{"id":88292,"date":"2019-05-06T23:45:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T05:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=88292"},"modified":"2019-05-15T16:16:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T23:16:04","slug":"easter-sunday-bomb-blast-in-sri-lanka-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/06\/easter-sunday-bomb-blast-in-sri-lanka-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"EASTER SUNDAY BOMB BLAST IN SRI LANKA Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Revised 15.5.19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brilliant execution of the Easter Sunday bomb blasts clearly\nindicated a foreign hand said experts. \nThere is an international force behind this, said Cardinal Malcolm\nRanjith. A\nforeign entity, most likely a foreign state or state intelligence agency was\nbehind the attacks. The locals are merely pawns, said analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The target selection and attack\ntype indicated that this could not have been carried out by a local group\nwithout outside involvement,\u201d said Amarnath Amarasingam, a specialist at the Institute\nfor Strategic Dialogue, a counterterrorism research group based in London. Given the\nlevel of sophistication, this was probably the work of al-Qaeda or Islamic\nState, announced analysts.  <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore let\nus look at al-Qaeda\u201d and Islamic State\u201d. From 2007 the United States, with\nthe help of the CIA, has been arming, funding, and supporting various Muslim\nterrorist organizations. <\/em>Al-Qaeda, under Osama Bin Laden, was developed by the USA in 2003 as a\ncounter to <\/em>Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. USA\u2019s role in creating\nal-Qaeda is well known. It is not a secret. It is now a part of mainstream\nAmerican history. CIA\u2019s\nrole in this is recorded in <\/em>first person accounts of USA foreign\npolicy. These are readily available on the Internet. \n<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Qaeda\u201d became Islamic Emirate of Iraq\u201d\nwhich thereafter became today\u2019s Islamic State of Iraq and Syria\u201d (ISIS). ISIS\nis nothing more than a name change for al-Qaeda\u201d said analysts. <\/em>The\nmovement became ISIS in 2013 under the leadership of Abu Bakr\nal-Baghdad<\/a>. The movement was supported and developed in\nTurkey, a NATO country, with arms and funds from CIA, routed through Saudi Arabia\nand Qatar.  It was officially known as\nIslamic State (IS) or <\/em>by its Arabic<\/a>\nlanguage acronym, Daesh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Qaeda and\nISIS follow the Wahabi<\/em> or Salafi ideology of Islam. Wahabism is the official religion of\nSaudi Arabia. Wahabi<\/a>sm is\ndisliked by other Muslims.  Wahabi<\/a> is an\nextreme sect which supports war against anyone and everyone who is outside\ntheir brand of Islam.  Wahabism was\ndeveloped in Saudi Arabia and exported to other countries from there. Saudi\nArabia has spent billions of dollars over several decades propagating the\nWahabi version of militant Islam, said experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia started  this, because   USA asked\nSaudi Arabia to help counter  Soviet\nUnion influence during the Cold War, said \nCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a confidential interview with\nWashington Post in 2018 .  Saudi Arabia’s\nWestern allies had urged the country to invest in mosques and madrasas\noverseas, to prevent Russia getting into Muslim countries. However, Today, Saudi\nfunding is    done mostly by Saudi “foundations,”<\/em> rather than Saudi\ngovernment, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Wahabi movement in Sri Lanka is also\nsupported by Saudi Arabia.  <\/strong>Wahhabis in Sri Lanka work through\nThawheed organizations and their madrasas. There are around 600 foreigners\nteaching at these madrasas today. The first Thawheed organization, Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamat (SLTJ)\nwas founded in 1947 by Hameed Al Makry in Paragahadeniya, (Faslan and\nVanniasinkam Fracturing community<\/em>. ICES\n2015 p 15).   Thowheed Jamath has prayer centers. They are\nnot Jummah mosques but they are numerous and are established in ordinary\nbuildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  After the Easter bombings, SLTJ strenuously denied that they had anything to\ndo with the Easter Sunday bombings. .”Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamat would like\nto point out that Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamat has no connection whatsoever with\nthe bombings and has no connection with the organization suspected to have\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[been]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

involved in the incident,” \nit said in a statement.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nSri Lanka Thawheed Jamat spawned several breakaway groups. These had their\nbases in Kattankudy, Batticaloa, Dehiwela, Dematagoda and elsewhere.  There are six Thawheed groups in\nSri Lanka at the moment, said Rohan Guneratne in April 2019. These are \u2018cult\ngroups\u2019. The most important of these is\nthe National Thawheed Jamaat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

