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Radical Muslim Group Suspected in Easter Sunday Bombings in Sri Lanka

Posted on | April 21, 2019 | Comments Off on Radical Muslim Group Suspected in Easter Sunday Bombings in Sri Lanka

 

Earlier this month, intelligence agencies reported a radical Islamic group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath was planning attacks in Sri Lanka, and apparently they decided to strike on Easter morning:

At least 156 people are dead in an Easter Sunday terrorist attack targeting Christians in Sri Lanka after eight explosions ripped through high-end hotels and churches as suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up.
The initial six explosions injured as many as 500 people, including Japanese and British citizens, and 35 foreigners — from the UK, US, Netherlands and Portugal — are among the dead, sources say.
Reports now indicate a seventh explosion in the southern Colombo suburb of Dehiwala — which killed two people — and an eighth in the northern suburb of Orugodawatta, which killed three police officers during a house search.
Sri Lanka’s police chief had made a nationwide alert 10 days before today’s bombings, warning that Islamic extremists planned suicide bombings at ‘prominent churches’, sources say, but it is not yet clear who is responsible for the attacks — and no one has claimed responsibility.
Britain’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka James Dauris said: ‘We understand that some British citizens were caught in the blasts but we are unable to say how many people are, or might have been, affected.’ . . .
State minister of defence Ruwan Wijewardene said investigators have identified the culprits behind the ‘terrorist’ attacks, and those responsible were religious extremists who would be taken into custody ‘as soon as possible’.

The choice of “high-end” hotels as targets was aimed at Sri Lanka’s flourishing international tourism industry. The former British colony of Ceylon is an island off the south coast of India. The beaches of Sri Lanka now have many resort hotels catering to sun-seeking travelers.

UPDATE: The death toll is now 207, and “expected to rise.”



 

Category: Islam, Sri Lanka, Terrorism

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