Attacks in Sri Lanka. Government recognizes security “flaw”

Sri Lanka recognized this Wednesday April 24 a “failure” in terms of state security, unable to prevent the jihadist attacks on Easter Sunday which killed around 360 people, despite prior information from the intelligence community .

The management of the Sri Lankan authorities in the days leading up to the suicide attacks that killed 359 in churches and hotels on Sunday in the country’s capital , claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, is the subject of growing criticism, in a political context of bitter power struggle between the president and the prime minister.

A prophetic warning note a fortnight ago warning that the local Islamist movement National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) was preparing attacks, has not been communicated to the head of government and senior ministers. The alert was based on information transmitted by “a foreign intelligence agency” and had been disseminated to the police.

“There has clearly been a failure in the communication of information. The government must take its responsibilities because if the information had been transmitted to the right people, this could have made it possible to avoid or minimize ” these attacks, acknowledged Wednesday the Deputy Minister of Defense, Ruwan Wijewardene.

An attack by a “dissident faction” of the NTJ

While Sri Lankan cemeteries witnessed an uninterrupted parade of funerals for victims of these attacks, among the deadliest in the world since September 11, 2001, the South Asian island continued its gigantic hunt for suspects on Wednesday.

During night raids, security forces arrested 18 additional people, in addition to the 40 arrested since Sunday. The human toll has further increased, from 320 to 359 dead, with some 500 injured.

Authorities attributed the bloodshed to the NTJ group, which has not claimed responsibility, and have yet to officially confirm ISIS involvement .

In a press conference on Wednesday, the deputy defense minister said the attacks were allegedly carried out by a “dissident faction” of the NTJ , without further details.

ISIS attack, outside Syria and Iraq, the deadliest

“  The leader of (this group), the person who carried out the attack is one of the suicide bombers and is dead,  ” he declared, adding that he blew himself up at the Shangri-hotel. The of Colombo.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks on Tuesday through its Amaq propaganda agency. This is the most deadly foreign operation (apart from Syria and Iraq) claimed by the organization since the proclamation in June 2014 of its “caliphate” , which collapsed in March after multiple offensives.

In a photo released with the press release, the authenticity of which could not be verified from an independent source, eight men, including seven with their faces covered and three carrying knives, pose in front of the black ISIS flag.

Nine suicide bombers

The Sri Lankan government announced Wednesday that a total of “nine suicide bombers” had perished during that day. Eight have been identified but their names have not been released.

Of the eight bomb sites exploded on Sunday, six – three churches in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa as well as three luxury hotels in Colombo – were hit in the early morning by suicide bombings.

Subsequent explosions occurred at midday at two separate locations on the outskirts of Colombo: they were carried out by suspects who committed suicide to escape arrest. One of them was assigned to carry out an attack on a fourth luxury hotel, adjacent to the others, but did not blow himself up there for some reason.

Surrounded by the police a few hours later in the southern suburbs of Dehiwala, the suspect then blew himself up.

At about the same time, two people – a man and a woman – blew themselves up in a police operation at the homes of suspects in the northern suburbs of Orugodawatta, sources close to the investigation told AFP on Wednesday.

One of the attackers reportedly studied in Australia and Britain

The fate of the alleged NTJ leader Zahran Hashim is unknown at this time. “Most” suicide bombers “are educated and come from the middle or upper middle class so they are quite financially independent and their families are quite stable, which is a worrying factor , ” Wijewardene reported.

One of the attackers studied in Britain and completed post-graduate studies in Australia, he said. The lack of transmission of crucial information within the Sri Lankan state could reignite the crisis at the head of the country.

The police are in fact the responsibility of President Maithripala Sirisena, who is in open conflict with the head of government Ranil Wickremesinghe. The first had sacked the second in the fall but was forced to reinvest it after seven weeks of political chaos.

The two heads of the executive, with antagonistic personalities, devote a reciprocal animosity and put each other’s spades in the wheels. President Sirisena announced that during the day he would make “significant changes” to the head of the security forces.