{"id":87414,"date":"2019-04-22T23:11:07","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T05:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87414"},"modified":"2019-04-22T15:35:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T22:35:43","slug":"former-cia-station-chief-on-sri-lanka-deadly-attacks-this-is-by-all-accounts-an-intelligence-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/22\/former-cia-station-chief-on-sri-lanka-deadly-attacks-this-is-by-all-accounts-an-intelligence-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CIA station chief on Sri Lanka deadly attacks: \u2018This is by all accounts an intelligence failure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Talia Kaplan<\/a>\u00a0| Fox News<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Former CIA station chief Daniel Hoffman<\/a> called the deadly Easter Sunday explosions at multiple churches and hotels in Sri Lanka<\/a> an intelligence failure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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,\u201d said Hoffman, a Fox News contributor, on America\u2019s Newsroom<\/a>\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s capital Easter Sunday, leaving at least 290 people dead and more than 500 others injured, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EASTER SUNDAY EXPLOSIONS AT MULTIPLE CHURCHES AND HOTELS ROCK SRI LANKA, DEATH TOLL RISES PAST 200<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. State Department confirmed in a statement that several U.S. citizens were among those killed\u201d in the explosions, although no more information was immediately available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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,\u201d said Hoffman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added, I just don’t believe this was a locally-conducted attack. There\u2019s too many people. Already 24 arrested. It\u2019s a massive undertaking with a support network I think that would demand international collaboration but we don’t have a lot of facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The six nearly simultaneous blasts\u2014followed hours later by two more explosions\u2014marked the bloodshed as among the worst since the South Asian country\u2019s 26-year civil war ended a decade ago, a spokesperson for the Sri Lanka police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

POPE CELEBRATES EASTER SUNDAY AMID BLOODSHED IN SRI LANKA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police said more than a dozen suspects have been arrested, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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,\u201d said Hoffman. What\u2019s surprising about this attack is that no one thus far has claimed responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Talia Kaplan\u00a0| Fox News Former CIA station chief Daniel Hoffman called the deadly Easter Sunday explosions at multiple churches and hotels in Sri Lanka an intelligence failure.\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}