The officials said Indian security agencies had alerted Sri Lanka that another National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) team led by Jal al-Quital alias Rilwan Marzag could carry out more attacks, Hindustan Times reported today.
Noufar Moulvi, brother-in-law of Hashim, recently returned to Sri Lanka from Qatar and had taken charge of the group, they added.
The NTJ, the little known group blamed for the bombing of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Sunday, appears to have been inspired by Islamic State (IS) though direct links between the two are yet to be established, people familiar with developments said on Monday.
An intelligence officer, who requested anonymity, said the attacks couldn’t have been possible without months of planning and international players travelling to Sri Lanka to take part in the execution at different stages.
The NTJ was formed in Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated town in eastern Sri Lanka, in 2014. Its founder Zahran Hashim alias Abu Ubaida is believed to have been the suicide bomber who targeted Shangri-La Hotel with military grade explosives.
A video released by Al Ghuraba Media featured the seven suicide bombers allegedly involved in the attacks.
Except for Abu Ubaida, the others had their faces covered and the video had messages in Arabic and Tamil. A caption in the video read O Crusaders, this bloody day (21-04) is our reward to you”, it said.
CCTV footage of the suicide bomber, who is responsible for the Katuwapitiya Church explosion, entering the Church and setting off the bomb, has been released to the media.
Accordingly, the arrival of the suicide bomber is marked on the first CCTV camera at around 8.56 am and at around 8.59 am, he enters the church premises.
The CCTV camera inside the Church has recorded the suicide bomber entering the church after touching a small child in front of the church. He enters the church through a door on the left side of the church before setting off the bomb amongst the devotees who were praying inside the church.
CCTV footage outside the church also records people near the area running towards the church at around 9.01.
Islamic state has claimed responsibility for coordinated bombings in Sri Lanka which killed 321 people and injured about 500 others, the group’s AMAQ news agency said on Tuesday.
The group did not give evidence for its claim, a Reuters news report said.
The statement on the Amaq news agency, which the group uses to put out statements, claimed that the attack was the work of fighters of the Islamic State”.
Until now, no group had claimed responsibility for the explosions, many of them suicide bombings.
Sri Lankan government has blamed the blasts on local Islamist group National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ).
In the meantime, Sri Lanka’s state minister of defense said the Easter attack on churches, hotels and other sites was carried out in retaliation” for the shooting massacre at two New Zealand mosques last month.
Ruwan Wijewardene, told Parliament the government possessed information that the series of bombings in and outside of Colombo that killed more than 300 people was carried out by an Islamic fundamentalist group” in response to the Christchurch attacks.
He did not provide evidence or explain the source of the information.
The six near-simultaneous attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels and three related blasts later Sunday was Sri Lanka’s deadliest violence in a decade.
Wijewardene said the death toll from the attack now stood at 321 people, with 500 wounded.
At least 45 children were among the more than 320 people killed in the suicide bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The total now is 45 children who died,” UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told reporters in Geneva, stressing that others are wounded and are now fighting for their lives,” meaning the toll among minors from the Sunday attacks could rise.
Colombo, April 23 (The Citizen): The Sri Lankan government said here on Monday, that the a local religious group, National Thowheed Jamaath, was behind the suicide attacks in Colombo and two other towns on Sunday in which 290 people, including 38 foreign nationals, were killed and more than 500 were injured.
Since such a small local group could not have organized such wide-scale and deadly attacks, an international group was likely to have been involved”, cabinet spokesman Dr.Rajitha Senaratne said.
Addressing the media, Senaratne said that the international support” angle is being investigated. Gvernment is trying to ascertain how the suicide bombers were prepared.
Suicide bombers had attacked the Shangri-La hotel, Kingsbury Hotel and the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, all within a short distance from each other on the arterial Galle Road in Colombo. Suicide bombers also struck the Kochikade church near the Colombo harbor, a church in Negombo, north of Colombo, and the Zion church in Batticaloa in the Eastern province. Subsequently, explosions took place opposite a reception hall near the Dehiwala Zoo outside Colombo, and in a house in Mahawila Gardens, Dematagoda, in the heart of Colombo.
After a meeting at the National Security Council on Sunday, the government deployed forces to protect all places of worship, tourist hotels, hospitals, embassies, catholic leaders and other important buildings.
The Secretary to the President, Udaya R. Senevirathna, said that a National Operations Center had been established to guide the investigations. About 1,000 soldiers as well as a large number of policemen have been deployed.
The police have arrested 24 persons, all locals .But their religious affiliations have not been revealed. The police said on Sunday that they suspected the involvement of a foreign organization but would be able to give concrete information on this only by mid-week.
There is a Sri Lanka Tawheed Jamaat, which propagates Wahabism. It is against Sufi practices which are common among Sri Lankan Muslims. It is closely linked to the Tawheed Jamaat in Tamil Nadu. Recently it launched a Sinhalese translation of the Holy Quran with much fanfare.
However it is not yet clear if the Sri Lanka Tawheed Jamaat is the same as the National Thawheed Jamaath.
The police say that on April 11, there was intelligence that the National Thawheed Jamath’s leader Mohamad Safran was planning a suicide attack. Government spokesman Dr.Senaratne said there were inputs from international intelligence agencies earlier warning of such suicide attacks.
A spokesman of the Indian High Commission that they had obtained some information about the impending attacks and had shared whatever intelligence they had with the Sri Lankan government.
The Sri Lankan government has since provided the Indian High Commission greater security.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told the media that a small local group could not have carried such a long series of bombings simultaneously without expert support from overseas. He promised to inform the public, after consulting the police, whether any organized group was behind Sunday’s attacks.
The Prime Minister, however, made it a point to stress that the while the police are investigating the case, civil society and the political class should attend to the need to preserve peace and communal harmony and not be carried away by rumors.
The government has already blocked Facebook. And Whatsapp has been disabled partially.
President Maihripala Sirisena has appointed a three-man commission under a serving Supreme Court judge, Vijth Malalgoda, to investigate the blasts and report to him within two weeks.
Meanwhile the police have located a safe house allegedly used by the terror outfit. They have seized a van and its driver involved in transferring the C4 explosive used.
Former President and Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the attacks were the result of weakening the security under the current administration.
We defeated brutal terrorists and ensured the safety of the people. But those who played a significant role in this, including intelligence officers and security forces personnel, have been harassed and demoralized. I blame the government for taking us back to the dark ages of fear,” Rajapaksa said.
The government announced on Monday that it is gazetting some of the clauses of the Prevention of Terrorism Act to tighten the law and order system.
The situation could have been worse if the 87 low explosive detonators found in the crowded Pettah market had been activated. Police have ordered a curfew between 8 pm on Monday and 4 am on Wednesday. All train services to the hill plantations country have been have been suspended.
Government on Monday also announced a grant of LKR 100,000 for the funeral of those killed in the blast and LKR 1 million to the next of kin,
Colombo, April 23: Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam Centre for International Studies in Singapore, says that the serial bombings in Colombo and two other towns in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, appear to be the handiwork of the Islamic State (IS) in collaboration with its Sri Lankan branch.”
Dr. Gunaratna, who is the foremost Sri Lankan expert on terrorism and political violence and author of Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (2003) told this correspondent over the phone from Singapore on Monday: After the IS was ousted from Iraq and Syria, it branched out to other countries, and has been working in collaboration with local radical Islamic groups in several countries. It has a very significant worldwide network and has a presence in India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.”
According to Dr. Gunaratna, the IS targets Western interests and Christian churches. Giving reasons for this, he said It is a Western coalition which had ousted the IS from its bases in Iraq and Syria. IS sees Christianity as the ideological underpinning of the Western world.” The IS has been aiding the process of radicalizing the Muslims in various parts of the world including Sri Lanka through various local affiliates, he said.
