked Madhaniya and her husband Sherif Niyas, a small-time dealer of secondhand vehicles, to come with him to a hospital near Ampara to identify the 15 bodies.
Zahran Hashim blew himself up at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo on April 21. Another of his and Madhaniya’s brothers, Mohammed Zeyin Hashim, is missing — it is possible he was killed in the attacks, or is still at large, investigators believe.
Among those killed at the safehouse on Friday evening were a third brother of Zahran’s, his wife and their two children; the wife of the missing brother, Zeyin, and their two children; another sister of Zahran’s, her husband and their child; at least one of Zahran’s two children; and Zahran and his siblings’ elderly parents.
Please ask them to show me photos, I will (identify). I cannot go and see (dead bodies),” Madhaniya told Niyas in Tamil. After a word with the officer, he replied to her: He (the officer) says if it is indeed them, this will be the last time you will get to see them. They are terrorists.”
Zahran Hashim blew himself up at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo on April 21. Another of his and Madhaniya’s brothers, Mohammed Zeyin Hashim, is missing — it is possible he was killed in the attacks, or is still at large, investigators believe.
Among those killed at the safehouse on Friday evening were a third brother of Zahran’s, his wife and their two children; the wife of the missing brother, Zeyin, and their two children; another sister of Zahran’s, her husband and their child; at least one of Zahran’s two children; and Zahran and his siblings’ elderly parents.
The Sunday Express was present when the Sri Lankan military officer visited the two-room, single-storey, rented home of Madhaniya and Niyas in Kattankudy on Saturday afternoon. Later in the evening, Niyas claimed that the officer had showed him pictures of two survivors of the blasts at the Kalmunai safehouse — they were of Zahran’s wife’s and one of their two children’s, he said.
Asked about Niyas’s claim, Brigadier Sumith Atapattu, spokeperson of the Sri Lankan Army, said the military was working in collaboration with the police department, and he could not immediately reveal much information.
Sixteen members of the family, including seven children and Zahran’s parents, had gone missing three days before the Easter Sunday blasts. Madhaniya told The Sunday Express she knew nothing of the so-called Islamic State, which had allegedly inspired her brother to kill so many people.
We (Madhaniya and Zahran) stopped talking in 2017 after he started spitting venom in his speeches. He had been a fiery orator on Islam and a crowdpuller at streetcorner meetings from his teenage days. But I couldn’t take it any longer after he started to preach against the government, the national flag, against elections, and against other religions. He brought catastrophe upon our family,” she told The Sunday Express.
FILE – In this Wednesday, April 24, 2019 file photo, a security officer stands guard outside St. Anthony’s Shrine where bombing was carried out on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Roughly 250 people died in six coordinated suicide bombings that ripped through Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. (AP Photo/File)
Kattankudy is a Muslim-dominated town on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast. Madhaniya and Niyas’s home is situated barely 100 metres from the National Thowheeth Jama’ath masjid, a large two-storey structure with glass walls, the mosque where Zahran was allegedly radicalised. Residents of the area said on Saturday evening that the mosque has been under renovation for over two years.
Her brother, Madhaniya said, had started to claim that his own interpretation of Islam was the only true faith. He was offensive about other religions, as well as moderate Muslims and Sufis. He would call Sufis drug addicts and smokers. My husband kept away from him as we felt that he was moving in a dangerous direction. The police were already monitoring him,” Madhaniya said.
Even though she had cut off connections with Zahran, she continued to send food to her parents, who stayed with her sister and her family in a nearby street, Madhaniya said. But they disappeared suddenly on Thursday (April 18). Neighbours told us on Friday that they were not at home. Their phones had been switched off. Then the blasts happened, and we learnt the role Zahran had played,” Madhaniya said.
The whole family, she said, might have gone together”, leaving only her and Niyas out because she was strongly opposed to Zahran’s hatred towards the whole world”.
According to Madhaniya, Zahran dropped out of school in Class 6, but retained a strong interest in Islamic studies. He completed a course in Arabic to memorise the Quran, and showed an unusual interest” in propagating his ideas on Islam. In 2006, he started an Islamic studies centre. He lost God because he learnt the Hadiths from the wrong people, and he learnt to kill people instead. I should say that I am happy that he is no more,” Madhaniya said.
On some unverified reports that Zahran visited Tamil Nadu, Madhaniya said that in her knowledge, the only foreign trip he had made was to Japan a decade ago. Someone from Colombo took him to Japan for a month. His job was to give Tamil Muslims there classes on the Quran. After 2017, I doubt he went abroad, because his passport and identification numbers were already with the police by then,” she said.
He would listen to the Quran alone. He considered everything else a sin, and those who listen to music too were sinners for him. He believed that his interpretation of the religion was the best, and all others were bad. His idea of Islam was not ours,” Madhaniya said.
In March 2017, Zahran and his followers clashed with Sufi Muslims, and he made a provocative speech about moderate Muslims. As the heat on him increased, he fled.
He was absconding since March 2017 because he was to be arrested. People in the neighbourhood say that he would visit his parents discreetly, in a vehicle with dark windows. He was the victim of the Wahhabi Islam that Sri Lankans who went to Gulf in the 1980s brought back with themselves. Wahhabism has killed our traditional values, and painted moderate Muslims like us as kafirs,” said H M Ameer, secretary of the Sufi Badhariya Masjid, who had contested Zahran’s ideas.
He challenged and threatened us publicly in meetings. He called us renegades. He ridiculed traditional Islamic practices that we followed. Wahhabi Islam made him a conservative, then an extremist, and finally a terrorist,” said Ameer, who had sent several detailed complaints to the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry and terrorist investigation cells against Zahran.
The National Towheeth Jama’ath can claim that he was expelled after 2017, but his brother headed it afterward. Now this brother is also missing or killed. He (the brother) would speak about the war in Syria, and tell Muslims that they should all live in the Islamic State,” Ameer said.
At the largely deserted National Towheeth Jama’ath mosque on Saturday, The Sunday Express found two young men who had come for prayers. We heard of this (the alleged involvement of the National Towheeth Jama’ath in the blasts). I have seen Zahran here many times. We knew that there were problems, but this is a masjid. What is there to fear about a masjid?” one of the two men said.
