SRI LANKA ARRESTS ULAMA OVER BOMBINGS
Sources claim Easter attack ringleader was radicalised at scholar’s religious school
THE authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings, throwing a spotlight on the rising influence of SalafiWahhabi Islam on the island’s Muslims.
Mohamed Aliyar, 60, is the founder of the Centre for Islamic Guidance, which boasts a mosque, a religious school and a library in Zahran’s hometown here, a Muslim-dominated city on Sri Lanka’s eastern shores.
“Information has been revealed that the suspect arrested had a close relationship with Zahran and had been operating financial transactions,” said a police statement on Friday.
The statement said Aliyar was “involved” with training in the southern town of Hambantota for the suicide bombers who attacked hotels and churches on Easter, killing more than 250 people.
The government says Zahran, a radical Tamil-speaking preacher, was a leader of the group.
Two Muslim community sources here said his hardline views were partly shaped by ultra-conservative Salafi-Wahhabi texts that he picked up at the Centre for Islamic Guidance’s library two to three years ago.
The sources are not affiliated with the centre.
“I used to always run into him at the centre, reading Saudi journals and literature,” said one of the sources.
During that time, Zahran started criticising the practice of asking God for help, for instance, arguing that such pleas were an affront to pure Islam.
“That kind of teaching was not in Sri Lanka in 2016, unless you read it in Salafi literature,” the source added.
Other than the fact that Zahran visited the centre, the sources here said they did not know of any personal ties between him and Aliyar.
Aliyar founded the centre in 1990, a year after he graduated from the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, in what one resident said marked a key moment in the spread of Salafi doctrine here.
The centre was partly funded by Saudi and Kuwaiti donors, according to a plaque outside.
Reuters spoke to three members of the centre’s board before Aliyar’s arrest.
They said Zahran was a troublemaker and that they had warned authorities about his extremist views.
The members said they thought Zahran frequented the library around a decade ago, but had no recollection of him visiting recently and denied that any of its books were to blame for his views.
Funding for the centre came from local donations, student fees, and private donors who were classmates of Aliyar’s in Riyadh, the centre’s sources said.
In Colombo , thousands of Catholics attended mass yesterday amid tight security.
Soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles guarded St Theresa’s church at Thimbirigasyaya residential quarter here, while members of the congregation were searched for explosives.
The sprawling church car park was empty as the authorities did not allow any vehicles into the compound.
The government has blamed local jihadists for the April 21 bombings, which targeted three churches and three luxury hotels.
Regular services were cancelled across all churches soon after the suicide attacks, but the archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith announced on Thursday that mass would be held at his diocese from yesterday.
He conducted private services in the past two weeks, which were broadcast live on television.
He also said a special mass for the victims of the April 21 attack at St Lucia’s Cathedral on Saturday. The congregation was made up of relatives of victims and survivors of the attacks.