Explosions at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka killed over 300 people and injured more than 500 on Easter Sunday. These are the latest developments:
● State minister for defense said investigations show attack carried out in retaliation for Christchurch mosque shootings.
● The death toll was revised to 321 on Tuesday morning, up from 290 according state minister for defense.
● The government says the attack was carried out by National Thowheed Jamaath, a local Islamist militant group, with suspected international assistance.
● Anger is brewing among residents as authorities appeared to have prior knowledge.
By
Joanna Slater , Amantha Perera and Shibani Mahtani
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A man holds a cross
during a mass burial of victims, two days after a string of suicide
bomb attacks on churches
and luxury hotels across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday,
at a cemetery near St.
Sebastian Church in Negombo on Tuesday.
(Athit
Perawongmetha/Reuters)
|
COLOMBO,
Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka on Tuesday described the
devastating string of bombings on Easter that killed 321 people as a response
to the attack on two mosques in New Zealand last month.
Three hotels and three churches were attacked
by suicide bombers on Sunday belonging to the radical Islamist group National
Thowheed Jamaath in an operation that authorities appear to have had advance
warning about.
“Investigations have revealed that the
attacks were carried out by Islamic extremists in retaliation to the mosque
attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand,” State Minister of Defense Ruwan
Wijewardene told parliament. On March 15, a white supremacist killed 50 Muslims
in two mosques.
He did not offer any evidence for the
connection and also acknowledged there were security lapses that allowed the
attacks to occur, which he ascribed to rivalries between the president and the
prime minister.
“Don’t take this as a joke, as long as the
division between the president and the prime minister exists, you can’t solve
this problem — my security division knew about the advance notice [of the
attack], I did not.”
Leaked copies of a report by intelligence
officials earlier this month warned of plans by the National Thowheed Jamaath
group to attack churches. Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne has called for the
resignation of the top police official for not taking any action.
By Tuesday morning, 40 people had been
arrested, including three being held by the Terrorism Investigation Deparment,
said police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara.
Police have been given emergency powers to
detain and question suspects without a court order. Such powers were used
extensively during Sri Lanka’s civil war but have not been implemented since
2011.
It was also announced that schools and
universities would be closed, at least until Monday and masses at churches
canceled until further notice. The whole country has been on edge with three
bomb scares, including one at the U.S. Embassy, taking place in the last 24
hours.
Police have been instructed to look out for
five bikes, a cab and a van suspected of carrying more explosives.
Funerals, meanwhile, were being held for the
victims.
“Endless crying,” is how Malini Vijaysingha,
60, described the hours since the attack as she paid her respects outside one
of the bombed churches. She blamed the bombings on the Islamic State. “The
whole world should destroy IS,” she said. The links between the perpetrators
and the Islamic State remain unclear.
The United States pledged support for the
investigation, dispatching FBI agents to help, including by offering laboratory
experience to test bomb evidence. At least four U.S. citizens are among the
dead, and “several” Americans were seriously injured, the State Department said
Monday. Sri Lankan Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said 38 foreigners were
killed and 28 wounded.
Investigators will be looking into how the
local Islamist group, whose name roughly translates to National Monotheism
Organization, was able to carry out such a planned, coordinated and deadly
attack, and whether they had overseas help, as officials suggested Monday.
President Maithripala Sirisena asked for international assistance in
determining any foreign links.
As news of the supposed advance notice about
the attacks spread, mourners responded with rising anger mixed with grief at
funerals and other gatherings in Christian communities.
“This is the government’s fault. They are
incompetent. They knew and they did nothing,” said one man who was weeping
Monday outside a funeral in Negombo. He did not give his name, but turned away
and joined others entering a house where the coffin of a woman lay on a
cloth-covered table, surrounded by silent mourners.
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 authenticity of those documents were
verified by Sri Lanka’s state minister for defense, Ruwan Wijewardene. The
report also identified several members by name, including the group’s alleged
leader.
Mujibur Rahman, a member of Sri Lanka’s
Parliament who was briefed on the report, said it was based on information from
Indian intelligence agencies.
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 believed to be based
there, the official said.
The official said there could be additional
explosives or potential suicide bombers.
“Right now, they are searching everywhere for
possible bombs and people involved,” the official said, speaking on the
condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed
“Islamic radical terror” for the attacks. He also spoke Monday morning with
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 National Counterterrorism
Center in the George W. 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 traveled to Syria,” Leiter said. “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.”
But the absence of any clear claim of
responsibility from an established international terrorist organization
suggests it might 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
bombmaking and organization, which are “characteristic of an established
group.”
The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks
extremist activity online, said 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 coordinated attacks left the island
nation reeling, a crushing blow after almost a decade of peace since the end of
its civil war.
In that time, tourism in Sri Lanka had been
steadily growing, the country transformed by the apparent end of instability,
bloodshed and frequent suicide bombings over the 26-year war.
A three-minute silence was observed
countrywide at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Tensions remain high across the island
nation. The U.S. Embassy in Colombo said in a tweet that a bomb disposal unit
had verified a suspicious package near the embassy building was not an
explosive device.
The incident was the third such bomb scare
over the past 24 hours.
Mahtani reported from Hong Kong. Rukshana
Rizwie, Harshana Thushara Silva and Devana Senanayake in Colombo, Niha Masih in
New Delhi, Shane Harris, Souad Mekhennet, Devlin Barrett and Julie Tate in
Washington contributed to this report.
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