Dr. Gunaratna pointed out that it is not necessary to radicalize everybody to carry out the activities of the IS. A small number of radicalized persons is enough to carry out the IS’s designs,” he said. The targets hit by the bombings indicate that the issues are unrelated to local, Sri Lankan communal issues. In Sri Lanka, there is no conflict between Christians and Muslims and Christians and Buddhists for churches to be attacked in this way and that on a day like Easter Sunday.
While there had been communal clashes before, with Buddhist groups attacking Muslims, these were small and localized and never in the Mumbai serial blasts way as the problems in the island had not been so acute. If the blasts were an offshoot of the Buddhist-Muslim conflict, Buddhists temples and institutions would have been attacked but they were not.
However, there is a world-wide conflict between the Christian-West and radical Islam. The conflict manifests itself in attacks on Churches. The recent New Zealand attack against worshipers in a mosque is part of the larger world-wide religious conflict.
The targeting of posh hotels is also significant in as much as hotels like Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury are the Westerners’ favorites in Colombo. These hotels are also well known world-wide enabling the attackers to get maximum publicity for their deeds and for spreading fear among Westerners across the globe.
Not LTTE
Police and government sources are not pointing an accusing finger at a resurgent Tamil Tiger (LTTE) group as the Tamil Tigers and the Tamils as a whole, now want to take the help of the Western democracies and UN institutions to secure human rights and post-war justice. They would not incur the wrath of the West by indulging in acts like this at this stage of their struggle.
As mentioned earlier, Dr. Gunaratna suspects a local involvement. CNN has publicized a memo sent by the Deputy Inspector General of Police to the higher authorities warning them that a certain local Islamic group which he identified as Nations Thawahid Jaman” (seems to be a misspelling of the title) was planning a suicide attack.
The memo, seen by CNN, goes as follows:
April 11, 2019
Director – Ministerial Security Division Director – Judicial Security Division Director – Retired President’s Security Division Acting Director – Diplomatic Security Division Acting Director – Retired President’s Security Division
Reference to the letter of the defence ministry with regard to the above and the statement of IGP dated April 9, 2019 ref : STAFF05/IGP/PS/OUT/2860/19; We would like to draw your special attention to the a page no 2 to 4 of the statement of the State Intelligence service stating that information has been received regarding an alleged plan of suicidal attack by the leader of ‘Nation’s Thawahid Jaman ‘ Mohammad Saharan. According to information of that statement, would like you to give special attention and inform your staff to provide special security measures to the areas covered by your division.
Priyalal Dissanayake
Deputy Inspector General of Police
However, the government has not blamed any group for the attacks saying that investigations have only begun. However a plan to stage a suicide attack, the first by a Sri Lanka group, appears to have been there as per the DIG’s memo. This group could be an affiliate of the IS.
Remedial Measures
While the government’s agencies will go into the blasts thoroughly and a Presidential Commission of Inquiry is to be appointed to go into the matter and submit a report in two weeks, Dr. Gunaratna suggests that the government immediately take measures to tighten security which had become lax after the end of the war against the Tamil Tigers in 2009.
Prevention should be the aim of the State. For this, there should be stricter anti-terror laws in place. And to enable effective implementation there should be political stability. Under conditions of political instability anti-systemic and radical movements thrive,” the expert argued.
To stop the spread of radicalism, the social media and the internet should also be subject to surveillance and control. Internet service providers should be given precise guidelines and those providers who do not follow the guidelines should be taken to task,” Dr. Gunaratna said.
There is also a dire need for an inter-faith dialogue, he added. This is necessary to prevent communal animosities and radicalization of the various communities,” he added.
Political Consequences
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan leaders have uniformly appealed for the maintenance of communal harmony. Since Presidential and parliamentary elections are due in the next few months, mainstream political parties across the board are keen on cultivating the Muslims who are 8% of the population and who could influence the result as they did in 2015 when they voted en masse against Mahinda Rajapaksa and dethroned him.
It is therefore highly unlikely that any mainstream party, least of all the government, will encourage a communal conflagration. However, radical anti-Islamic outfits like the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) could make anti-Muslim and anti-Islam statements, but the people are unlikely to lend an ear to them.
Normalcy in Colombo
Sure enough, Colombo is quiet, though those who can remain at home are at home to be on the safe side. Transport has been restored and offices are functioning, though schools are closed. Experience of earlier blasts in Colombo and other places suggests that it will be business as usual in no time.
SColombo, April 23 (newsin.asia): Former Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said that he was shocked to witness the marring of the respectable history” of Sri Lankan intelligence service in the case of the serial bombings in Colombo and elsewhere on April 21 – Easter Sunday.Under his watch, the Sri Lankan intelligence service had ensured the safety of all Sri Lankans. It was strengthened to a level where it was among the world’s leading intelligence services, Gotabaya said in a statement.”It was the first and foremost responsibility of any civilized society to denounce terror attacks on Easter Sunday, which is a highly sensitive day. We should treat these cowardly and barbaric attacks with disgust. I express my condolences to all those who lost their lives in this tragedy and propose that it should be the common wish of the entire nation to wish for a speedy recovery of those who are injured,” he said.
The terror attacks suspended the heartbeat of Sri Lankans who were breathing freely after the 30-year war. Terrorism comes in different forms but in the same ruthless manner,” he said.
We are at a time where we should transform this hurt into unyielding courage. Being united in the face of obstacles is the easiest way to defeat forces against the country, which I have realised from experience. We should unite under the national flag for the country,” he said.
Colombo, April 23 (Ada Derana) – All police stations in Colombo have reportedly been advised to stay on high alert with regard to a suspicious lorry and a small van entering the city.
On the receipt of this intelligence, the DIG in charge of Colombo District has notified all senior police officers in the Colombo District and all police stations to stay on high alert.
Information on suspicious vehicles and other suspicious incidents can be relayed to the Air Force emergency call unit through the hotline 116, stated Sri Lanka Air Force Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne.
Security forces have received intelligence regarding a suspicious lorry and a small van entering Colombo.
Police Spokesman’s Office stated that all police stations in Colombo have been instructed to tighten security in the city.
Additionally, vehicle owners are advised to display their contact numbers and names clearly in front of their respective vehicles when parking at public places.
Colombo, April 22 (newsin.asia): India had warned Sri Lanka about imminent strikes suicide bombers twice this month – the first warning having been given on April 4 and the second on April 11, informed Sri Lankan sources said. Foreign agencies reported that Interpol will be sending a team to Sri Lanka to help Sri Lankan investigators to get to the bottom of the crime.
An Indian source said that the Indian High Commission had shared information they had with the Sri Lankan government. He declined to give details.
Harin Fernando, a cabinet minister,circulatedan internal security memo dated earlier this month that warned the group was getting ready for suicide attacks on popular Catholic churches and the Indian High Commission.
” It also said the group’s members were inciting hatred” among online followers.”
Unconfirmed reports identified the suicide bomber and mastermind behind the attack on the Shangri La hotel as Islamic extremist Moulvi Zahran Hashim. An imam, he was a prolific lecturer for National Tawheed Jamaath.
CNN reported that Hashim also wanted to attack the Indian High Commission in Colombo earlier this month, but the attack was thwarted. According to the CNN report, that attack was planned for April 4.
Security for the Indian High Commission has since been beefed up.
Why Intelligence Was Ignored
The standoff between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had been one of the reasons for non-action on the intelligence input from India as well the local police.
Since the President was away on a pilgrimage in Thirupathi (India) on Sunday, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe wanted to convene a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC). According to the cabinet spokesman, Dr.Rajitha Senaratne, a meeting was fixed but the members of the NSC did not turn up for it.
The Prime Minister then went to the Defense Ministry to talk to the concerned officials. But he was made to wait there for 20 minutes. President Sirisena, who is opposed to Wickremesinghe, holds the Defense portfolio and NSC members go by his wishes.