PDP chief says Easter bombings aim at pitching people of different religions against one another
KARACHI – Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor has said that India is the enemy of both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and recent terrorism in Sri Lanka seems an international conspiracy for which fingers are being pointed at India.READ MORE: Pakistan U19 tour to Sri Lanka postponed
He was speaking at a candlelight vigil arranged by the PDP here Saturday at Karachi Press Club (KPC) to show solidarity with the government and people of Sri Lanka.
The PDP said that people of Pakistan and Sri Lanka have rendered numerous sacrifices for peace and braved huge human and economic losses besides political instability while fighting terrorism. He pointed out that India is not only the enemy of Pakistan but it is also the enemy of solidarity and peace in Sri Lanka. That’s why fingers are being pointed at India regarding recent terrorism in Sri Lanka,” he alleged.
Shakoor said that the masses of Pakistan and Sri Lanka are bound in the relation of friendship and love. He said that people in Pakistan could easily understand the pain of their Sri Lankan brethren. He said the recent terrorism in Sri Lanka is an international conspiracy so as to pitch people of different religions and faiths against one another.
He said Pakistan and Sri Lanka have always raised voice for global peace. He urged the international community to take steps for a lasting world peace after mutual consultations. He expressed heart-felt condolence to Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.READ MORE: PPP leaders from KP briefs Bilawal on mega corruption of PTI in Billion Tree project
PDP Karachi chapter president Abdul Hakim Quaid, General Secretary Sardar Zulfiqar, PDP Lyari leader Akram Agaria, Amjad Baloch, Fazal Rabi Khan, Aziz Fatima and others were also present. A large number of citizens, PDP workers and peace activists attended the candlelight vigil.
After
the election of Yahapalana regime in 2015, there are many concerns to people of
Sri Lanka and the major question was whether the government was a responsible
government which focused to protect people and fulfill the needs of people.
Immediate after the election of the president, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka
was robbed and the responsible people for domestic and foreign security
attempted to relax laws and regulations in the name of Yahapalanaya and the
policy actions of the government created a severe risk to Sri Lanka as well as
overseas.
After
the Easter Sunday bombs explosions in churches and hotels and killing innocent
unarmed civilians, it seems that the government and responsible key personnel
of the government are behaving like children without taking responsibility for
what was happening in the country. The public statement of the Defence
Secretary in front of the St Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade in Colombo to a
foreign correspondent was the strong evidence that the government has no
responsibility towards it people as well as towards international people. Modern states are responsible not only to an
individual country but it also responds to the globe.
Another
vital report recorded in Sri Lanka was that Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe, the Prime
Minister of Sri Lanka stated to foreign journalists that ISIS is a foreign
organization and joining to such an international criminal organization is not
illegal in terms of the laws of Sri Lanka.
Is Mr. Wickramasinghe, the prime minister of Sri Lanka talking to the
world as a responsible person or a person with a conscious mind? It is a reason to shame on entire people, who
were born in Sri Lanka that the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka is a stupid and
irresponsible person. People of Sri
Lanka did not vote to appoint him as the president and in the future, it should
be same as it will be that Mr. Wickramasinghe or a member of his party must not
be elected as the president of the country and it happens, people cannot
imagine what will happen to the country.
ISIS
is an international terrorist organization and becoming a member of this
organization or a similar organization is a punishable offense. ISIS disguisedly associated with killing
people, money laundering, terrorism, and many other criminal activities.
The
other news item I noticed was that Mr. Wickramasignhe was questioning from
foreign ministry official that why didn’t Sri Lanka sign the United Nations
regulations of 2018 to eliminate World Terrorism? The regulations were approved by 77 countries
in the world, why Sri Lanka refrained from such international activity. Mr.
Mangala Samaraweera, Mr. Tilak Marapana and Mr. Ravi Karunanaya were foreign
ministers in Sri Lanka from 2015 and why did they act irresponsibly.
The position Sri Lanka confronts today as a nation
clearly is a case of electing political apologist of terrorism to power before the
nation could recover completely from 30 years of terrorism. Ranil
Wickremesinghe, like his current political mentor Chandrika Kumaranatunge, were
such avowed supporters of the theory of ‘appeasing terrorist to win them over’
to a point where they ridiculed even the attempts of the country’s armed forces
to overcome terrorism. An a result they were both responsible, during their
tenures, in lengthening the period Sri Lanka would suffer under terrorism. The
one hope that many shared when electing Ranil to power in 2015(to a minority
Parliament) is that, ‘now that the terrorism is out of the way, bring us
economic salvation and the rule of law’. But Ranil Wickremesinghe has not only
failed to delivered but has proved that a leader who has no vision on national
security does not deserve to be in power.
The attitude of both these leaders, Ranil and
Chandrika, has been, when cautioned on threats to national security, is to
counter charge the very messenger of being ‘an Extremist’ (Jathiwadi)’. To prove this point we have to
reminiscent how Ranil reacted at instances which implied some form a threat to
the country’s national security during the last 4 years. In all those instances,
if the warning came from the opposition he would labelled the one who brought
it to ntice as an extremist thinker by labelling a ‘Jathiwadi mentor’ taking
the moral highgroungd of a man above petty tribalism.On the other hand if the perceived
threats emenated from within his own officers his attitude had been to dismiss
the same as being too overzealous. In conducting the affairs of the current
regime, Ranil indulgd in a lot of wishful thinking by publicly declaring that ,
‘This country will never face the type of war we had for thirty years’ without
admitting that his pursuit of peace during that 30 year conflict was not just a
complete failure but an antithesis in obtaining peace. Therefore, Ranil’s
excuse that the intelligent information on the pending attack was not presented
to him peronally was mainly due to his own negative attitude towards such
information and his ire towards those who present such information.
The national security of a small nation like Sri
Lanka, in the context of international politics and big power rivalry to
dominate world and its economy, depend very much on that ntions ability to stay clear of big
power shenanigans maintaining its own interest at heart. Global
imperialism works in so many ways
and so many guises. It needs a lot of rationality in your thinking to
realize that global imperialism has evolved today to psychological subjugation
replacing armed subjugation. World nations, especially the big powers, only
have interests and hardly any principles. But Ranil, with his compacent
servility to internationalism will always chose to dismiss anything national as
‘misplaced bigotry’.
