Attacks in Sri Lanka: Islamic State claims responsibility for attacks

The jihadist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on Sunday, April 23, during the Easter weekend in Sri Lanka.

The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for suicide attacks on churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, a carnage that left more than 320 dead and 500 injured over Easter and which is among the deadliest attacks since September 11th 2001.

“The perpetrators of the attacks targeting nationals of Coalition (anti-IS) countries and Christians in Sri Lanka the day before yesterday are IS fighters , “ the organization announced via its propaganda agency Amaq, in Attaching a photo and video believed to show the seven assailants involved in the massacre.

Suicide bombers caused carnage on Sunday in three luxury hotels and three churches, during mass, in Colombo and elsewhere in the country. Local authorities have attributed the bloodbath to the local Islamist movement National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) , which has not claimed it, and are investigating whether it has received international logistical support.

Sri Lanka has arrested 40 people but suspects are still at large, according to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Asked about the possibility of new attacks, the head of government said at a press conference Tuesday that “nothing is excluded” . “Some” suspects on the run could hold explosives, he added in response to a question.

Seven targets

The elements of the investigation shed light on the chronology and the circumstances of this bloody Easter.

Of the eight bomb blasts that day, the first six, in the early morning, were suicide bombings against three churches and three luxury hotels – the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, the Shangri-La and the Kingsbury. Two subsequent explosions, which occurred in the early afternoon in Colombo, were carried out by suspects who took their own lives to escape arrest.

Two Sri Lankan Muslim brothers among the suicide bombers played a key role in the outbreak of violence , in which another suicide bombing failed at a fourth luxury hotel in Colombo, sources familiar with the investigation revealed on Tuesday.

According to the police, these two brothers in their thirties whose names have not been revealed operated a family “terrorist cell” and played a key role in the NTJ. Investigators still do not know if the attacks are the result of this single “cell” , or separate but coordinated teams.

A fourth luxury hotel in the Sri Lankan capital, adjacent to the three struck, was on the list of targets. For some reason, the backpack full of explosives of the suicide bomber loaded with this target did not explode and he fled, police sources said.

Surrounded by the police a few hours later in the southern suburbs of Dehiwala, the suspect blew himself up. At about the same time, in northern Colombo, in Orugodawatta, the wife of one of the suicide bomber brothers set off explosives when law enforcement arrived at their family residence, killing her two children herself. and three policemen.

Serial burials

Sri Lanka paid a poignant tribute on Tuesday to the 321 dead in the attacks. Among those killed were at least 39 foreigners, police said. At least 45 children and adolescents have died, according to the UN.

The island of 21 million people remained silent for three minutes at 08:30 am local time (0300 GMT), the time of the first explosion of a suicide bomber two days earlier, at the Saint Anthony Catholic Church in Colombo.

Sri Lankans gave free rein to their pain during masses in tribute to the dead of these attacks, the worst violence the country has known since, ten years ago, the end of the civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil independence rebellion.

The government has declared a day of national mourning. Stores selling alcohol were closed, flags at half mast, and radio and television stations had to adapt their music programming.

Colombo’s normally green and tranquil Madampitiya Cemetery saw a continuous parade of mourners on Tuesday. Normally, her gravedigger Piyasri Gunasena, 48, rarely digs more than one grave per day. Tuesday was his tenth of the day.

Despite his decades of being around death, he struggled to contain the shaking of his hands while digging for the burial of an eleven-month-old baby. “Every time I dig a grave for a child, I think of my granddaughter and I want to cry,” he says. “Even during the war it wasn’t as busy. “

Rivalries

Ten days ago, the NTJ organization was the subject of an alert sent to the police, according to which it was preparing suicide attacks against churches and the Indian embassy in Colombo.

According to the government spokesperson, this alert had not been passed on to the prime minister or other high-ranking ministers. An element that could revive the crisis at the top of the Sri Lankan state.

The police are in fact under the jurisdiction of President Maithripala Sirisena, in open conflict with his head of government. He had sacked him in the fall but had been forced to reinvest him after seven weeks of political chaos. The two heads of the executive have a mutual animosity.

“I intend to make important changes in the management of the security forces over the next 24 hours,” the president announced in an address to the nation. “The reorganization of the security forces will be completed within a week,” he promised.

According to CNN, Indian intelligence services transmitted “particularly precise” information to Sri Lanka in the weeks leading up to the attacks, part of which came from a suspected member of the Islamic State group detained in India.

About 1.2 million Catholics live in Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country (70%) which also has 12% Hindus and 10% Muslims.