Dr. Senaratne regretted that Wickremesinghe , who had been a member of the NSC since 1987, could not call a meeting of the NSC and that had to go looking for NSC members in the Defense ministry.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) has been defusing Improvised Explosive Devices through controlled explosions in several parts of Colombo city.
A parcel bomb left in a van parked near the Kochikade church which was attacked on Sunday, was defused on Monday. The controlled blast was misinterpreted as a terrorist attack by the media. A vehicle parked in the same area exploded when the STF tried to dispose of a bomb in it. There were no injuries.
87 pipe bombs were discovered near the Colombo airport on Sunday.
Given the number of explosives discovered it appears that the terror group involved had planned a major mayhem with casualties running into several hundreds.
Nine persons, who were arrested earlier for the bombing of Shangri-La hotel on Sunday, have been remanded till May 6.
Interpol To Join Investigations
Interpol is deploying a team of investigators, including experts in disaster victim identification, to Sri Lanka to help local authorities in the aftermath of deadly suicide bomb blasts that killed nearly 300 people, the international police organisation said Monday.
Sri Lanka said Monday it believed a local extremist group named National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) was behind the attacks and said it would look at whether the group had international support.
Interpol said it was deploying an Incident Response Team (IRT) at the request of the Sri Lanka authorities, including specialists with expertise in crime scene examination, explosives, counter-terror and victim identification.
If required, additional expertise in digital forensics, biometrics, as well as photo and video analysis will also be added to the team on the ground,” it added.
Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock said the organisation will continue to provide whatever support is necessary.”
Information to help identify individuals linked to these attacks could come from anywhere in the world, which is where Interpol’s global network and databases can prove vital, especially for officers on the ground,” he said.
The death toll from Sunday’s attacks rose dramatically Monday to 290 — including dozens of foreigners — in the country’s worst attacks for over a decade.
More than 500 people were injured in the assault that saw suicide bombers hit three high-end hotels popular with foreign tourists, and three churches, unleashing carnage in Colombo and beyond.
Former CIA station chief Daniel Hoffman called the deadly Easter Sunday explosions at multiple churches and hotels in Sri Lanka an intelligence failure.”
This is by all accounts an intelligence failure. Security services are responsible for penetrating local extremist groups, understanding their nexus to other overseas transnational groups and then collecting intelligence so they can pre-empt attacks and that didn’t happen in this case and as a result we have almost 300 dead and 500 wounded,” said Hoffman, a Fox News contributor, on America’s Newsroom” on Monday.
A pair holding dual U.S. and British nationalities was among the 11 foreigners killed after a series of explosions struck three churches and three luxury hotels in and just outside Sri Lanka’s capital Easter Sunday, leaving at least 290 people dead and more than 500 others injured, officials said.
The U.S. State Department confirmed in a statement that several U.S. citizens were among those killed” in the explosions, although no more information was immediately available.
One of the things I think we’ll be looking at is the number of Sri Lankans who traveled to the so-called Islamic caliphate, some of whom apparently have returned. Were they part of this group? Did they make contacts with Al Qaeda or with the Islamic state? Those are open questions,” said Hoffman.
He added, I just don’t believe this was a locally-conducted attack. There’s too many people. Already 24 arrested. It’s a massive undertaking with a support network I think that would demand international collaboration but we don’t have a lot of facts.”
The six nearly simultaneous blasts—followed hours later by two more explosions—marked the bloodshed as among the worst since the South Asian country’s 26-year civil war ended a decade ago, a spokesperson for the Sri Lanka police said.
Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said all of the suicide bombers were Sri Lankan citizens from a domestic Muslim militant group named National Thowfeek Jamaath, but that authorities suspect foreign links.
Police said more than a dozen suspects have been arrested, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
This terrorist attack really bears all the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda attack, where you had three churches and three hotels frequented by foreigners all attacked over a short amount of time and over distance, that’s a traditional way that Al Qaeda likes to mount attacks. Multiple spectacular attacks to drive first responders to multiple areas and achieve maximum effect in the press afterwards,” said Hoffman. What’s surprising about this attack is that no one thus far has claimed responsibility.”
Ukraine has elected a professional comedian, of all people, as its President. Guatemala is the first country to have had a vaudevillian as the Head of State, a columnist tells us in his article, on this page, today. Several other countries have done likewise if the freakish conduct of their leaders is anything to go by. Sri Lanka has been an exception, though. It does not elect jokers to govern it; instead, it handpicks idiots and places them at the levers of power. If there had been anyone with an iota of intelligence, within the ranks of the yahapalana government, he or she would have swiftly acted on a warning of impending terror attacks, issued by the state intelligence outfits, more than 10 days prior to the Easter Sunday carnage.
Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera did not look intelligent, at Sunday’s media briefing, when he refused to be drawn on the leaked intelligence document containing the aforesaid warning. There should have been a higher ranking officer, at the press conference, to field questions. The IGP himself should have been present there, given the gravity of the situation.
President Maithripala Sirisena, who is the Minister of Defence and the Commander-in-Chief, was out of the country on a private visit, at the time of the terror attacks. Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Rajitha Senaratne told the media, yesterday, that no Acting Defence Minister had been appointed during the President’s absence. Reading between the lines, one sees an attempt by the UNP to lay the blame for the government’s serious lapse solely at the President’s doorstep. The President and the UNP are notorious for playing political ping-pong on matters of national importance.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, addressing the media, on Sunday, promised a probe into the allegation that the intelligence warning, in question, had gone unheeded. He claimed that it had not been brought to the notice of the Cabinet. Curiously, Minister Harin Fernando told the media, on the same day, that his father, receiving treatment in hospital, had been aware of security threats and warned him to be careful. Is it that Minister Fernando’s father is better informed of security affairs than both the President and the Prime Minister? Will the police care to ask the minister and his father how they had been informed of the security threats?
Minister Kabir Hashim dropped a bombshell, at yesterday’s government media briefing, on the Easter Sunday mayhem and the security situation in the country. He revealed that he had, some moons ago, brought to President Maithripala Sirisena’s notice the existence of an extremist group and Sirisena had promised prompt action. Hashim’s secretary was shot by the extremist group in retaliation.
A subsequent police raid on a hideout, run by the group in Wanathavilluwe, Puttalam, had led to the arrest of two suspects, but they had been released due to the intervention of a powerful politician, Hashim said, revealing that one of them had carried out an attack on Sunday.
Hashim’s shocking revelation is a damning indictment on the yahapalana administration. It is incumbent upon the government to have a high-level probe conducted into the very serious allegation and name the politician who intervened to secure the release of the two high-profile suspects from police custody. Legal action must be taken against him, regardless of his position. He deserves to be thrown behind bars. Will the government get cracking?
It takes a lot of courage to stand up to extremism, and Minister Hashim deserves praise for taking on the murderous outfit at the risk of life and limb. He has set an example to the leaders of other communities, troubled by fanatics.
The tragedy of Good Friday returned on Easter Sunday when death suddenly struck scores of Christians celebrating the Festival of Life, yesterday.
Our condolences and continuing compassion must be extended to those whose loved ones were snatched away or injured, in places considered safe. Our sorrow and compassion should also specially encircle the families of all those visitors to our country who were killed and injured. We are deeply sorry at your loss in our land of hospitality.
Work for the people
The abrupt termination of Easter Day services on the advice of the police, was a strong reminder that our work is not yet finished. The solemn rising of the people to move out in their twos and threes, somewhat symbolized that this unfinished work now lies with the people of our country.
Bankrupt legislators
This is because our legislators are no longer able to steer our common destiny with responsibility. Most are simply unable to anticipate conflict and work for the common good; they have been immersed in self-interest for too long. Few can offer empathy to the victims of these crimes and even fewer have the ability to call the nation to engage in introspection, the need of the hour. The predictably emerging blame game, along with the typical public exploitation of human suffering, is ample evidence of this bankruptcy.
