Sri Lankan state minister says the Easter church bombings were retaliation for New Zealand mosque attacks

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan state minister says the Easter church bombings were retaliation for New Zealand mosque attacks.</s>A Sri Lankan government official says coordinated suicide bombings in the island nation on Easter Sunday, which killed more than 320 people, were carried out in retaliation for last month's mass shooting at mosques in New Zealand.

State minister for defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, said the attacks were carried out by two Islamist organizations. As NPR's Lauren Frayer reports, "it's not immediately clear how he knows that – whether the information comes from suspects being interrogated, or evidence the suicide bombers may have left behind."

One of the organizations is a little-known radical Islamist group named National Thowfeek Jamaath. Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne has called for the top police official to resign after failing to stop the attacks despite receiving reports that the group was planning to target churches, The Washington Post reports.

In the weeks leading up to the attacks, parts of the Sri Lankan government received intelligence reports from international agencies, including India, indicating a possible plot to attack targets in Sri Lanka.

"What the allegation is, is that portions of the government — the security services, the police — did not do enough in advance to alert the Christian community, to alert hotels that they could be targets," Shashank Bengali, Southeast Asia correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, told NPR's Up First. "That's where the war of words and the finger pointing has got us right now."

Police in Sri Lanka say they have arrested 40 suspects since the wave of deadly suicide attacks Sunday killed hundreds and wounded hundreds more.

According to The Associated Press, among the suspects arrested were the driver of a van allegedly used by suicide bombers, and the owner of a house where some of the attackers lived. Most of the people arrested are Sri Lankans, but police are also investigating whether foreigners were involved in the attacks.</s>Officials from other nations are disputing, or at least declining to support, Sri Lankan Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene’s contention that the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings in his country, which killed 359 people as of the latest count , were intended as retaliation for the shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.

Wijewardene advanced his theory at a meeting with the Sri Lankan parliament on Tuesday without revealing any information that could establish a link between the Easter bombings and Christchurch. Terrorism experts immediately expressed skepticism that the sophisticated weapons and tactics employed in the Sri Lanka attacks could have been assembled in the month that has elapsed since the Christchurch atrocity.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern disputed the notion of retaliation for Christchurch at a press conference on Wednesday.

“We haven’t received anything officially nor have we received any intelligence reports that corroborate what has been said in Sri Lanka,” said Ardern.

“Sri Lanka will be in the very early stages of its investigations. So we are simply stepping back and allowing them to undertake those, but we have nothing at this stage to corroborate what is being said,” she elaborated.

A spokeswoman for Ardern’s office indicated the prime minister was aware of Wijewardene’s remarks and reiterated that New Zealand wishes to give the Sri Lankans time to complete their investigation, but also wants to make clear that it has “not yet seen any intelligence upon which such an assessment” of retaliation for Christchurch might be based.

Wijewardene doubled down on his assertions Wednesday, explaining that the terrorist cells involved in Easter bombings had been planning an attack for some time, but were motivated to carry out their plan by a desire to retaliate for the Christchurch shooting.

The most important bit of evidence advanced for this theory is a memo leaked from the Sri Lankan police that was written ten days before the attack, in which the police noted one member of an organization believed to be involved in the bombings began “regularly updating [social media] accounts with hate speech against non-Muslims since the March 15, 2019, attacks on Muslim mosques by a Christian individual in New Zealand.”

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena delivered an address to the nation on Tuesday in which he pledged to “completely restructure the police and security forces in the coming weeks” and expected to “change the heads of defense establishments within the next 24 hours,” which could mean Wijewardene’s job is on the chopping block.

Sirisena said one reason for the coming wave of firings in the defense establishment is that security officials who received intelligence from foreign agencies about an impending attack “did not share it with me.”

“By now it has been established that the intelligence units were aware of this attack and a group of responsible people were informed about the impending attack. However, this information has been circulated among only a few officials,” he said.

India issued the alert referenced by Sirisena on April 11 and warned of a possible suicide attack on Christian churches and the Indian High Commission in the capital city of Columbo by an extremist group called National Towheeth Jamaath and its leader, Mohamed Zaharan Hashim.

Hashim is the only unmasked individual in the footage released by the Islamic State on Tuesday to bolster its claim that the Sri Lanka attackers were its “soldiers.” The video depicts Hashim and seven other masked and robed individuals pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in a ritual known as bay’ah.

Hashim is a longtime Islamist radical with a few hundred social media followers who preached violent conflict against non-Muslims. Gulf News on Wednesday quoted a Sri Lankan Muslim leader who described Hashim as a “drop-out” from an “average Muslim middle-class family” whose followers were in “continuous conflict with the traditional mosque-goers,” including threats of physical violence against those who did not embrace Hashim’s jihad theology.

Reuters quoted leaders of “three prominent Sri Lankan Muslim groups” who said they repeatedly warned the authorities about Hashim after he began expressing sympathy for the Islamic State. One of the now-deleted videos Hashim posted to Facebook threatened to use explosive-laden vehicles to murder civilians.