National\nThawheed Jamaat (NJT) which carried out the Easter Sunday bombing is a   Wahabi   \norganization, set up in 2011.\nIt is a splinter group of the Sri Lanka Thawheed\nJamaat. The most active branch is the\nNational Thawheed Jamaat in Kattankudy. NJT has been\ndescribed as a right-wing\nIslamic extremist outfit with a presence mainly in the eastern province of Sri\nLanka. It preaches   \u2018Wahabi\u2019 Islamic\nteachings to its followers. It aggressively promotes Sharia law, building of\nmosques, and makes its women wear the burqa which hides the whole face except\nthe eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The person in charge of spreading\nextremist Islamic ideology in Sri Lanka was Mohammad Zaharan Hashim. Zaharan used\nsocial media to publicly call for the death of non-Muslims. He has been lecturing everywhere. Zaharan\nand his brother had conducted lectures for youths in mosque set up in the house\nof Kuliyapitiya coordinator of the NTJ.  A\nmoulavi, who was a lecturer at the Islamic Religious Centre in Hettipola said\nZaharan had lectured there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaharan  had foreign contacts.\u201dAll his videos have been\nuploaded from India. He used boats of smugglers to travel back and forth from\nsouthern India, said an informant. Hashim was considered a menace by the local\nMuslim community. He had caused trouble at Kattankudy\u2019s Thawheed mosque. Zahran\nwent underground in 2017 March after a clash in Kattankudy town. For years, Sri Lanka\u2019s Muslim community had\nwarned authorities about Zahran Hashim, said analysts in 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rajapaksa regime, unlike\nYahapalana took note of extremist Muslim activity.  In 2011 Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, then Secretary of\nDefence had set up a military intelligence cell of 5,000 people, some of them\nwith Arabic language skills, to track the extremist Muslims in the Eastern\nprovince.  This was closed down by Yahapalana.\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In 2012, 161 foreign\nIslamic missionaries who were in Sri Lanka to preach Islam were ordered to\nleave the country. Most left, as the matter was handled very firmly by the\nauthorities. Majority of them were Pakistani, Indian and from the Gulf. They\nhad not followed proper visa procedures and had not told the government what\ntheir real purpose was. There had been widespread allegations from sections of\nthe Muslims that these foreign preachers were mainly preaching a radical Islam\nthat was hostile even to Muslims following a more moderate form of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013 Gotabhaya Rajapaksa stated that\nseveral Muslim extremists (fundamentalist) groups were active in the east.  These fundamentalist groups are operating\nunder the guise of Islamic sects and are conducting religious discourses, he\nsaid. Terror groups such as \u2018Osama\u2019 \u2018Knox\u2019 and ‘Jetty ‘which operated in pre\n2010 period seem to have become active again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014 a group called the “Peace Loving\nModerate Muslims in Sri Lanka” published a statement in Daily  Mirror<\/em> denouncing NTJ and warning that it\nwas “fast becoming a cancer” within Sri Lanka’s Muslim community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statement warned that members of the group\nwere making mosque attendance compulsory, forcing a strict implementation of\nIslamic law above Sri Lankan law and forcing women to cover their faces and\nwear long robes in place of traditional saris.”We fear that these\nactivities. If left unchecked by the authorities would create a situation in\nwhich the majority of Muslims in Sri Lanka may have to face the wrath of other\nreligions,” the statement said prophetically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, Champika Ranawake said that radical\nelements of Muslims are now entering Sri Lanka from Malaysia, Pakistan, India,\nespecially Tamilnadu. Thawheed Jamat movement is here and our local extremists\nMuslims have participated in conventions held in Tamilnadu. They are trying to\ndestabilize the country and turn it into another Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISIS\nhad a brief period of glory in the Middle East starting from 2014. It gained\nglobal prominence in 2014 by its capture of Mosul<\/a>\nin Iraq. In 2016 it held a large area extending from western Iraq to eastern\nSyria, containing an estimated 8 to 12 million people, where it enforced Sharia law<\/a>.  It looked very strong and promising.  Sri Lanka Muslims were impressed. They were\nencouraged to go and join.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s Directorate of Military\nIntelligence (DMI) first learned that there were locals fighting with the\nIslamic State (ISIS) in Syria from Israeli intelligence in 2013. 37-year-old school principal from Galewela\ncalled Mohamed Muhsin Sharhaz Nilam had left for Mecca in mid-2013. Nilam  who was given \nthe name Abu Shurayh As-Silani  in\nSyria died in an air raid in 2015. His elder brother went to Syria first. Nilam\nfollowed with his wife, six children, wife\u2019s parents and two of his wife\u2019s\nbrothers.Initially, there were 36 Sri Lankans from three families in Syria.\nThis later went above 40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n2016, Wijedasa Rajapaksha, Minister for Justice said in Parliament that 32 Sri Lankan\nMuslims from \u2018well-educated and elite\u2019 families had joined ISIS in Syria. They\nhave been influenced by foreign extremist teachers at Muslim international\nschools in Beruwela, Kalmunai, Kala Eliya and Kurunegala. He also said that\nsome Jihad groups functioning in Sri Lanka have connections with ISIS.  