Modern civilization, with all its personal rights and
values, have not not been succesfu in making the man give up his innate need to
dominate his kind. Religious domination is
more deadlier than political domination because religions promise
dividends for devotion and commitment only in the after life. As a result some
religions have become ‘death cults’for its followers because they believe that
any means, including indiscriminate violence, could be justified to achieve their after life goals. In such a
context it is naïve to believe that the interests of different religious and
tribal groups present in Sri Lanka, with their international agenda’s, ceases
at the point of national interest.
In the democratic setup politicians are ‘vote greedy’ and Ranil
Wickremesinghe is a spychphant who believes in the votes of the minoritie to a
point of neglecting the interest of the majority. Former Chairman of the UNP
Mr. Panditharatne resigned from his post in 1999 citing the current
leadership’s minority inclination as the reason for UNP’s failure to win the
Presidential elections in 1999. The
preeption of the UNP leadership has not not changed since then and in such a
context it is difficult to expect Ranil to keep the minorities in their places
and then to lose their votes. Especially with the target of achieving his life
long ambition to be the President of Sri
Lanka at the forthcoming election in 2020.
The Catholic and Christian vote base in Sri Lanka has
traditionally been the pocket borough of the UNP. They probably considered the
less suave SLFP to be too nationalistic.
The lesson now however, is that a leader who is more internationalised
to a point iof disregarding the national interest can not be expeted to protect
a minority when he is unable to protect the nation as a whole. Thus with Ranil
Wickremesinghe at the top, the future for a vulnerable nation like Sri Lanka,
with apologist of extremism bound to reign supreme, appears bleak.
There are ample historic records which describe vividly the atrocities
committed by Muslims against millions of Buddhists in several countries. Their
criminality has not subsided despite their living among other religions in
different countries. Buddhists have been the most victimized and harassed
religious community in the world, owing to actions of Muslims guided by their
theistic traditions and beliefs. Buddhists cannot consider Islam as a religion
of compassion and peace. Those professing Islam have been the biggest enemies
of Buddhists and Buddhism throughout history. Before the onslaught of
Islam, Buddhism was the religion of almost the whole of Asia – ancient
countries/regions such as Bactria, Parthia, Afghanistan, Gandhar, Chinese
Turkestan, along with Tibet and Inner Mongolia were Buddhist nations that
formed almost the whole of the Asian continent. Buddhism was the dominant
religion of the people of this vast area of the Asian continent. Islam
destroyed and eliminated Buddhism from almost all these countries.
As far back as in the 10th century, as a result of the
Muslim invasion of what is modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, the
Buddhist religion which formed the basis of life of the people of this part of
the world, was viciously wiped out in an act of virtual genocide. Muslim terror
and atrocities have inflicted severe damage to Buddhism in many Asian
countries, some of which were exclusively Buddhist at one stage in their
histories. In some Asian countries indigenous Buddhist spiritual traditions
have been severely weakened by decades of persecution. It is a well-known fact
that Buddhism disappeared from India under the sword of Islam. Dr. B.R.
Ambedkar, the great Indian Buddhist leader said that there is absolutely no
doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the
Musalmans or the adherents of Islam. For about five hundred years, from the 13th
to 17th centuries, most parts of South Asia especially the Indian
subcontinent was under Muslim rule. During this period, over 50 million
Buddhists and Hindus were massacred by Islamists in greater India which in the
past included the present India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The destruction of the colossal Afghan Bahmian Buddha
statues by fanatic Muslims, is not the first destruction resulting from Muslim
fundamentalism. In the 12th century, Nalanda, the world’s first
university, an illustrious Buddhist university located near ancient Rajagaha in
Bihar, established in the 5th century, was demolished by Muslim
fanatics. It flourished for seven centuries as one of the greatest centres of
learning in the ancient world, attracting scholars from distant countries
including China. Muslims burnt down its priceless library and mercilessly
killed its scholars including Buddhist scholar monks. Islam destroyed Buddhist
sites not only in India but wherever it went. Those conversant with global
affairs, are aware of the fact that, especially in recent years, Muslims have
become a curse to humanity, resorting to violent and unethical means of serving
their religious ends, or to ‘resolve’ their obsessive religion-based issues and
self-created problems. Peace and harmony in many countries in the East
and West have been impaired greatly owing to unwholesome actions of Muslim
religious fanatics. In recent decades Muslim extremism and violence against
Buddhists were well evident in Myanmar, Southern Thailand and Bangladesh.
During the last few decades, Muslims have gained increased strength in
Sri Lanka increased economic power largely owing to favorable opportunities and
privileges made available to them, including local political patronage. In
recent decades, all prominent political leaders of Sri Lanka, have offered them
undue patronage and privileges especially in view of expanding their vote-base,
and to serve their political self-interests.
Madrasas
In recent decades, Muslims of Sri Lanka have received increased tangible
and moral support from Muslim Middle Eastern countries to promote Islamic
religious ideology in Sri Lanka. This led to the establishment of the so-called
madrasas, initially in predominantly Muslim areas and later elsewhere in the
country. Madrasas are exclusively Muslim schools funded by Muslim countries, Saudi
Arabia in particular, to promote fundamentals of Islam, Islamic Sharia law and
the Wahhabi form of Islam. Madrasas as educational institutions are said to offer instructions in
Islamic subjects including but not limited to the Quran. It also includes Jurisprudence
or figh” and Muslim law or Sharia Law and the teaching and practice of sufi”
which encompasses Islamic mysticism. If Muslim Sharia law is given official
recognition by means of registering Madrasas as NGOs, it can result in serious
legal problems in the future. There can be only one law in our country and that
is a secular law which is applicable to all citizens irrespective of their
ethnicity or religious affiliations. There is no need to introduce any other
law, especially religious law such as Muslim Sharia Law, and cause problems in
our country. It is known that Muslim Madrasas work in collaboration
with other foreign Muslim organizations and Madrasas in providing vocational
training for Muslim youth.
