Suicide bombers visited Kashmir, Kerala for training: Sri Lanka Army chief

Sri Lanka Army's chief has said that some of the suicide bombers who carried out the country's worst terror attack on Easter Sunday visited Kashmir and Kerala for "some sorts of training" or to "make some more links" with other foreign outfits.
It is the first time that a top Sri Lankan security official has confirmed the militants' visit to India which had shared intelligence inputs with Colombo ahead of the attack.

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Nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, killing 253 people and injuring over 500 others.
In an interview to BBC, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake, Commander of the Army, divulged some details on the movements of the suspects in the region and also international links.
"They (the suspects) have gone to India, they've gone to Kashmir, Bangalore, they've travelled to Kerala state. Those are the information available with us," he said.
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Asked what activities they were doing in Kashmir and Kerala, the Army chief said: "Not exactly, but definitely in some sorts of training or to make some more links towards the other organisations outside the country".
The Islamic State terror group claimed the attacks, but the government blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ).
Sri Lanka banned the NTJ and arrested over 100 people in connection with the blasts.
About the possibility of an involvement of a foreign group, the Commander said that by looking at the pattern of operation and the places that the suspects travelled, there has to be some outside involvement of some leadership or instructions.
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Asked why the threats were not taken more seriously after receiving information from India, Senanayake said: "We had some information and intelligence-sharing, situations and military intelligence on a different direction and the others were different and there was a gap that everybody could see today".
He said that as the Chief of the Army, he believes that everybody who is responsible for intelligence-gathering and the national security is to be blamed, including the political hierarchies.
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Asked why Sri Lanka was targeted, the Commander said: "Too much of freedom, too much of peace for the last 10 years. People forget what happened for 30 years. People are enjoying peace and they neglected security".
He was referring to the three-decade civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which ended in 2009 after claiming at least 100,000 lives.
"We are deployed on the ground to give confidence to the public and ensure there is no violence or escalation of communal riots in this country. Have trust on the armed forces and the Police of this country who will bring normalcy as soon as possible," the Army chief added.

Fifteen killed in Sri Lanka in shootout with suspected Islamist militants

The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people.
The shootout between troops and suspected Islamist militants erupted on Friday evening in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara, to the south of the town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts at three churches and four luxury hotels.

A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead after the shoot out.
Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said in a statement that as troops headed towards the safe house three explosions were triggered and gunfire began.
"Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored," he said in a statement.
He said the militants were suspected members of the National Towheed Jama'at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday's attacks.
The government has said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman.
Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings.
Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far.
Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.
The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Sri Lanka blames local jihadist group for blasts, admits ignored warnings

Sri Lanka has blamed local jihadist group National Thowheed Jamath for one of Asia’s deadliest terrorist attacks in years, admitting there had been several warnings from foreign intelligence agencies about the impending violence.
The death toll rose to 290 in the coordinated blasts on Easter Sunday at churches and luxury hotels, which the government said were carried out by seven suicide bombers. The Easter Sunday attacks targeted foreign tourists and Christians: marking a shift from the violence that fueled a three-decade civil war on the Indian Ocean island.
"There had been several warnings from foreign intelligence agencies about the impending attacks," Sri Lanka’s Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said at press conference in Colombo. "Persons named in intelligence reports are among those arrested. Some named in the reports had died during attacks."
"We don’t see how a small organization can do all of this," he added. "We are now investigating international support for the group and their other links."
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Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an address to the nation late Sunday authorities had received warnings but “not enough attention had been paid.” One of his cabinet ministers, Harin Fernando, tweeted an internal police memo dated April 11 warning a group called National Thowheed Jamath planned to bomb Catholic churches and the Indian High Commission.
A sense of unease pervaded the nation on Monday following a period of relative calm in the decade since the end of a brutal conflict between the predominately Buddhist Sinhalese majority and mostly Hindu Tamil minority. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which also injured at least 450 people.
U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders condemned the attack and offered support. Sri Lanka confirmed that 11 foreigners who died in the attacks had been identified—including citizens of India, Portugal, Turkey, Australia, the U.K. and U.S.—and said 25 unidentified bodies believed to be foreigners were in a Colombo morgue. Most were targeted at the Shangri-La, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand hotels in the capital.
Several blasts occurred hours after the first explosions on Sunday, and experts detonated a pipe bomb found on a road near Colombo’s airport. Authorities imposed a nationwide curfew and blocked platforms like Facebook and Whatsapp.
The Colombo Stock Exchange put its Monday opening on hold and schools will remain closed until Wednesday. Sri Lankan Airlines Ltd. advised travelers to arrive four hours before their flights to undergo additional security checks.
Test for government
The attacks will test a government that’s reeling from a political crisis last year that has weighed on the economy and led to downgrades in Sri Lanka’s credit rating.
“What these bombings potentially do is take it from inertia and political infighting and rudderlessness to a real fear of instability and a sense of a return to the bad old days,” said Alan Keenan, a senior Sri Lanka analyst with the International Crisis Group based in London. “It’s striking that in almost three decades of war between the Tamils and government forces, foreign tourists were never targeted.”