The potential of the people
The spontaneous response of medical and para-medical personnel, the police and armed forces and general public, in assisting the injured and the dying, is to be commended. This behaviour is a sacred sign of the immense potential our people have, to cross boundaries and heal wounds. It also indicates that we reach our highest human stature when we move beyond the invasion of political party agendas. We are to consequently prevent legislators from stealing our integrity to further their devious ends, in our work of nation building.
A day of national mourning and reflection
These heinous crimes must be condemned in the name of our common humanity. But, with the condemnation, we are to counter the intentions of the perpetrators who seek blood for blood. The declaration of a day of national mourning, and reflection, will help us rise to this task. If on this day people of diverse religious and secular persuasions will publicly gather to demonstrate solidarity with the grieved and ask what went wrong, our actions will be stronger than the intentions of the perpetrators.
If out of this crisis we will even now, read the signs of the times and come together to form continuing people’s movements to build social trust and assert dialogue as the best method of resolving our differences, we will then rise to a new life out of the ashes of the Easter Sunday bombings.
One of the suicide bombers, who carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, had been released from police custody a few months back due to pressure from a powerful politician, Minister Kabir Hashim revealed, yesterday.
Fielding questions, Petroleum Resource Development Minister Kabir Hashim told The Island that following some incidents in the Mawanella area, Intelligence had unearthed cache of explosives at Lacktowatta in Wanathawilluwa, Puttalam. During the raid two key suspects were captured. However, due to the intervention of a powerful politician, they had been released and one of them had been involved in Sunday’s attacks, the Minister said.
In January, the CID obtained a three-month detention order from the Defence Secretary to interrogate those arrested with some 100 kilos of explosives and 100 detonators in Wanathawilluwa.
The suspects, including the owner of the land where some of the explosives were found buried, were arrested by the CID.
The CID also recovered 20 litres of nitrate acid, fuse wire, two firearms, a stock of ammunition, a computer, a camera and a stock of dry rations.
Minister Hashim said his secretary had been shot by the extremists in retaliation for the police raid on their hideout.
This haul of explosives was recovered following investigations carried out on the telephone numbers found in a mobile phone of a suspect arrested over the incident where Buddha statutes were vandalised at Mawanella in January.
Minister Rajitha Senaratne, yesterday, said that international intelligence agencies had warned the government, on April 04, of an impending attack in the country.
He told a media briefing at Temple Trees, that the Chief of National Intelligence had warned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) of the attacks before April 11. “We are waiting for the President to remove the IGP,” he added.
Hashim also said that the Prime Minister and the State Minister of Defence had not been invited to National Security Council (NDC) meetings since December last year.
Minister Senaratne claimed that the NSC had not complied with a request for a meeting with the Prime Minister on Sunday morning.
Commenting on Sunday’s attacks, Hashim said that a local organisation identified as the National Tawheed Jamath was suspected of plotting Sunday’s explosions. He added that all suicide bombers were believed to be Sri Lankans. “We are conducting investigations to find out whether there have been any foreign links.”
Fox News host Jesse Watters went off on those referring to victims of the Sri Lanka bombings as Easter worshippers,” accusing them of making up a term in order to pander to Muslims.
Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, faced a backlash from conservatives for using the term Easter worshippers” in their initial responses to the attacks.
Look at some of the leading Democrats, how they characterized it,” Watters said on The Five Monday. They didn’t use ‘Christians.’ They didn’t say ‘a lot of churches.’ They actually said ‘Easter worshipers were under attack.’ You don’t call Muslims ‘Ramadan worshipers.’ You don’t call Jews ‘Passover worshipers.’ It’s a made-up phrase.”
Watters continued: Why did they make up phrases like this? This is one of the reasons why people don’t trust liberals because they are not in touch with reality. They do this because they are pandering to Muslims. Because a lot of liberals feel they are so upset with how other people think about them and if they are thought up to be insensitive, that drives them crazy.”
It’s worth noting that Easter is an exclusively Christian holiday, so it’s unclear why using the term Easter worshippers” does much to obscure the faith of the victims. What’s more, the phrase is not made up – the same formulation has been used on the air at… Fox News
Daniel Linsey, 19 and his sister Amelie, 15, escaped death in the dining room of the Shangri-La Hotel but died moments later when a second bomber struck
More than 300 people were killed in Easter Sunday’s eight coordinated attacks
Lawyer Ben Nicholson confirmed his wife and two children died in one blast
The island nation remains on lockdown and police have found more explosives
A British teenage brother and sister escaped one of the Sri Lankan terror blasts only to be killed by a second, it was revealed last night.
Daniel Linsey, 19 and his younger sister Amelie, 15, were having breakfast with their father Matthew at the luxury Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo before their flight home.
The teenagers somehow survived when a suicide bomb was detonated among the diners, including many tourists. But they died moments later when a second bomber struck as they tried to escape the carnage.
They are among almost 300 people massacred – including six more Britons – after suicide bombers cut down tourists and Easter Sunday mass worshippers, including dozens of children.
Amelie Linsey, 15, left, and brother Daniel, 19, right, were in the dining room of the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo when a bomber struck but escaped, only to be killed moments later by a second terrorist’s blast
Last night, the island was under a state of emergency after the explosions. In other developments:
British father Ben Nicholson confirmed he had lost his whole family in the attacks. His wife Anita, 42 and their children Alex, 14, and Annabel, 11, were killed as they ate breakfast;
Asos billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen lost three of his four children in the attack while on holiday with his wife;
Senior Sri Lankan officials were repeatedly warned for three years that an attack would happen – but nothing was done because of political infighting;
Fears were growing that more explosives are on the streets after police found 87 detonators and a pipe bomb filled with 110lb of explosives – big enough to cause a 400-yard blast radius;
A video emerged of alleged ringleader Moulvi Zahran Hashim issuing threats against ‘infidels’ with a Union Jack in the background.
Devastated Mr Linsey, 61, an American city fund manager, returned to the family home in central London, yesterday to be with his British wife Angelina and his other two sons – aged 12 and 21 – who were not on the holiday.
David Linsey, 21, told the Mail the family were on the last day of their Easter break: ‘They were due to fly home that day and had been having breakfast when the first bomb went off.
Amelie Linsey on a recent trip to Vietnam. She was killed, aged 15, in the Easter Sunday terror attack in Sri Lanka which claimed 300 lives including eight Britons
Londoner Matthew Linsey, pictured several years ago with his children Daniel and Amelie, both of whom were murdered on Easter Sunday
‘My dad said they were all caught up in a second explosion as they tried to escape. Both my brother and sister were instantly unconscious and were taken to hospital but they never woke up. My dad is shocked and has not said much apart from that. He is trying to be strong for my little brother who is 12 and my mum.’
Mr Linsey was said to have had suffered shrapnel wounds to his face and was yesterday being comforted by relatives at the family home. Oxford student David described how his father initially hoped Amelie had survived the impact of the blast as she had no major visible injuries.
‘At first they didn’t think Amelie was injured badly as there were no obvious wounds. Someone else took her to hospital but she must have had internal injuries.
‘I think they both died instantly as they never woke up. We cannot believe this has happened. I can’t describe just how devastating it is. You don’t think it will happen to you. We miss them so much already,’ he said. The devastated brother said the family has decided not to watch the news and were not ready to hear emerging questions about security blunders which could have prevented the deadly attacks.
He said the three had been on a trip of life time touring Asia over the Easter period and had travelled to Vietnam before arriving in Sri Lanka just days before the tragedy. He said: ‘They were really excited about it. It was supposed to be a nice Easter break and for them to spend time with my dad.