In these madrasas, the younger generation of Muslims are being
brainwashed with extremist Islamic fundamentalism. It is reported that Madrasas provide Islamic extremism and militancy and are a
recruiting ground for terrorism. It is widely reported that some Taliban and Al
Qaeda leaders have obtained radical political views at Madrasas. Some
Madrasas are recorded to be promoting a militant form of Islam and teach and
train Muslim students to fight non-believers and stand against the moral
standards of non-Muslim societies. The suicide bombers involved in the July
2005 London terror attack are said to have spent time in Pakistani
Madrasas. The so-called fundamentals of
‘Islam’ that are widely propagated in madrasas have serious negative
implications as far as the national culture and the rule of law of the country
are concerned. It is noteworthy that Madrasas have been banned in
several non-Muslim countries. In recent years, Saudi
Arabia is funding the establishment of a massive Muslim university in Eastern
Sri Lanka in order to promote Islamic religious ideology.
In
some countries such as India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, Muslims are
among the most deprived communities in terms of education and therefore
establishment of certain type of Madrasas for basic educational purposes has
become necessary and most people find them to be affordable as compared to
other educational institutions in these countries. This is not the case in Sri
Lanka where there is no educational deprivation or backwardness as far as the
Muslims are concerned. In fact, our school system is open to all Muslims if
they wish to attend them, and there are many Muslim students attending regular
schools in Sri Lanka. Also, there are exclusively Muslim national schools in
Sri Lanka and importantly, most international schools in the country are owned
and operated by Muslims where Muslim students predominate. This divisive spirit of Muslims is owing to the influence
of Islamic teachings to keep away from non-Muslims who are considered as inferior
to Muslims. The Koran forbids Muslims to closely associate non-Muslims. Islam
has dualistic ethics with one rule for Muslims and one rule for non-believers
and there is no exception to this rule. Why do Muslims cause disharmony and
bring about conflicts and confrontational situations in all societies they
infiltrate? Why? Buddhists need to be vigilant and need to initiate
actions against the abuse of privileges, aggression and misdemeanor by Muslims.
Their new male and female attire display their desire to look different
and to be exclusive and separate from the nation’s mainstream. This
polarization tendency of the Islamic community is self-imposed. It is not
because they feel marginalized. The so called Burqa outfit or the head covering
of Muslim women have been banned in many countries including China, France,
Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Morocco, Tajikistan, Latvia, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Gabon. the Canadian province of Quebec and
finally in Sri Lanka as well after the Muslim violence in April 2019, on Easter
Sunday.
Inciting
Violence Against Sri Lankan Buddhists
It
was not long ago that Islamic fundamentalists and armed Muslim extremists were
inciting violence against legitimate Buddhist activities in the Pottuvil
region. Muslims were forcibly encroaching upon land that rightfully belonged to
Buddhist temples on the southeast coast and demolished Buddhist archeological
sites in the East. Also, the Sri Lanka Muslims Congress and several Islamic
groups of our country had the impudence to oppose the construction of Buddha’s
statues on the island’s southeastern coastal areas which contain Buddhist
historic monuments and important archeological remains which are part of the
cultural wealth of the nation. There were protests and demonstrations by
Buddhists including many Buddhist monks, urging the Government to crack down on
anti-Buddhist activities of Muslim extremists. In a memorandum submitted to the
Buddha Sasana Ministry the protesters cited how the Islamic fundamentalists and
armed Muslim extremists were inciting violence against legitimate Buddhist
activities in the Pottuvil region. According to the Memorandum, the Muslims are
forcibly taking land that rightfully belongs to Buddhist temples on the
southeast coast.
Need
to Protect Cultural Traditions of the Nation
As a nation with a historic cultural tradition that extends to over 2200
years, where freedom, compassion, tolerance and accommodation of people of all
faiths and ethnicities have been the founding principles, it is necessary that
we as a nation take necessary steps to protect and preserve these noble and
wholesome cultural traditions. We cannot allow them to be undermined under any circumstances.
Those
deeply concerned about the need to preserve the quality and character of our
nation, built on a sound Buddhist spiritual foundation, should be deeply
grateful to patriotic organizations such as the Bodu Bala Sena among
several others countrywide, for their bold and commendable initiatives to bring
about increased awareness on the deceitful under-handed activities of extremist
Muslims to undermine the Buddhist identity of the nation and to propagate
archaic and fanatic Muslim fundamentalist customs and lifestyles in the country
that are inconsistent with and contradictory to the Buddhist norms and
principles upon which our nation is founded.
Rapid Increase of Wahhabi Influence
Sufism has been for centuries, the
predominant form of Islam in Sri Lanka. It was a peaceful form of Islam which
enabled cordial relations with people of other faiths. Wahhabi Jihadism is an
extremist, fundamentalist form of Islam followed in Saudi Arabia. Oil rich
Saudi Arabia began to influence Sri Lanka’s Sufi adherents starting in the 1970′s.
With increased funding by the Saudi Arabia with their petro dollars, and other
forms of penetration, the Wahhabi followers have increased in Sri Lanka during
recent decades. This was clearly evident in the Eastern province. Wahhabis
claim that the Sufis or the moderate Sri Lankan Muslims are ignorant of the
basic teachings and practices in Islam. They claim to be the real scholars of
Islam. This has led to sectarian clashes among peace loving Sri Lankan Muslims.
There appears to be an increasing trend in this unruly behaviour pattern of
some sections of the Muslim community, in the East and elsewhere where they
predominate. It is a fact that there is a rising trend of Wahhabi Jihadism in
Sri Lanka. Wahhabi fundamentalism has advanced so quickly in Sri Lanka partly
because the House of Saud has financed the building of many madrasas and
Mosques.
Scholarships
are offered to Muslim youths to go to Wahhabi institutions in Saudi Arabia and
Egypt with the condition that those who complete their Wahhabi studies should
return to Sri Lanka and propagate Wahhabism. This is happening extensively.
Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, Taliban,
Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Wahhabi terrorist groups. Saudi Arabia spends 87
billion US dollar per year to spread Wahhabism world-wide. Wahhabis are trying
to take the peaceful Islamic community in Sri Lanka down the path of extremism
and violence. The Wahhabis have already created deep divisions in among Sri Lankan
Muslims and have formed gangs that intimidate moderate Muslims who speak out
against Wahhabi fanatics. Like the Christian fundamentalist groups using NGOs
to convert innocent poor families to Christianity, Wahhabis help poor Muslim
families by providing cash and other material benefits to convert them to their
cult. Wahhabis appear to be using Sri Lankan Government agencies to propagate
Wahhabi activities.