All this was strongly objected to by Muslim\nMPs. AHM Azwer denied this and asked for the names of the four wealthy\nfamilies. Rauff Hakeem   said that there\nwere no such teachers in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\nJuly 2017, ISIS started losing the territory it was ruling over in the Middle\nEast. In March 2019, ISIS lost its last sliver of territory, which was in\nSyria. Experts then\nwarned that the defeat of ISIS in the Middle East did not mean that ISIS was\ndead or defeated.  ISIS was operational\nin 18 countries<\/a> across the world, including Afghanistan and\nPakistan, with “aspiring branches” in Mali, Egypt, Somalia,\nBangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISIS is now moving to Africa and Asia,\nanalysts said. There will now be a\n\u2018pop-up\u2019 ISIS emerging   there, experts\nwarned, often in states where they can exploit a vacuum. Analysts specifically warned of   attacks in South-east Asia. Foreign\nfighters from countries such as Sri Lanka will now be returning home, they\nsaid. Military Intelligence Director, Brigadier\nChula Kodituwakku said that Sri Lanka is  \nincluded in the ISIS map as part of its territory.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, months before the blast,\na delegation from the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulema, the main organization of\nMuslim clerics, met President Sirisena to warn him and the government of the\nimpending danger from terrorist groups backing the ISIS. They named Mohamed\nCassim Mohamed Zahran, as the leader of the local group and gave a detailed\nmemorandum listing their activities. \nPresident Sirisena handed over the information to Secretary of Defence,\nFernando, who it appears, did nothing about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Easter Sunday bomb blasts were definitely\nthe work of ISIS said    Rohan Guneratne,\na specialist in terrorism studies. There is a heavy ISIS buildup in Sri Lanka\nnow, he said.  There\u2019s no reason for\nlocal extremist groups to attack churches, and tourists, said Amarnath\nAmarasingam. But ISIS has a history of staging attacks against Christians on\nholy days, notably Christmas and Easter. They see this as a historical struggle\nbetween Christianity<\/a> and Islam<\/a>, dating back to the Crusades<\/a>, The question of why hotels were included has\nnot been satisfactorily answered by the analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 It is now\naccepted that the Easter Sunday bomb blasts was done by ISIS using local cadres.\nThe local Muslims who carried out the attack on behalf of ISIS were from\nNational Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) and the Jamiyathul Millana Ibrahim Fi Sellani\n(JMI). Zahran Cassim head of NTJ has\nbeen the mastermind of all the attacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamiyathul Millana Ibrahim Fi Sellani (JMI)\nhas started in 2015.  In 2015 Sri Lankan\nintelligence found an outpouring of support for ISIS among some Sri Lankan\nsocial media users. Soft copies of ISIS propaganda was shared mainly on\nchatting platforms, particularly Telegram. The users also created their own\napplications with secret enclosures within that space  this was how the grooming predominantly took\nplace, intelligence sources said. This\ngroup became Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI), led by a man named Umair from\nColombo 10. Some JMI members  had wanted to migrate with their families to\nSyria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key player in JMI  was a man in Aluthgama named Adhil who was a\ncomputer wizard.  Adhil, like others in\nthis movement, was young and well-educated. He adopted different personas on\nthe internet. it later transpired that this Adhil Ameez  was known to Indian intelligence The Indian\ninvestigators had been monitoring Aadhil since 2016 and named him in two charge\nsheets filed in Indian courts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamiyathul Millana Ibrahim Fi Sellani (JMI)\nis  an \norganization known only to the Defence sector. It had  has started in 2015.  In 2015 Sri Lankan intelligence found an\noutpouring of support for ISIS among some Sri Lankan social media users. Soft\ncopies of ISIS propaganda was shared mainly on chatting platforms, particularly\nTelegram. The users also created their own applications with secret enclosures\nwithin that space this was how the grooming predominantly took place,\nintelligence sources said. A key player was a man in Aluthgama named Adhil who\nwas a computer wizard.  Adhil, like\nothers in this movement, was young and well-educated. He adopted different\npersonas on the internet.  This group\nbecame Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI), led by a man named Umair from Colombo\n10. Some JMI members had wanted to\nmigrate with their families to Syria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zahran Cassim head of NTJ has been the\nmastermind of all the attacks. Experts said that  for such simultaneous bomb attacks in\ndifferent locations, a large team was required. Even a single successful\nsuicide bombing requires a logistical tail\u201d involving many people, such as\nrecruiters, who need to radicalize and maintain the resolve of the bombers,\nskilled bomb makers, and operatives to survey targets. This is a\nformidable undertaking only accomplished by people with considerable expertise\nand a good organizational network, they said. The event would have been planned\nmonths ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 There\nare about 140 individuals linked to ISIS in Sri Lanka, said the Directorate of\nMilitary Intelligence. National Thawheed Jamath is the local branch of the\nISIS. Evidence of payments from ISIS has emerged. ISIS has cells in places such as Kalmunai, Mawanella,\nAnuradhapura, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa and Puttalam. ISIS CDs, ISIS literature,\nISIS uniforms and ISIS posters were found in many places during army investigations.