Ben Nicholson lost his wife Anita, 42 and their children Alex, 14, and Annabel, 11, who were killed as they ate breakfast
‘Daniel had always wanted to go to Sri Lanka and they had been to see the elephants.’
He said his brother, who was due to complete his A-levels, ‘loved travelling’ and planned to go to university to study tourism.
While Amelie, who was a pupil at the independent Godolphin and Latymer School, was said to have ‘loved looking after the family’ despite her young age. He said: ‘My sister was so loving, she was the centre of the family and kept us all together and my brother was one of the kindest people you could imagine.’
The siblings are among 291 people killed in the atrocities which have injured more than 500.
Many visitors have already left Sri Lanka, a popular holiday destination for Britons and other Western tourists. Shops and restaurants pulled down their shutters and cars stayed off usually busy roads as the government imposed a strict curfew.
Social media sites were shut down to avoid locals spreading panic with unfounded rumours.
A blood-spattered statue of Jesus Christ is pictured while crime scene officials inspect the site of a bomb blast, as the sun shines through the blown-out roof, inside St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo
Sri Lankan military stand guard near the explosion site at a church in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
Hospital staff push a trolley with a casualty after an explosion at a church in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
State minister of defence Ruwan Wijewardene said investigators have identified the culprits behind the ‘terrorist’ attacks (pictuerd: Shangri La hotel, Colombo)
The police and the military were also granted draconian powers by Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena to detain and interrogate suspects without court orders. Chaos unfolded on the morning of Easter Sunday when coordinated blasts ripped through churches and luxury hotels carried out by seven suicide bombers from a militant group called National Thowheed Jamaath.
Two of the bombers blew themselves up at the Shangri-La Hotel on Colombo’s seafront. Others targeted three churches and two hotels. Footage of a bomber wearing a backpack wandering around a church moments before detonation emerged yesterday.
A fourth hotel and a house in a suburb of Colombo were also hit, but it was not immediately clear how those attacks were carried out.
A large bomb defused late on Sunday on an access road to the international airport, and another blew up in a van before it could experts could carry out a controlled explosion. Three police officers were killed by two suicide bombers who detonated their vests when their house was raided. One bomber was a woman who was married to one of the Shangri-La Hotel attackers.
Officials said nine suspects were remanded in custody yesterday – seven Muslims, one of Sinhalese background and one Tamil. Two women died in an explosion at a safe house linked to the unnamed suicide bomber who died at the Shangri-La Hotel. They are believed to be his wife and sister.
Julian Emmanuel, 48, an NHS doctor from Surrey, was in the Cinammon Grand hotel with his family and was in bed when a blast ripped through its restaurant. He said: ‘We saw someone who had an almost severed arm – there were shocked children covered in dust. It was all very traumatising. We will never forget this.’
An Australian survivor of the attack, identified only as Sam, described the scene as ‘absolute carnage’. He said he and a travel partner were having breakfast at the Shangri-La when two blasts went off. He said he had seen two men wearing backpacks seconds before the blasts.
Security forces inspect the St. Anthony’s Shrine after an explosion hit St Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade in Colombo
A map showing where the eight blasts went off , six of them in very quick succession on Easter Sunday morning
‘There were people screaming and dead bodies all around,’ he said. ‘Kids crying, kids on the ground, I don’t know if they were dead or not, just crazy.’ Doctors said the Islamic State-inspired terrorists filled the bombs with ball bearings and other pieces of metal to cause maximum damage.
Some victims suffered such horrific injuries that identifying their bodies could take some time.
Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said an international network was involved, but did not elaborate. Defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene said those responsible for the atrocities were religious extremists, but no group has yet claimed responsibility. The bombings represent the deadliest violence in Sri Lanka since a devastating civil war ended a decade ago on the island.
The Queen joined world leaders in offering her condolences in the wake of the terror attack, and paid tribute to the medical and emergency services helping out.
Scotland Yard said it is ‘continually monitoring’ the threats Britain faces, including to places of worship. The FBI and Interpol are assisting the investigation.
The Sri Lankan government has admitted it failed to act on multiple warnings before a coordinated series of attacks ripped through churches and hotels on Easter Sunday, and said it feared an international terror group might have been behind the atrocities.
A government spokesman, Rajitha Senaratne, revealed that warnings were received in the days before the attacks, which killed 290 people and injured at least 500 more, including from foreign intelligence services.
He said one of the warnings they received referred to Nations Thawahid Jaman (NTJ), a little-known local Islamist group which has previously defaced Buddhist statues. But Senaratne, who is also health minister, said he did not believe a local group could have acted alone. There must be a wider international network behind it,” he said.
A US official directly familiar with the US initial intelligence assessment said the group responsible for the attacks was likely to have been inspired by ISIS. No group has yet claimed responsibility.
The security situation remained fluid on Monday. Police found 87 detonators in a private terminal of the main bus station in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, and a controlled explosion was carried out on a van near St. Anthony’s church, one of three churches targeted in the attack. On Sunday evening, an improvised explosive device (IED) was defused near the capital’s Bandaranaike International Airport.
With the situation in flux, a dusk-til-dawn curfew was imposed for the second night in a row. Sri Lankan authorities declared a state of emergency from midnight Monday and said Tuesday would be a national day of mourning.
Intelligence failures would be investigated, Senaratne said. We saw the warnings and we saw the details given,” he told reporters at a press conference. We are very very sorry, as a government we have to say — we have to apologize to the families and the institutions about this incident.” Police have arrested 24 people in connection with the suicide attacks, the worst violence the South Asian island has seen since its bloody civil war ended 10 years ago. A total of six suicide bombers were involved, Sri Lanka military spokesman Sumith Atapattu told CNN.
Most of the dead and injured were Sri Lankan. At least 39 tourists were killed and 28 injured, the country’s tourism minister said.
Of the foreign nationals who died, four were US citizens, eight were British, two of whom held dual US-UK nationality; as well as three Indians, two Australians, two Chinese cousins, one person from the Netherlands, two Turkish citizens and one Portuguese national. The blasts appear to have targeted tourism hotspots, as well as churches, in an effort to gain maximum global attention.
The attacks occurred in a period of political instability in Sri Lanka. In October, the Sri Lankan President attempted to depose the Prime Minister and replace him with a favored successor. That move backfired and the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was reinstated in December.
The President, Maithripala Sirisena, was out of the country at the time of Sunday’s attacks.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said warnings about a potential attack had not been shared with him or other government ministers. Sajith Premadasa, minister of housing construction and cultural affairs, said security officers were guilty of negligence and incompetence.”
It is unclear whether the details contained in the warning matched the atrocity that eventually took place on Sunday.
Little is known about the NTJ, the Islamist extremist organization that has been linked to the atrocities. There were doubts that it would have had the capacity to carry out such a sophisticated and coordinated attack alone. Transnational Islamists are known to operate in places like Pakistan, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
The intelligence services in the country are not integrated, says Commander of the Army Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake.
He stated this addressing the media at the Catholic Archbishop’s House this morning (22).
The Army Chief called on His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith to discuss the Easter Day attacks that took place yesterday (21) and the situation prevailing in the country.
He stated that proper communication links should be established among all intelligence services in the country.
The police were informed of the intelligence report on the possible attacks, however, such information was not shared with the Army, Lieutenant General Senanayake stated.
The organization that is responsible for the attacks has been identified as of now and they are internationally backed, he further commented.
The Army Chief said that a request was made to confer the authority on the Army to take necessary actions to prevent such criminal acts.
Colombo, April 22 (newsin.asia): As of Monday April 22, 2019 7.00 pm, the number of foreign nationals who have been identified as killed is 31.