During the last two decades, many
Sri Lankan Muslims both male and female, found employment in Saudi Arabia and
other Middle Eastern countries and were strongly influenced by Wahhabism. It is
a fact that there has been a significant increase of Wahhabi followers in Sri
Lanka in recent years and this trend is clear in the Eastern and Northwestern provinces.
Also, many young Sri Lankan Muslims were awarded scholarships by Saudi Arabia
to study Wahhabism in Saudi universities. Upon their return to Sri Lanka they
undertook in an organized manner the propagation of the ideology of Wahhabism.
They were instrumental in the establishment of numerous madrasas where young
Muslims were subject to various forms of brainwashing on Wahhabism including
the jihad approach. This Islamic fundamentalism brought about by Wahhabism
began to cause communal polarisation in Sri Lanka, like in all other southern
Asian countries. In India, the trend of increasing radicalisation of Indian
Muslims owing to Wahhabism has become a serious national security issue. The
growth of radical Islamist streams became visible only in the past two decades.
Wahhabism calls for Jihad, or war against infidels, or non-believers of
Islam
Wahhabism is a new
politico-religious movement that has been sweeping the predominantly Muslim
occupied areas of the country such as the Eastern and Northwestern provinces of
Sri Lanka. Their overall objective is to propagate the movement throughout Sri
Lanka and has raced ahead and taken control of the Jihadist and Al Fatah groups
in Sri Lanka under their wings. Through the lavish inflow of Saudi money into Sri
Lanka Wahhabis has overtaken other Islamic organizations by threats,
intimidation, and coercion. Wahhabism has been encroaching Sri Lanka without
any form of resistance from the governments of the day. Operating through a
movement called Thawheed hugely funded by Saudi Arabian sources, and through
NGOs such as Al Haj Adul Jawad Alim Valiyullah Trust, Wahhabis established
itself fully in Sri Lanka. They have established many new mosques and
madrasas” in many locations’ Sri Lanka. Saudi agents have successfully
penetrated Sri Lankan Muslims social fabric and have managed to defeat the
Sufism in their game. Due to the training afforded by the House of Saud now the
Wahhabis have prevailed over the Sufis. The Muslims in Sri Lanka have been
subdued due to the Wahhabi influence while Buddhists have been agitating for
the release of Rizana Naffek – teenage housemaid from Muthur who was sentenced
to death by a Wahhabi Sharia Court in Saudi Arabia.
Wahhabism in Sri Lanka is
headquartered in Kattankudi is a new politico-religious movement that is
sweeping the Eastern province of Sri Lanka with more than sixty Muslim Wahhabi
organizations helping in propagating the movement throughout Sri Lanka and has
raced ahead and taken control of the Jihadist and Al Fatah groups in Sri Lanka
under their wings. Wahhabism is imported and planted in the midst of
peace-loving Muslims in Sri Lanka, mostly through the lavish inflow of Saudi
money pumped into Sri Lanka has overtaken other Islamic organizations by
threats, intimidation and coercion. Clashes between Sufis and Wahhabi Muslims
in Kattankudi and Oddamavadi have been regular occurrence in the past few
decades. Many homes of Sufi followers were burnt down by Wahhabi Jihadists in
Kattankudi during similar clashes occurred in October 2004. In Kattankudi, the
hatred between Wahhabis and Sufis has widened in the last few years and has
grown in intensity, left many injured, and caused damage to several houses and
vehicles.
All the ‘Islamist’ terror attacks
in South Asia including in Mumbai, Afghanistan and Pakistan had the hallmarks
of Wahhabism. Wahhabi Jihadists are blinded by faith to believe that they have
the mandate of Allah to rid the world of ‘infidels’ and ‘heretics. Until this
Wahhabism is thoroughly discredited, combating Wahhabi terrorism is impossible.
Since the Western countries subterfuge to destabilise Sri Lanka, by
surreptitiously supporting the LTTE failed, now the Western countries will
promote Wahhabi Jihadism to cause strife and trouble to destabilize Sri Lanka.
Wahhabi followers – al-Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Wahhabi
terrorist groups – have caused untold misery in several countries including
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Sri Lanka appears to be their next
target. The Sri Lankan government must take immediate strict measures to
control Wahhabi organizations and ban them. Wahhabis have already built several
illegal Mosques in Sri Lanka using Saudi Arabia’s petro dollar. The
overwhelming peace loving, tolerant and intensely patriotic Muslims of Sri
Lanka would extend their support to the government in this matter. As the
Wahhabis are even capable of starting ethnic riots between the peaceful Sinhala
people and the Muslims, the Sri Lankan government must not be lethargic on this
matter. The Government authorities must investigate every Wahhabi school and
propagandist in the Eastern Province to make sure they are not preaching things
that are inimical to Sri Lanka. Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial
support base for al-Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Wahhabi terrorist
groups. Saudi Arabia spends 87 billion US dollar per year to spread Wahhabism
world-wide. Wahhabis have infiltrated Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation
(SLBC). Almost all the participants and staffers in the Muslim section of Sri
Lanka Broadcasting Corporation are Wahabis and use the State radio to propagate
Wahhabism. Not only Wahhabis run private unlicensed radio stations in the
Eastern Province, also armed Wahhabis often attack mosques and leaders of the
Sufi sect.
The
incompetent Prime Minster quite correctly stated that returnees from Syria
could not be punished sufficiently as the law does not cover it. As per the
current Sri Lanka law, they have committed no grave crime. However, can the
people and the nation rely solely on the law and legal means to save
themselves? No. Lives, limbs and property are far more valuable than being
politically correct or legally correct. National security must use legal and
extra-legal means to ensure public security. Otherwise the terror that grips
the nation today, the impending economic collapse and political instability
will be here to stay.
Laws Lag Behind
The
above example is just one. There are plenty of others. The law simply doesn’t
change as fast as terrorists change their tactics. Lawmakers in Sri Lanka are
hardly the smartest. Therefore, one cannot expect them to foresee future
threats and make laws. Thirdly, there are those who oppose tough laws that may
interfere with human rights. All this means the law is far from capable of
ensuring public security.
