Sri Lanka blames extremists for bombings
Security agencies received warnings before Easter attacks
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — Sri Lanka on Monday accused a local Islamist extremist group, the National Thowheed Jamaath, of being behind a string of Easter bombings at churches and hotels that killed at least 290 people, and the United States pledged support for the investigation, dispatching FBI agents to help.
Sri Lankan Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said a total of 39 foreigners were killed and 28 wounded.
Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said the group, whose name roughly translates to National Monotheism Organization, perpetrated the attacks using suicide bombers at three churches and three hotels. He added that a foreign network was probably involved.
“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.”
He called for the police inspector general, Pujith Jayasundara, to resign because security agencies had received a report warning of attacks by this group against churches and hotels weeks before.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said he would seek “international assistance” with the investigation of the serial blasts. Intelligence agencies have reported that “international organizations” were behind these “acts of local terrorists,” said a statement from his office. The statement also said the government would implement antiterrorism measures that give police additional powers, effective at midnight.
Attention is now focusing on why and how the government and security forces were unable to foil the co-ordinated bombings. Two officials provided the Washington Post with the three-page intelligence report that the health minister alluded to, in which a senior police official warned of potential suicide attacks by the same Islamist extremist group.
The report also identified several members by name, including the group’s alleged leader, Mohamed Zaharan.
Mujibur Rahman, a member of Sri Lanka’s Parliament who was briefed on the report, said it was based on input from Indian intelligence agencies.
Officials said 24 suspects have been taken into custody for questioning, news agencies reported.
Authorities said the main attacks on churches and hotels were carried out by seven suicide bombers.
A Sri Lankan security official characterized Thowheed Jamaath as a shell for the Islamic State and said it has been active in Kattankudy, an area in the eastern part of the country and home to one of its largest Muslim populations.
The group’s leadership is believe to be based there, the official said.
The official said there may be additional explosives or potential suicide bombers that authorities have not yet located.
“Right now, they are searching everywhere for possible bombs and people involved,” this official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed “Islamic radical terror” for the attacks. He spoke Monday morning with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and pledged “all possible assistance” to Sri Lanka.
“This is America’s fight, too,” Pompeo said at a news conference.
Although the Islamic State’s “caliphate” has been destroyed with the collapse of the group’s last strongholds in Syria, “radical Islamist terror remains a threat,” he said. “We have to remain active and vigilant, and it’s going to require attention.”
Thowheed Jamaath “wasn’t on anyone’s radar,” said Michael Leiter, who served as director of the Unites States’ National Counterterrorism Center in the Bush and Obama administrations.
He said the attack probably had an international nexus, given that not only Sri Lankans were targeted.
“It wouldn’t surprise me either if there were at least a couple of people who had travelled to Syria,” Leiter added.
“There was never a large Sri Lankan population there, but it only takes one or two to return and inspire a local group to align itself ideologically and tactically with a global violent jihadist organization.”
On the other hand, the absence of any clear claim of responsibility from an established international terrorist organization suggests that it may be too soon to say whether the Sri Lankan bombers had outside assistance, said Nicholas Rasmussen, a former senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council who also ran the National Counterterrorism Center in the Obama and Trump administrations.
“But it wouldn’t take much — a connection between Sri Lankan foreign fighters in Syria with like-minded people back home — in order to create such a connection,” Rasmussen said.
He added that the high death toll and simultaneous attacks suggested a degree of sophistication in bomb-making and organization, which are “characteristic of an established group.”
The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist activity online, said on its website Monday that an unidentified Islamic State supporter distributed photos of three alleged “commandos” involved in the Sri Lanka attacks. The photos were posted in pro-Islamic State chat rooms, and the men, pictured holding weapons in front of Islamic State banners, were described as “among the commando brothers in Sri Lanka,” SITE said.
The group reported Sunday that Islamic State supporters were portraying the attacks as revenge for strikes on mosques and Muslims.
The highly co-ordinated attacks left the island nation reeling, a crushing blow after almost a decade of peace since the end of its civil war.