\nThere was an ISIS center in a housing scheme at Kotahena. CDs which contained\nlectures and ideologies of ISIS terrorists were found there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bombings were done by a band\nof nine, well-educated suicide bombers, including a woman, from well-to-do\nfamilies.  Zaharan Hashim, it is said, had worked for\nmonths in private chat rooms to persuade them six easter<\/del>Easter<\/ins>\nSunday bombers to sacrifice themselves. At least five foreign trained cadres\nhave been assigned to each suicide cadre. They included an electronics expert,\na chemical expert and a bomb maker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intelligence estimates place the\nsuicide cadre team strength at around 170. Some had been trained in Syria.\nTraining the others in Sri Lanka had taken months and was done in complete\nsecrecy. They have trained in four houses at Sainthamaru, Addalachchenai, Samanthurai\nand Nintavur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike in the JVP and the LTTE,\nwhole families were involved in ISIS related activities. Fathers, sons,\nbrothers, wives, sisters were all in it together. The families were not\npoor  either. Two of the suicide bombers\nwere the sons of spice trader Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim, \u2018one of Sri Lanka\u2019s\nrichest men\u2019. His two sons, Imsath (33) and Ilham (31) were the two suicide bombers\nof Shangri-La and Cinnamon Grand hotels. Mohammad\nYusuf Ibrahim\u2019s estate in Vanathavillu was the main centre for the bomb blast\nproject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the police went to Mohammad\nYusuf Ibrahim\u2019s home in Dematagoda, Ilham\u2019s wife Fathima   set off a bomb killing herself, her three\nchildren and three policemen. The house was probably an operational cell of the\nISIS. It was booby trapped with explosives. The police now suspect the\ninvolvement of other family members and are investigating the extended family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An interesting feature in these\nISIS bombings is that all those who took the initiative in the Easter Sunday\nprojects were made to die. Zaharan died at Shangri La, the two sons of spice\ntrader Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim also died in the hotel blasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some idea of the planning for\nthese bomb blasts is emerging. Investigators have found that the Easter\nSunday\u2019s massacres were linked to the three-day long incidents that occurred in\nMawanella area from December 23.  2018.\nBuddhist shrines and Buddha statues were damaged in four different places in\nMawanella \u2013 Randiwela Junction, Miriskudu Handiya, Hingula and Lindulawatte in\nthe Pahala Kadugannawa region. This was after Zahran had preached hate and\nexhorted those who attended Friday\u2019s Jumma prayers to attack Buddha statues in\ntemples and crosses in churches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villagers caught two attackers.\nSix more suspects were arrested. They were members of an extremist Islamic\ngroup and were being trained to carry out violent attacks against those of\nother faiths, reported the media. The Mawanella group had been led by two\nbrothers identified as Siddiq Abdulla and Shahid Abdul Haq.  They went missing. <\/em>Their father\nFazir Mohamed Ibrahim was arrested and released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The telephone numbers found in a\nmobile phone of a suspect in the Mawanella group led the investigators\nLacktowatta estate, to a 75-acre coconut plantation in Wanathavillu, Puttalam,\nowned by spice trader Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim. They found 150 kilogrammes of\nexplosives and 100 detonators. It is now believed that the Easter Sunday attackers\nwere trained on this coconut estate. The explosive\ndevices were prepared at Colossus Copper, a factory owned by Imsath and Ilham, the sons\nof  Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim. The\npolice also arrested four suspects.  Two\nof them had been in the team that defaced Buddha statues in Mawanella.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/strong>Following the seizure of the\nsupplies in Wanathavillu a fresh stockpile was put together in Sainthamaruthu,\nKalmunai, near Hashim\u2019s home-town, inside a jihadist hideout.  Following a tip-off that people linked to the\nattacks were in the town,  security forces tried to storm the\nhouse. A one-hour long gun battle ensued. Three men inside then set off\nexplosives that killed themselves, three women and   six children. Fifteen people including six\nchildren died in a battle between Sri Lankan security forces and suicide\nbombers who blew themselves up in their hideout in Sainthamaruthu, Kalmunai\nreported the media. (Continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Revised 15.5.19 The brilliant execution of the Easter Sunday bomb blasts clearly indicated a foreign hand said experts.  There is an international force behind this, said Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith. A foreign entity, most likely a foreign state or state intelligence agency was behind the attacks. The locals are merely pawns, said analysts. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88292","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=88292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}