Implementation of the Law is Inefficient
Even
if the law was perfect, not all terrorists can be nabbed going by the law. The
process is highly inefficient, riddled with obstacles (including
reconciliation) and can be twisted by corruption and collusion. Even if this
process is perfect and all terrorists are produced before court, there is no
guarantee they will be punished and they will not engage in terrorism operating
within the safety of the prison.
Countries
like USA, UK, etc. use outside jurisdictions to punish terrorist suspects where
US human rights don’t apply. Gitmo Bay is one such place. Some suspects were
transported to Pakistan and Algeria to be handled tough. They are entitled to a
high degree of human rights in the US and the EU.
Overcoming the Threat Sustainably
Given
these facts, the only way to sustainably overcome terrorism is to exterminate
terrorists and potential terrorists. Sri Lanka has plenty of evidence of this
method’s success in 1971, 1989 and 2009. It not only save the innocents from
acts of terrorism; it also prevents indoctrination of others. Sri Lanka was
chosen by a global terrorist network because its security was weak. Even if the
terrorists are caught, they can still operate either from their homes (as they
will be released) or even from prisons. Extermination of terrorists and
potential terrorists force them to think twice.
Nonsensical Solutions
Some
writers unaffected by terrorism and mostly living outside Sri Lanka have
proposed nonsensical solutions based on religious philosophies. They look cute
on paper but murderous in reality. Peace didn’t dawn on Sri Lanka from JVP and
LTTE terror using any of this dogmatic nonsense. It was a process of
extermination that brought peace.
When
they join with political parties, a toxic and dangerous mixture is created.
Horror Truth – Sri Lanka Does Nothing to Ensure Public
Security Than Recover Terror Material
So
far, the military has done nothing to ensure public security in the long term!
A number of explosives were recovered. However, this has been happening for
years. There is no difference in what the military did in January 2019 and what
it does today. No terrorist or potential terrorist was killed, abducted or
otherwise eliminated.
Sadly,
this means the threat is not affected at all by military operations. Terrorists
get to fight another day and they will.
Terrorism of any type, destroying
human life & property, deserves Zero Tolerance.
A three decades of death &
destruction by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists LTTE ended by the Leadership of
President Rajapaksa & Defence Secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa.
Sri Lanka suffered the thirty years
of a dirty war, supported by several foreign governments, led by Velupillai
Prabhakaran, aided by the likes of Erik Solheim of Norway.
A leading question is, What were the
political and economic involvement of the current Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe with the stalwarts of LTTE?
Now under the watch of Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesingha, an Act of Terrorism repeats, which begs to ask
multiple questions.
The bottom line is that, Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesingha, Failed as a Leader to prevent this horrid
atrocity, described by many, as the Second 9/11.
In one fell sweep, Sri Lanka’s main
Bread & Butter economy of foreign tourism, was blown to smithereens along
with hundreds of innocent lives, including children.
The President of Sri Lanka might
claim anything he wants in terms of excuses, blaming others for his negligence
and inept incompetence.
If both the President and the Prime
Minister, have an inkling of Self Respect and Honour, both should Tender their
Resignations, and make way for Regime Change.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasingha
is a “Has Been” Failure from the start. A pawn of the Indians and
other Western Governments.
President My3 Sirisena was a puppet
forwarded by a combined joint political force to displace the Rajapaksa
Government.
President Sirisena should now demand
the Resignation of the Wickremesingha Government, forthwith, and let the Voters
of Sri Lanka to decide whom they wish to be led by.
Thereafter, President Sirisena should
make-way to hold a Presidential Election, and let the people of Sri Lanka be
allowed to exercise their Democratic Right.
President Sirisena may not have the
education, experience to Act as a Leader, but hopefully, as an honourable man,
he may give way to Democracy.
Sri Lanka cannot fall into another
Terrorist Trap, now led by Muslim-Islamic Terror of ISIS / Al Qaeda.
It is crystal clear that the
Planning & Implementation of the Easter Sunday Massacre, had
direct/indirect Links to external sources.
Generally Muslims in Sri Lanka, have
contributed to the economic & cultural well-being of the Island, unlike the
Tamils who supported the LTTE, in collusion with Tamil Nadu of India.
Number one Priority Today is –
National Security.
A Secure Sri Lanka will allow the
Return of the Tourism.
This is an Urgent Desperate Disease.
And Demands an Equally Desperate
Remedy.
Sri Lanka needs a National Leader
with Vision & a Back-bone!
Express
Your Opinion – Read What Others Say!
The Independent Interactive Voice of
Sri Lanka on the Internet.
In its efforts to complete investigations into the Easter Day carnage and to revamp the national intelligence services the Government is obviously seeking the assistance of the FBI and other similar organizations in the West and India. The government should first draw up suitable guidelines when seeking such advise to prevent the situation drifting from bad to worse. Or, it should not turn out to be another case of returning ginger and replacing same with chilies. When USA is bent on leading the international drive against Islamic Terrorism with little success and much destruction , Sri Lanka should consider not to be a direct partner for such a venture as Sri Lanka will end up as a center for continuous circle of violence. Further, if the FBI recommends inviting of the US armed personnel to Sri Lanka, it is bound to have political repercussions similar to some of the Middle Eastern countries and Latin American countries where the US forces play a decisive role.
Sri Lanka’s stable future lies on strict adherence to
non-aligned policies.
Sri Lankan government should be honest and admit the mistakes made in the intelligence establishment and reinstate the officers now in prison and on bail without being prosecuted and revamp the organization giving them the required independence to carry out their crucial tasks. The government’s policy of disrupting the intelligence services have resulted in over 300 deaths and 500 injured civilians. Foreign advise can be obtained including the Russian and the Chinese and the Singaporean in the revamping but the experienced Sri Lankans should lead. Finally Sri Lanka should not be a place, to station foreign forces.
It is often
asked why educated youth coming from good homes” join extremist
organizations. Simple references to
brain washing”, or the stupidity of the young are no explanations.
There is no scientifically recognized
process called brain washing”.
It is also naive to assume that educated youth join the IS (Islamic state) to go to heaven and get their 21 virgins!
Many youth radicalized in British Universities ended up fighting for the ISIS.
At least one of the Sri Lankan Muslim Kamikazi had a British training, had four
children, a flourishing business and
lived in a million dollar home in Colombo. A British education in a narrow subject like information technology”
not touching any broad scientific or
cultural subjects, given in a British
red Brick” university can have no effect on already acquired belief systems.