The fatalities are: one from Bangladesh; two from China, eight from India, one from France, one from Japan, one from The Netherlands, one from Portugal, two from Saudi Arabia, one from Spain, two from Turkey, six from the UK, two holding US and UK nationalities, and two holding Australian and Sri Lankan nationalities.
Additionally, 14 foreign nationals are unaccounted for at present, and could be among the unidentified victims at the Colombo Judicial Medical Officer’s mortuary.
Seventeen foreign nationals injured in the attacks are receiving treatment at the Colombo National Hospital and a private hospital in Colombo while others have been treated and discharged.
The Foreign Ministry continues to be in close contact with the relevant hospital authorities to identify the remaining victims. The Ministry will continue to monitor the welfare of the foreign nationals receiving treatment.
An emergency hotline to assist families of the affected foreign nationals is operational at +94 112323015
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but suspicion was focusing on Islamist militants in the Buddhist-majority country
COLOMBO, April 22 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka said on Monday it was invoking emergency powers in the aftermath of devastating bomb attacks on hotels and churches, blamed on militants with foreign links, in which 290 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded.
The emergency law, which gives police and the military extensive powers to detain and interrogate suspects without court orders, will go into effect at midnight on Monday, the president’s office said.
Colombo, the seaside capital of the Indian Ocean island, was jittery on Monday. Police said 87 bomb detonators were found at the city’s main bus station, while an explosive went off near a church where scores were killed on Sunday when bomb squad officials were trying to defuse it.
A night curfew will go into effect at 8 p.m., the government announced.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but suspicion was focusing on Islamist militants in the Buddhist-majority country.
Investigators said seven suicide bombers took part in the attacks while a government spokesman said an international network was involved.
Police had received a tip-off of a possible attack on churches by a little-known domestic Islamist group some 10 days ago, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The intelligence report, dated April 11 and seen by Reuters, said a foreign intelligence agency had warned authorities of possible attacks on churches by the leader of the group, the National Thawheed Jama’ut. It was not immediately clear what action, if any, was taken on the tip-off.
Police said 24 people had been arrested, all of whom were Sri Lankan, but they gave no more details.
International anti-terrorism experts said even if a local group had carried out the attacks, it was likely that al Qaeda or Islamic State were involved, given the level of sophistication.
Two of the suicide bombers blew themselves up at the luxury Shangri-La Hotel on Colombo’s seafront, said Ariyananda Welianga, a senior official at the government’s forensic division. The others targeted three churches and two other hotels.
A fourth hotel and a house in a suburb of the capital Colombo were also hit, but it was not immediately clear how those attacks were carried out.
“Still the investigations are going on,” Welianga said.
Most of the attacks came during Easter services and when hotel guests were sitting down for breakfast buffets.
“Guests who had come for breakfast were lying on the floor, blood all over,” an employee at Kingsbury Hotel told Reuters.
Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said an international network was involved, but did not elaborate.
“We do not believe these attacks were carried out by a group of people who were confined to this country,” Senaratne said. “There was an international network without which these attacks could not have succeeded.”
The president, Maithripala Sirisena, said in a statement the government would seek foreign assistance to track the overseas links.
Sri Lanka was at war for decades with ethnic minority Tamil separatists, most of them Hindu, but violence had largely ended since the government victory in the civil war, 10 years ago.
Sri Lanka’s 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus.
FOREIGN VICTIMS
Most of the dead and wounded were Sri Lankans although government officials said 32 foreigners were killed, including British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals.
Denmark’s richest man Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife lost three of their four children in the attacks, a spokesman for his fashion firm said.
A British mother and son at breakfast at the Shangri-La, British media reported, while five Indian political workers were killed at the same hotel, relatives told Indian media.
The hotel said several guests and three employees were killed.
The U.S. State Department said in a travel advisory “terrorist groups” were plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka and targets could include tourist spots, transport hubs, shopping malls, hotels, places of worship and airports.
There were fears the attacks could spark communal violence, with police reporting late on Sunday there had been a petrol bomb attack on a mosque in the northwest and arson attacks on two shops owned by Muslims in the west.
BOMB FOUND NEAR AIRPORT
Traffic was uncharacteristically thin in normally bustling Colombo after an island-wide curfew was lifted earlier Monday.
Soldiers with automatic weapons stood guard outside major hotels and the World Trade Centre in the business district, a Reuters witness said.
An Australian survivor, identified only as Sam, told Australia’s 3AW radio the hotel was a scene of “absolute carnage”.
He said he and a travel partner were having breakfast at the Shangri-La when two blasts went off. He said he had seen two men wearing backpacks seconds before the blasts.
“There were people screaming and dead bodies all around,” he said. “Kids crying, kids on the ground, I don’t know if they were dead or not, just crazy.”
There were similar scenes of carnage at two churches in or near Colombo, and a third church in the northeast town of Batticaloa, where worshippers had gathered. Pictures showed bodies on the ground and blood-spattered pews and statues.
Dozens were killed in a blast at the Gothic-style St Sebastian church in Katuwapitiya, north of Colombo. Police said they suspected it was a suicide attack.
Questions over why the intelligence report warning was not acted upon could feed into a feud between Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the president.
Sirisena fired the premier last year and installed opposition strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his stead. Weeks later, he was forced to re-instate Wickremesinghe because of pressure from the Supreme Court but their relationship is still fraught as a presidential election nears.
(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal Writing by Paul Tait and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)
Sri Lankan security forces secure the area around St Anthony’s Shrine, one of the churches targeted in multiple suicide bombings on Easter Sunday. Photograph: Getty Images
Sri Lankan officials have blamed a small local group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the bomb attacks on Sunday. It is unclear whether this assertion is based on new information discovered by investigators since the atrocity or a notice circulated by Sri Lankan police 10 days before the blasts, which said the group was planning suicide attacks against churches.
There is a similarly named Islamist organisation active on the island nation – the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jama’ath. It is unclear if this group is the one referred to by the warning, which was based on information passed to Sri Lankan authorities by a foreign intelligence service, believed to be either India’s or the US’s.
The SLTJ is small, based in the east of Sri Lanka, and has been involved in extremist rhetoric as well as being linked to acts of vandalism against Buddhist statues. Its name describes a movement for the unity of God, a favourite label adopted by Islamist militants and a key concept in conservative strands of Islam.
Analysts point out multiple suicide bombings of six or possibly more targets require a significant logistical operation and months of planning. Such attackers may detonate their devices alone, but need careful management by handlers to keep them committed in the days and weeks before. Large quantities of military-grade explosives would also have been necessary, as well as safe houses and bomb-making workshops.
The targets – churches and luxury hotels in high-profile locations – are familiar from many previous attacks by Islamist extremists in south Asia and beyond. Though western attention has been diverted by violence closer to home, the region has had a high level of religiously motivated terrorism for decades. There has also been a surge in Hindu and Buddhist extremism in recent years.
Islamist militant attacks have largely been the work of local groups rather than major international organisations such as Islamic State and al-Qaida, despite the continuing efforts of both to expand in the arc between Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Each group has built links with local factions and individuals, working through what are effectively subcontractors”.
Sometimes the links have been more direct, however. At its peak, Isis successfully attracted a very significant number of recruits from the Maldives, the islands close to Sri Lanka, with which there are strong transport and commercial links.
From descriptions by witnesses, it appears likely the attackers were young local men. This would fit a longstanding rule that almost all terrorist attacks anywhere in the world primarily involve people living near or even brought up close to their targets.
Much of the focus is also now on the failure of the Sri Lankan security agencies. A key factor here is the degree to which different branches and factions within the police, intelligence and military are aligned with various politicians and political parties.
The telecommunications minister, Harin Fernando, gave an unwitting example of how politicised the vision of decision-makers can be. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, Fernando, who on Sunday night tweeted images of the memo from the Sri Lankan intelligence services dated 11 April, which laid out details of a possible planned attack, said the government also had not ruled out an attempted coup.