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Catholics, split between the Sinhalese and Tamils, make up 6.5 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, according to the nation’s 2012 census. Buddhists account for 70 percent of the total, while Hindus and Muslims make up the rest.
In the early 1980s, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam -- known as the Tamil Tigers -- began fighting for an independent homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka. The conflict, marked by the use of child soldiers and human-rights violations on both sides, killed more than 100,000 people before former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government won a decisive victory in 2009.
Political tensions
Rajapaksa has been a key player in Sri Lanka’s political fighting over the past six months. Last October, he was suddenly appointed prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena, leading to a constitutional crisis. Wickremesinghe, the deposed prime minister, was reinstated in December after a Supreme Court decision.
"It is absolutely barbaric to see such violent attacks on such a holy day. Whoever is behind these attacks must be dealt with immediately," Rajapaksa tweeted. "We will not tolerate such violence, such acts of terrorism, of cowardice within our borders once again."
It remains to be seen whether Sri Lanka’s politicians will unite in the face of the attacks, which threaten to further hurt economic growth. Wickremesinghe warned that tourism would suffer and investors may pull money from the country.
‘Bad News’
Sri Lanka’s economy has struggled in recent years, forcing the government to take out a $1.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Economic growth in the quarter to December was the slowest in 19 quarters. The rupee dropped to consecutive record lows last year amid the political crisis, before recovering this year.
“That is bad news for the country where the memories of the civil war are still very much alive,” said Raffaele Bertoni, head of debt-capital markets at Gulf Investment Corp. in Kuwait City. “Tourism is a very important sector for the economy and one of the major source of external reserves.”
Sri Lankan Army soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony's Shrine after a blast in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, April 21, 2019. A Sri Lanka hospital spokesman says several blasts on Easter Sunday have killed dozens of people | Photo: AP/PTI Sri Lankan Army soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony's Shrine after a blast in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, April 21, 2019. A Sri Lanka hospital spokesman says several blasts on Easter Sunday have killed dozens of people | Photo: AP/PTI
Sri Lanka has a history of communal violence between virtually all groups, according to Keenan from Crisis Group.
“What’s surprising about this is the particularly brutal and coordinated nature of the attacks and targets, this combination of what appear to be Tamil Catholic churches and high-end hotels,” he said. “These are the first classically terrorist attacks since the end of the war.”

Sri Lanka's police chief had warned of suicide attack 10 days before blasts

Sri Lanka's police chief made a nationwide alert 10 days before Sunday's bomb attacks in the country that suicide bombers planned to hit "prominent churches", according to the warning seen by AFP.
Police chief Pujuth Jayasundara sent an intelligence warning to top officers on April 11 setting out the threat.

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"A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama'ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo," said the alert.
The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that came to notice last year when it was linked to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.
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At least 129 people were killed in six bomb attacks Sunday that included three churches.

280 injured as explosions rock churches, hotels in Sri Lanka

At least 280 people were injured when multiple explosions hit three churches in Sri Lanka on Sunday as worshippers attended Easter services, officials and police said.
The blasts occurred at around 8.45 a.m. (local time) as the Easter Sunday masses were in progress, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.
Police and emergency vehicles blocked the entrance to the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo, where there’s visible damage, including shattered windows, above the main entrance where a cafe was located.
One of the blasts hit St Anthony's Church in Kochchikade of the capital, Colombo.
Breaking News : Explosions were reported at St. Anthony's Church in Kochchikade, Kotahena and St.Sebastian's Church in Katuwapitiya,in Katana a short while ago, police said. #SriLanka pic.twitter.com/dILNNhaMGf
— DailyMirror (@Dailymirror_SL) April 21, 2019
The Colombo National Hospital said at least 80 people have been admitted with injuries.
It was not immediately clear if the blasts had caused casualties.
"A bomb attack to our church, please come and help," read a facebook post from St Sebasitian's Church at Katuwapitiutya, in the Western coastal town of Negombo.
St. Sebastian’s church at Katuwapitiya in Negombo posted pictures of destruction inside the church on its Facebook page, showing blood on pews and the floor, and requested help from the public.