Don’t our most educated” ministers go to Tirupathi, India, at the drop of a pin?
These radicals are
no different from the young intellectuals of an earlier generation who believed
in a simplistic theory of capitalists versus the workers, and how the workers
would unite to bring down the capitalists and create a classless society where
even state power has disappeared! They
believed that “THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS” – so we
had Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, countless
Left-Terrorist Maoist-Guevarist-Naxalite groups, and Wijeweera’s JVP in Sri Lanka killing innocents to achieve their
“objective”. This objective is
given a historical destiny by dialectical materialism formulated as historical
materialism”. Contrary to the predictions of historical materialism, these
movements have only produced ghoulish Gulags.
Similarly, these
brain-washed” young Muslims are educated in the Islamic fundamentalist view of
the world consisting of Muslims (good), and infidels (bad). Many educated Arabs do not believe that the
9/11 World Trade Center attack was done by Arab Kamikazes. They think it was a
put-up job by Jewish groups and the Bush government to give them an excuse to
attack the Oil Rich Middle Eastern countries on the economic front, and to
relaunch the Crusades against Islam.
This is the rationale for the
counter-attack on luxury hotels frequented by Westerners, and on
Christian Churches.
Just as
Dialectical materialism calls for a
revolution leading to a necessary final
state which is an article of faith of Marxists, Islam defines that history must
necessarily lead to the Islamic state after a Jihadic step. The “holy
war” replaces the revolution of the Red Comrade. The historical destiny
taught to young Muslims by impassioned Arabic Teachers who have come from the
Middle East is as simple and clear as the JVP five lessons. Their role is to
establish the Islamic State, with everyone practicing the Sharia law which
encompasses not only morality, but economic activity as well – a complete
ideology is sold.
Just as many Sri Lankans, or even ministers are
over-whelmed enough to readily accept ideas cooked up in the West, because they are from the
West, these young people are also
over-whelmed by “renowned” and fiery teachers from the Middle East
who paint a glorious picture of the old Caliphate. The idealistic young Muslim has a clear
jihadist mission, taught to him by these fundamentalist “international
teachers”. Achieving this
designated noble cause, the Islamic Caliphate in the name of Allah becomes their mission.
Achieving this END is justified by ANY
means whatever. It is a sacrifice that they make, in much the same way as “rathu sahodarayas” (red comrades)
are ready to fight the capitalist army and die in the process of the
revolutionary capture of the state by the “working class”.
The young
university students who readily absorbed the “five lessons” of the
JVP, although almost stupid in content, attempted to overthrow the legitimate
government because the message fitted in with their pre-conceived notions. These notions were about the need to change the economic framework by
“hook or crook”, hammered
into the Sri Lankan youth by the LSSP and CP politicians who came prior to the
JVP. The tremendous disparity between
their power and state power seemed irrelevant to a just cause.
The early Marxists
in Sri Lanka had fomented the trade unions to rise in militant
“hartals”, hoping to capture
power. They were sure of being the “Bolsheviks” who will replace the “Menshevick” government of Bandaranaike. So, the LSSP, a
revolutionary party did not worry about popularity at the polls. Dr. Osmond Jayaratne, and Engineer C. B.
Wijedoru, both central committee members of the LSSP assured me that Language
Parity was a policy strategically crafted
to the revolution using unions with more than 50% Tamils, and not designed for
elections. When they abandoned the “revolution” and joined Mrs.
Bandaranaike, they jettisoned parity and
embraced the majority language, as one
language is more efficient for the classless, divisionless, unethnic communist state.
In the case of the
radicalized young Muslims, they too hope to change what they see is an utterly
immoral world. The world must conform to the draconian morality taught to them
by the fundamentalist Arab teachers. Martin Luther had found such a moralistic
message xplosively successful in an earlier era. These young people find an
outlet to their moral and idealistic energy, and an identity thorough these extremist organizations. Their parent’s society has failed to provide them with valid
idealistic objectives suitable to the 21st century, and allowed extremist teachers to infect them with a new
passion. This process is not brain washing”, but more analogous to the spread
of an infection of virulent memes.
The Ilanaki Tamize
Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) declared in 1949 that the Ceylon Tamils – a mere 10% of the population – must have an
exclusive homeland” in Ceylon, and that their struggle is to establish their
own Raj where they will manage their own affairs”. The leaders were wealthy upper-caste”
land owners of the North, but living in Southern Ceylon, and in the best
parts of Colombo. They blamed the
southern politicians (them excluded) for all the problems of the North. This
was an an inflammatory, racist and exclusive ideology crafted to attract the
fervour of the youth, with some of its leaders identifying with the Chola
empire. The move towards Swabasha with
the cry of Sinhala ONLY became fuel for further
polarization. By a strange twist
of history, Vaddukkoddai, a town named
‘Batakotte’ till the dawn of the
20th century because it was a Sinhalese garrison town against Chola invasions, was the venu of the Vaddukoddai resolution.
It called for separatist armed struggles to achieve Eelam”, the ethnically exclusive Tamil
homeland.
Educated Tamil
parents with liberal values could not
understand why their well educated children joined violent Eelamist
racist movements. In the end the parents
themselves were infected by the same bug, when
the majority reaction erupted
into a horrific pogrom in 1983, and escalated
into brutal war. Notably, Jeyaratnam Wilson’s political
writings had evolved from its empirical approach to a separatist stance within a dozen years, moving to support a
view of Sri Lankan history about Tamil homelands that he would have vehemently
rejected in an earlier decade.
The same
phenomenon exists in the highly literate world of Judaism. The young
fundamentalist Jews in Israel fight and kill to build Zion. They too are driven
by an utterly medieval, jingoist Judaism
that underpins Likud ideology.
The moral right” of the Zion or the Caliphate, the dialectical
necessity of the communist state, or the rights of an Eelamist
historical claim, these
overshadow mere human rights or,
say, Palestinian claims to existence.
