A soldier stands guard St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, following a series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka.
Six children are among the victims. The night raid took place near Kalmunai, a coastal town mostly populated by Muslims and located in the home province of Islamist Zahran Hashim. The latter is suspected of having organized the bloody Easter attacks.
Sixteen people, including six children, were killed overnight from Friday to Saturday in an assault by Sri Lankan security forces on suspected members of the Islamic State group , police said.
This night raid took place near Kalmunai, a town on the east coast mostly populated by Muslims and located in the home province of Islamist Zahran Hashim , suspected of organizing the suicide attacks on three luxury hotels and three crowded Christian churches that left 253 dead and 500 injured on Sunday April 21.
On the basis of information provided after the arrest of Zahran Hashim’s driver, whose presumed death was announced on Friday , the police stormed a house which they said housed jihadists involved in the Easter attacks, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Hundreds of families have fled
After an hour of gunfire, three men blew themselves up, also killing three women and six children present, security officials said. “Three other men, believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead near the house,” police said in a statement, adding that they had been shot dead by law enforcement. A civilian was also killed in the shooting. Hundreds of families have also fled their homes as a result of the fighting.
Charred bodies and at least one gunman holding an assault rifle were shown in video footage shown on state television. Explosives and a drone were seen inside the house. An ISIS flag was also discovered there, police said.
President bans Islamist groups
In this former British colony on the Indian subcontinent, populated by 21 million mainly Buddhist inhabitants and where tensions remain high, at least 94 people have been arrested since Sunday.
“We now have information that there are around 140 people in Sri Lanka linked to the Islamic State, we can and will eradicate them all very quickly,” President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday.
The latter banned the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), a local Islamist movement accused by the authorities of having carried out the Sunday killings, as well as a satellite group, the Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI), announced on Saturday the presidency in a press release. The NTJ was led by Zahran Hashim, who carried out the suicide attack on the Shangri-La Hotel in the capital Colombo with a second suicide bomber.
Sri Lankan police said they seized 150 sticks of dynamite and an ISIS flag on Friday during a search in Sammanthurai, a town near Kalmunai. It is in this building that the video of the claim was shot. Zahran Hashim appeared in a video broadcast by the Islamic State group: he was seen with seven men taking an oath of allegiance to the head of the jihadist organization Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Catholic churches are closed
For security reasons, Catholic churches are closed in Sri Lanka until further notice. Some mosques have canceled Friday prayers, and those where they were held often hosted a sparse assembly, under tight security.
The authorities have been on the defensive since the massacre despite having very precise prior information. The police chief and a senior Defense Ministry official have already had to resign.
Sri Lankan Catholic leader Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, said he felt “betrayed” when he learned that the government had ignored the warnings.
An alert written on April 11 by the chief of police, warning that the NTJ was preparing attacks, was not communicated to the Prime Minister and high-ranking ministers, against the backdrop of a power struggle between the head of government Ranil Wickemesinghe and President Sirisena, who is also Minister of the Interior and Defense.
Washington advises against the country to its nationals
Like several other Western countries and India, the United States has advised its nationals not to travel to Sri Lanka. This island, popular for its idyllic beaches and lush greenery, had a record year in 2018 with 2.33 million tourists. She now expects a 30% drop in arrivals, according to Sri Lankan Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera.
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