There are so many ways we could look at this, but right now our biggest priority would be to find what really led these eight or 10 or 12 men to carry out this attack,” he said. But we are not ruling out a coup as well.”
The police today informed Colombo Chef Magistrate’s Court that the suicide bomber of the Shangri-La hotel had been identified as Insan Seelavan and owned a factory in Avissawella- Wellampitiya road.
Nine employees of the said factory were arrested by the Wellampitiya Police and were remanded till May 6 after being produced in the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court.
The Police also informed the court that the suicide bomber was suspected to have links with other suicide killers died in the Dematagoda blast. (
The death toll for the Easter Sunday terror attacks has risen to 290 by Monday morning with 500 have been injured, Police Spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said.
He said 24 suspects are currently in the CID custody.
Colombo, April 22 (newsin.asia) – Sri Lanka’s National Security Council has announced that a conditional state of emergency will be declared from tonight, midnight, following the deadly attacks which ripped through Sri Lanka on Sunday.
The Sri Lanka government said they will also re-impose an islandwide night-time police curfew starting from 8.00pm Monday till 4.00am Tuesday.
A curfew was imposed on Sunday afternoon following the bombings in Sri Lanka which has so far killed 290 people. The curfew was lifted at dawn on Monday.
Meanwhile Health Minister, Rajitha Senaratnne said that the local Thawheed Jamaat was behind the deadly blasts and investigations were ongoing to see if they had any foreign links.
Colombo, April 22 (newsin.asia) – Another minor explosion was reported from Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo a short while ago when the bomb disposal squad tried to detonate a bomb which was found inside an abandoned vehicle.
The vehicle had been parked close to the church in Kochikade where a massive bomb exploded on Sunday causing many casualties.So far no injuries have been reported.
Meanwhile, the police also discovered 87 low explosives detonators at Colombo’s main bus stations in Pettah during special search operations. Police said that the explosives had been left abandoned.
Colombo, April 22 (newsin.asia): The Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Monday appointed a three-man committee to go into Easter Sunday’s multiple blasts in Colombo, Negombo, and Batticaloa, and report back to him in two weeks’ time.
The members of the committee include Sri Lankan Supreme Court justice Vijith Malalgoda, form Inspector General of police N.k.Illangakoon.
The blasts in eight places took the lives of 290 persons, including, 36 foreign nationals, and left 500 injured.
The junior Minister of Defense Ruwan Wikewardene said that 24 persons have been arrested so far for questioning.
The police have a curfew from 8 pm on Monday to 4 am on Tuesday.
207 people died, including five Britons, and 450 were injured in Sri Lankan blasts
13 suspects were arrested but no nation or group has claimed responsibility
The attack bears the hallmarks of IS: explicitly targeting civilians, designed to cause maximum terror and bloodshed, and perpetrated on a Christian holiday
After living through a bloody civil war that dragged on for three decades, the people of Sri Lanka are no strangers to terror.
But the carnage that unfolded yesterday saw the country’s enemies take on new depths of depravity.
It had all the hallmarks of the barbaric Islamic State group – executed meticulously and without mercy.
Within minutes of yesterday’s blasts, MI5 was trying to establish if there were any British links to those who could be behind the plot. There were no immediate claims of responsibility, nor any established motive for the attack, although 13 suspects had been arrested by last night.
Early evidence pointed to the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ), a relatively unknown radical Islamist group said to have formed in Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated town in eastern Sri Lanka, in 2014.
Alex and Anita Nicholson photographed in London in 2015. Both were killed in the bomb blast in the Shangri-La hotel
Last photo: Shantha Mayadunne (second left) and her daughter Nisanga (right) were among the victims of the Sri Lanka bomb attacks on Sunday. The family posted this picture of their Easter breakfast at the Shangri-La hotel just before the blast there
A map showing where the eight blasts went off today, six of them in very quick succession on Easter Sunday morning
ISIS militants marching in Raqqa, Syria, in 2014. This year the fundamentalists were driven from the last land they occupied but security experts have warned of ‘pop up’ terror cells
Six-foot pipe bomb is found at Sri Lanka’s main airport…Pictured: British lawyer mother and her son killed in Easter…
It has no history of mass fatality attacks.
In fact, its only mention appears to be last year when it was linked to the vandalism of Buddhist statues.
Sources in the Muslim community in Sri Lanka claim the group has publicly supported Islamic State. They also say that Zahran Hashim, named in reports as one of the bombers, was its founder.
Although intelligence files on the group are small, there is no doubt the warning signs were there.
On April 11, Sri Lankan police circulated a document entitled ‘Information of an alleged plan attack’ which said they had been warned by an unnamed foreign intelligence agency that the NTJ was plotting suicide attacks on churches in Colombo.
It added that intelligence pointed to any of the following methods: suicide attack, weapon attack or truck attack.
The original warning is most likely to have come from Australia – one of the ‘five eyes’ with a close intelligence-sharing relationship with Britain – that has kept watch on the rise of extremism in the region.
Documents show that Sri Lanka’s police chief Pujuth Jayasundara then issued an intelligence alert to top officers, specifically warning that suicide bombers planned to hit ‘prominent churches’.
Sri Lanka’s defence ministry has now ordered curfew with immediate effect ‘until further notice’, and the Sri Lankan government said it had shut down access to social media messaging services, sources say
Hospital staff push a trolley with a casualty after an explosion at a church in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
A crime scene official inspects the site of a bomb blast inside a church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, which lost half its roof tiles with the force of the blast
Documents even named six individuals as likely suicide bombers, including Hashim. Yesterday, the seemingly far-fetched plan became frighteningly real.
Why the police did not sound the alarm earlier will remain a mystery. Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe admitted that information about the attacks had been received in advance but denied having direct knowledge himself. ‘We must look into why adequate precautions were not taken. Neither I nor the ministers were kept informed,’ he said following intense anger in the community.
Whichever group was behind yesterday’s attack, it was most certainly inspired by the tactics used by IS. The suicide bombings explicitly targeted civilians, designed to create maximum terror for maximum effect – like the Manchester Arena bombings and the London Bridge attack.
They also chose iconic locations packed full of people, including many foreigners.
IS – which lost its final sliver of territory in Syria just weeks ago – also has a history of staging attacks against Christians on holy days, notably Christmas and Easter.
British military chiefs and ministers have long warned that the defeat of the terror group in the Middle East does not mean it has been vanquished.
They have referred to a ‘pop-up’ IS involving the group emerging elsewhere, often in states where they can exploit a vacuum. They have specifically warned of the rising threat from such diehard jihadis in south-east Asia.
IS fostered a brand which was so effective other terror groups wanted to be associated with it.
Some radicalised Muslims travelled from Sri Lanka to Syria to fight in that country’s civil war.
In 2016, the justice minister said 32 Sri Lankan Muslims from ‘well-educated and elite’ families had joined IS in Syria.
The recent loss of its last territory makes it even more likely that foreign fighters from countries such as Sri Lanka may now be returning home.
Terrorism expert Raffaello Pantucci says the demise of the group’s ‘caliphate’ could have persuaded extremists to stay in their countries and mount attacks there instead. ‘Think how big Islamic State’s footprint is,’ he said. ‘This means it has a reverse effect as well – their ideas are going out to a big pool of places.’
Sri Lankan military stand guard near the explosion site at a church in Batticaloa,with police tape keeping out bysanders
Security forces inspect the St. Anthony’s Shrine after an explosion hit St Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade in Colombo
State minister of defence Ruwan Wijewardene said investigators have identified the culprits behind the ‘terrorist’ attacks (pictuerd: Shangri La hotel, Colombo)
Yesterday’s bombings end a decade of relative peace in Sri Lanka following the end of its civil war in 2009. Terrorist bombings were common during the brutal 25-year struggle during which the Sri Lankan government fought Tamil separatism.
