Day by day, the paper trail of detailed warnings gets longer, casting more doubts on President Maithripala Sirisena’s claims that he did not know the attack was coming, the New York Times said echoing the views of several Sri Lankan and Indian experts.
On Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019, more than half a dozen bomb blasts shook Sri Lanka killing some 250 people and injuring several hundred. The devastation took place in in several catholic churches and luxury hotels. Other explosions have since killed several dozens of people. Many are children, women – Christian worshippers. And on May Day, yet another explosion ripped through a building, killing 18, including children and women. The perpetrators are suicide bombers, who didn’t want their ‘cache’ to be discovered. An Islamic terrorist group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath, associated with ISIS has come forward as the villain.
Sri Lanka is a predominantly Buddhist nation – about 70% are Buddhists followed by 13% Hindus, almost 10% Muslims, mainly Sunni, the Salafi version, and about 7% Christians. The New York Times said the mastermind of the terror attacks was strongly influenced by Wahhabism.
In New Zealand a few weeks ago a white supremacist assaulted a mosque, killing 50. This past weekend, a shooting in a Synagogue near San Diego, California, killed a woman. The murderer said he was inspired by the New Zealand massacre.
MintPress News said: “Sri Lanka Easter attacks are the handiwork of terrorists returning from fighting in Syria, practicing the Saudi-backed Wahhabi Salafist ideology.” It added “though not confirmed yet, they, [the attacks], are in keeping with the modus operandi of Wahhabi terrorism worldwide. From Boko Haram to ISIS, and from the Taliban to Al Qaeda, a common ideological thread runs through these terror groups.”
The New York Times reports that Sri Lanka authorities were warned “in detail, 12 days before the attack”. A Colombo-datelined report said more evidence emerged Monday, April 29th that the Sri Lankan government had ignored detailed warnings about an imminent terrorist attack, days before suicide bombers killed more than 250 people at crowded churches and hotels.
In a memo dated April 9 and labelled “Top Secret, (Eyes Only),” the chief of national intelligence warned the country’s police chief that “Sri Lanka based Zahran Hashmi of National Thowheeth Jama’ath and his associates are planning to carry out a suicide terrorist attack in Sri Lanka shortly.” The bombings came 12 days later.
The daily added that the memo, “whose authenticity was confirmed by two high-ranking government officials, is the earliest one revealed so far to have so obviously conveyed a sense of urgency”. A security memo two days later warned of “a possible suicide attack” by the radical Islamist group but did not say when it was expected.
Day by day, the paper trail of detailed warnings gets longer, casting more doubts on President Maithripala Sirisena’s claims that he did not know the attack was coming, the New York Times said echoing the views of several Sri Lankan and Indian experts.
Several Sri Lankan officials said it would have gone against standard practice for the national intelligence chief to have shared such highly classified information with police officials, without first sharing it with the president.
The April 9 memo said the terrorist group was “planning to target some important churches” and the Indian High Commission in Colombo, the capital, and “may adopt any of the following modes of attack: suicide attack, weapon attack, knife attack, truck attack.”
The memo closes: “It is important to alert the law enforcement agencies to be vigilant concerning the information.”
The NYT report further said: “For weeks, Indian intelligence agents had been issuing warnings. The Indians had been closely tracking the suspected ringleader, Zaharan Hashim, also known as Zahran Hashmi, and warned Sri Lankan intelligence services several times, including on the morning of the attack. The April 9 memo included the names and addresses of suspected members of the terrorist group”.
On Monday (Apr 29, 2019), President Sirisena banned “all forms of clothing that cover a person’s face and prevents them from being identified,” an order seen as being directed at the niqabs and burqas that some Muslim women wear in public. The president cited the limited state of emergency that he imposed last week, giving the government sweeping powers to arrest, search and seize.
Terrorism experts aver that National Thowfeek Jamaath has been a low-key radical group and that it has been mainly targetting Buddhism. Formed some three-four years back, its forte, hitherto, was fiery speeches and some vandalism against Buddhist statutes.
Anne Speckhard, director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, said the group’s name – also spelled “Tawhid Jamaat” – means “Unity of God,” a phrase often emphasized by extremists who believe, among other things, that having democratically elected leaders is a form of having false gods. The group follows militant jihadist beliefs where suicide bombers believe they are going to paradise when dying to kill, and that they earn other rewards” for martyrdom. They also believe that they have an obligation to establish an Islamic State, live under Shariah law and fight jihad until the Islamic State rules the world.
There is reason to believe that a small group like NTJ with no documented history of violence could have carried out such a sophisticated and deadly strike on its own. The details . given in the ISIS communiqué, such as attacker’s names, evidently proves that the group had a hand in the attack. Well, the degree to which the ISIS was involved is a matter of speculation for the present.
– by Tushar Charan