Leaders of Zionist terror organizations like the IRGUN, e.g., Menachem Begin
and Benjamin Natanyahu, became prime minsters with US support. Another terrorist group, LEHI, proclaimed that the Armed struggle is the
duty of all Israel; every Jew has to be a warrior. Religion … raises the
armed struggle to a ritual above any other facet of human endeavour. Hallelujah
with machine guns”! The Zionist terror, at first directed against the British,
was later directed against the Palestinians who suffer enormous aggression but remain protected from
the UNHRC by the Western powers. A more just British policy could have produced
co-existence between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Palestinians have
mounted equally horrific counter-terror
groups like the Hezbollah who are funded by the Arab states. All these
terror organizations easily recruit their educated youth to engage in terror. A
leader of the LEHI, Yitzhak Shamir served as a prime minister of Israel. The
end justifies the use of violent means
for those in the faith.
The Zionist
terrorist movements against the British arose during a time when Nazism with
its credo of violence arose in Europe,
misrepresenting Drawinian evolution and
using it as a theoretical underpinning. This misrepresentation of Darwin, initiated
by literary men like Tenyson who pictured nature as being red in Tooth and Claw”, is
scientifically incorrect. Darwinian evolution works when a large number of
genes and cells COOPERATE to take
advantage of fitness landscapes, and not when acting by competition. I have discussed this at length in my book A
Physicist’s view of Matter and Mind
(World Scientific), Chapter 3” and elsewhere in that book.
Dr. Jane Russell,
in her ever topical, sadly no longer available
book Communal Politics Under the
Donoughmore Constitution, 1931-1947 (Tisara Publishers) ” writes that nationalist leaders like SWRD Bandaranaike
and GG Ponnambalam were glowingly referred to as pocket Hitlers” by their
respective admirers in the two ethnic
camps. Prabhakaran with his Child soldiers wearing Cyanide capsules graduating
into Kamikaza cadre was the final
product of one such nationalism. Its Hindu ideology, nourished in ultra-conservative Jaffna
Christianity makes Shiva into a
destroyer and the Christian God into a partisan Shiva.
Societies that
fail to provide for the idealism and rebelliousness of youth through opportunity in adventure, in the arts, sciences and professions become the
theater of extremist ideologies. Just as
young plants need protection against insects, weeds and extremes of
weather during their early growth, young nations need protection. Even flourishing open societies”
cannot allow subversive forces supported by external money to crush the traditional structures in their
societies.
Sri Lanka had
evolved a compassionate society that gave refuge to all faiths since Asokan
times, with near equality to women and lower castes”, when compared with other ancient societies. No heretics were burnt. The END, however
desirable, could not justify THE MEANS used to achieve the end, since the
righteous path was the essential element of Buddhist and Jain doctrines, and in
forms of Hinduism that evolved under
teachers like Nagarjuna. Lanka’s rulers
gave asylum to Catholics and Muslims in the face of Dutch-Lutheran
repression. More recently, the nation’s ancient
wholesome values were
jettisoned in favour of virulent doctrines coming from the political left, and
from the political right which uses religion to anchor its claims.
The Irish and
Tamil diaspora fed and fomented the
Irish and LTTE violence. The US and its NGOs feed and foment disaster
capitalism in young nations and interfere with their elections by propping up
US favorites. In such operations, the
‘manifest destiny of the US’ overshadows
all human rights. Similarly, the
fundamentalist oil sheiks build Mosques, Madarassis and push fundamentalist
agendas causing dissension in Myanmar, Sri Lanka or elsewhere, while heaping
the blame on the intolerance” of the
majority community. These
ideologies reject dissent and open discussion. They threaten
to eliminate the other by force.
But many
politicians, tempted by money and
influence, allow the camel into
the tent, and then it is too late.
President Maithripala Sirisena says he would not excuse himself from the lapse on the part of intelligence information sharing and the government should bear the responsibility for failing to prevent the attacks on Easter Sunday.
The President stated this addressing the Heads of media institutes today (26).
Stating that a major search operation has been undertaken and every household in the country will be checked, the President said lists of permanent residents of every house will be established to ensure no unknown persons could live anywhere. He pointed out that during the fight against LTTE terrorism, similar methods were adapted.
On 4th of April, an intelligence agency letter from a friendly foreign country sent on April 4, warning about possible attacks, however, he was not notified of this, the President says. He blamed on the weakening of military intelligence forces and needless imprisonment and suppression of military officers as the main reasons for the lapse.
President says this intelligence information had been received by the IGP, the Defence Secretary and five other DIGs of Police, yet only one of them acted on it. President commended DIG Priyalal Dassanayake, in charge of Colombo’s special security division, for fulfilling his duty by notifying the relevant authorities in this regard.
The President had left for India on April 16th for a personal visit and then for Singapore. This letter containing intelligence information on the attacks had whirled around only between the IGP and the Defence Secretary from 4th to 16th of April. Yet, neither of them had let him in on the relevant letter prior to his departure to India, claims the President. President Sirisena says he was slated to return to the country on April 21st after concluding his personal foreign tours. The President says learned of the Easter Day attacks through social media and that the authorities failed to inform him. IGP and the Defence Secretary have neglected their responsibilities by failing to at least telephone him to impart this piece of information, the President accused. President Sirisena added that the IGP and the Defence Secretary had visited him on April 14th to greet him for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, yet they had not mentioned anything concerning the intelligence information even at that encounter.
He says that he believes the IGP would resign during the course of the day and that a new Defence Secretary would be appointed to the already vacated position by Hemasiri Fernando. The IGP was not able to respond when confronted at the Security Council on April 22nd regarding who is to be held accountable for this unfortunate situation, the President further says.
Addressing the press conference, the President urged all Sri Lankans not to look at the entire Muslim community as terrorists. ‘There is an ample link between religious extremism and drug trafficking in the world. It is possible that the attacks hastened due to the drug eradication programme carried out by me,’ he stated.
Speaking on the ongoing investigations and search operations, the President stated that at least 70 suspects have so far been arrested in connection with the attacks. However, information was received that there are 130-140 persons in the country with links to the Islamic State, he added.
The security forces are expediting investigations to arrest these suspects, while a group of experts has also arrived in the country to provide assistance in this regard. President ensured that he would take all the necessary measures to wipe out terrorism from the country.
Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.
More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.
Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.
Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
Gotabaya said he would be a candidate 100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.
He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.
Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organisation did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.
On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.
Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.
Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.
The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.
In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorising the extrajudicial killing of her father.
Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.
‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’
He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.
It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.
Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.
They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.
President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.
Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.