But despite the period of calm, much bitterness and grievance has remained in the country, riven by ethnic disputes.
Sri Lanka, which is mainly Buddhist, does not have a recent history of persecution of its Christian minority, which comprises 7 per cent of the population.
Yet its relations with others, including Hindus and Muslims, have not always been easy. Over the years there has been an increasing rise of discontent among Sri Lanka’s Muslim community, which make up 10 per cent of the population.
In November 1990, many were expelled from their homes in the north and have since been living as ‘displaced’ in the southern part of the country, under the patronage of the state.
Whatever the motives behind yesterday’s attack, there is little doubt that the brutal tactics used by Islamic State will continue to inspire others.
When it comes to mass murder and coordinated terror attacks, we have a long list of experiences to compare.
coordinated series of attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday conjures up memories of previous terrorist attacks. Striking at worshipers at prayer reminds us of the Christchurch Mosque shootings in New Zealand on March 15. It also appears linked to previous Easter attacks, including the 2017 Palm Sunday assault in Egypt in 2017 in which 45 people were murdered, and the terrorist attack in Lahore in 2016 that killed 75. In coordination and the number of sites chosen it is also similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166.
It is a hallmark of our era that when it comes to mass murder and coordinated terrorist attacks we have a long list of past experiences to choose from. In the last decades the growing number of terrorist attacks by far-right Islamist extremists, white nationalists and others has become an almost daily event. Last week gunmen, allegedly terrorists from Iran, murdered 14 people in western Pakistan in an attack on Pakistani security forces. Earlier in April, a bombing attack – not widely reported outside Pakistan and thought to be carried out by the Islamic State – targeted Shi’ites in Quetta. And on Friday there was an attack made on government institutions in Kabul. On Sunday, after the attacks in Sri Lanka, terrorist incidents were also reported in Mali, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, showing the global reach of extremist organizations, many of them linked to ISIS.Read More Related Articles
Recommended byNot all attacks are the same. The ones in Pakistan and Afghanistan specifically struck at the military and government. The one in Quetta targeted minorities. But there are methods that are similar, and there are networks of groups which learn from each other, specifically ISIS and its affiliates. ISIS has built upon decades of experience gained from al-Qaeda, and other groups that have perfected their methods. The full picture of the Sri Lankan attacks was still becoming clear on Sunday afternoon as Sri Lanka imposed a curfew and police launched raids searching for perpetrators. Pakistan’s spokesman for its Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in the afternoon condemning the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka.” Pakistan says it stands with Sri Lanka. Iran’s Javad Zarif also condemned the attacks as terror, noting that terrorism has no religion. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the cowardly attacks.” Seven were reported detained.
Sri Lanka has a long history fighting terrorism. It was generally fighting against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist movement that was largely defeated in 2009. The Tamil fighters were rooted in the Tamil Hindu minority of the Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka. Christians make up only around 8% of the country, and Muslims an additional 12%. In 2016, Sri Lanka revealed that 32 Sri Lankans had joined ISIS and left the country. Many were said to be from educated families, something that surprised authorities. The local Muslim community condemned the government’s statements as tarnishing the image” of Sri Lankan Muslims. An Australian member of ISIS was similarly shown to have a respected uncle back home in Sri Lanka. Other reports indicated ISIS members in India had connections to Sri Lanka, and there were concerns after the defeat of ISIS about returnees from the terrorist group. This appears similar to the extremism in Bangladesh before the 2016 Dhaka attack that was carried out by educated ISIS members who targeted foreigners in a café.
While Easter attacks are carried out by Islamist extremist groups, including the ones in Pakistan and Egypt already mentioned, and an attack in Iraq in 2011, the complex and coordinated nature of the attack in Sri Lanka looks more like those in Mumbai in 2008. In that year, 12 coordinated bombings and shooting attacks were perpetrated across Mumbai, including at a café, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the Oberoi Trident Hotel, and at the local Chabad house. That attack was coordinated by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan. Unlike the bombings in Sri Lanka, the attack was carried out by gunmen.
The attacks in Sri Lanka struck three churches: St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo and Batticaloa’s Zion Church, according to Pakistan’s The Dawn newspaper. Police initially estimated that only 20 were killed but soon revised that number to 137, with 45 murdered in Colombo, 25 in Batticaloa, and 67 in Negombo. By nightfall the death toll exceeded 200 and two smaller attacks had taken place, including a suicide bomber who reportedly killed three police. Three major hotels were struck in Colombo, all of them in a line along a major road that links several important central districts of the city. These included the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury.
Sri Lankan Police Chief Pujuth Jayasundara had reportedly warned in April about a threat of attacks targeting churches and the Indian High Commission office, near the hotels that were targeted. In his security notice he had pointed to a local Islamic group. But it isn’t entirely clear if the police chief was convinced there was a threat, as security did not appear to be increased before Easter, the most high-profile holiday to follow.
After the attack in New Zealand, there has been heightened awareness of the threat of attacks on religious institutions and people at prayer. The outpouring of support in the wake of the Christchurch massacre is a lesson for Sri Lanka about the kind of support it will now need. If the death toll is as high as initial reports indicate, this attack will be one of the worst of its kind in recent memory. But these kinds of attacks have become more normal in recent years. Governments have not found a way to prevent them, even with the latest technology and intelligence sharing.
Six members of the NTJ were reportedly arrested when police homed in on one of their hideouts in the city.
A view of St. Sebastian’s Church damaged in blast in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sunday. (Photo: AFP)
Bengaluru: Hours after the first six bombs tore through some of the Sri Lankan capital’s most revered Christian shrines, followed by two more, shattering a decade-long hiatus from a 30-year-long bloody campaign by the separatist Tamil Tigers, the island nation may be facing a fresh and far more virulent threat posed by a radical Muslim group in the form of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ).
Six members of the NTJ were reportedly arrested when police homed in on one of their hideouts in the city.
A warning by Indian intelligence that the NTJ, a virulently anti-Buddhist group that was linked to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues would target churches in Colombo as well as the Indian High Commission and possibly, an Indian owned hotel, the Taj Samudra, only minutes away from the Cinnamon Grand and the Shangri-La hotels — both of which were attacked — had been sent to the Sri Lankan authorities on April 7.
A letter, seen by Deccan Chronicle, from the Sri Lankan police chief, Pujuth Jayasundara, dated April 11, to his police officers, in which he sends out a nation-wide alert and clearly states that suicide bombers planned to blow up ‘prominent churches’ and the Indian High commission, remained unheeded. One of the two suicide missions targeted the Cinnamon Grand on Sunday.
The letter sent on April 11 warning of a terror attack.
The government of President Maithripala Sirisena which is run by his arch-rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe admitted that they had been informed of the alert, but only after the Sri Lankan capital faced an attack that is now being compared in scale, to 9/11. Mr Wickremesinghe said he did not know why he wasn’t informed of the threat. High level diplomats in Sri Lankan missions told DC they had no knowledge of the alert.
In January, Sri Lankan police seized a haul of explosives and detonators stashed near a wildlife sanctuary following the arrest of four men from NTJ, the newly-formed radical Muslim group.
The Muslim community in Sri Lanka has been largely peaceful, distancing itself from the Tamil separatists, among whom were a number of Christians.
Tensions between the Buddhist and Muslim community boiled over in 2014, when riots broke in Kalutara, after the Bodhu Bala Sena, a Buddhist group incited a rampage against Muslims, and a blanket ban was imposed on reporting the incidents.
Intelligence sources however said Sunday’s Easter Day bombings may have been the NTJ’s payback for the Christchurch massacre. Some reports suggest that IS, which has no presence in Sri Lanka but does operate in the Maldives, saw the Easter Sunday congregations as the perfect target to level scores.