Defense Minister Wijewardene on Wednesday suggested Hashim might have led an even more radical splinter group from National Towheeth Jamaath that pledged allegiance to ISIS and suggested Hashim may have “committed suicide in one of the attacks.”

Graeme Wood at The Atlantic considered the information about Hashim and his ties to the Islamic State and found it significant that ISIS did not frame the Sri Lanka attack as revenge for Christchurch when it claimed responsibility on Tuesday.

The ISIS statement fulminated against Christians and “Crusaders” but did not refer to New Zealand. Wood theorized this might be because ISIS demonizes Muslims who choose to live outside the Middle East and submit to non-Islamic governments, so it did not wish to claim it acted to avenge New Zealand Muslims who “sold their souls to the infidel.” ISIS is far more interested in demonstrating it survived the fall of its “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq and remains a force to be reckoned with.</s>The suicide bomb attacks in Sri Lanka were retaliation for the mosque shootings in New Zealand last month, government officials said Tuesday as they continued searching for conspirators.

About 50 people died at the mosques in Christchurch on March 15. Authorities say they were shot dead by a white nationalist from Australia. Sri Lankan defense minister Ruwan Wijewardene told lawmakers Tuesday the coordinated bombings Sunday amounted to payback.

“Investigations have revealed that the attacks were carried out by Islamic extremists in retaliation to the mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand,” Wijewardene told Sri Lanka Parliament.

Sri Lanka officials raised the death toll Tuesday to 321, as nearly two dozen injured succumbed to their wounds in hospitals. More than 500 people were hurt in the attacks, which targeted three churches and three hotels in the capital, Colombo.

The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attacks, the network’s Amaq news agency said Tuesday. Sri Lankan officials previously said local terror group National Thowheed Jamaththey was involved in the plot, but stressed it likely received help from a more sophisticated “international” group.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said officers have arrested about 40 suspects, all of whom are Sri Lankan citizens.

Sri Lankans observed an official day of mourning Tuesday by observing three minutes of silence. Mass funerals were held at St. Sebastian church, one of the bombing sites.

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 The Washington Post cited a three-page intelligence report that warned Sri Lanka officials of coming attacks and also identified several members of a local terror cell by name, including the purported leader.

“Don’t take this as a joke, as long as the division between the president and the prime minister exists, you can’t solve this problem — my security division knew about the advance notice [of the attacks], I did not,” Wijewardene said.

Sri Lankan lawmaker Mujibur Rahman said he was briefed on the report beforehand, which came from Indian intelligence agencies.

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 Sri Lankan authorities have warned people to watch out for additional strikes. Police have urged Sri Lankans to watch for suspicious taxi cabs, bicycles and vans that could be carrying more bombs.

Several American citizens were among those killed.

The Sri Lanka government is under a state of emergency that took effect at midnight Monday. It allows military and police forces to detain and interrogate potential suspects without a court order. Officials said more than two dozen suspects have been questioned by Sri Lanka’s Criminal and Terrorist Investigations Departments.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Interpol are aiding in the investigation. In a statement Monday, Interpol said a team had been deployed to Sri Lanka and checks have been made with stolen and lost travel documents and nominal databases to identify potential leads.

“As the Sri Lankan authorities investigate these horrific attacks, Interpol will continue to provide whatever support is necessary,” Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock said in a statement. “Information to help identify individuals linked to these attacks could come from anywhere in the world world, which is where Interpol’s global network and databases can prove vital.”

The United Nations Security Council condemned the bombings as a “cowardly terrorist attack” and expressed “deep sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the government of Sri Lanka.”

Japan said it’s sending an emergency response team of doctors and government workers. The attacks killed one Japanese woman and injured three others.</s>Sri Lankan state minister says the Easter church bombings were retaliation for New Zealand mosque attacks

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan state minister says the Easter church bombings were retaliation for New Zealand mosque attacks.</s>Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bomb attacks were retaliation for a recent attack on mosques in New Zealand, a Sri Lankan official said on Tuesday, adding that two domestic Islamist groups were believed to be responsible.

 

 “The initial investigation has revealed that this was in retaliation for the New Zealand mosque attack,” junior minister for defence Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament.

 

 “It was done by National Thawheed Jama’ut along with JMI,” he said, referring to another local group, Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.

Fifty people were killed in shooting attacks on two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on March 15.</s>The coordinated church bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 320 people on Easter were in retaliation for last month's mass shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, a Sri Lankan government official told Parliament Tuesday.

State minister for defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, said the attacks were carried out by two Islamist organizations. As NPR's Lauren Frayer reports, "it's not immediately clear how he knows that – whether the information comes from suspects being interrogated, or evidence the suicide bombers may have left behind."

One of the organizations is a little-known radical Islamist group named National Thowfeek Jamaath. Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne has called for the top police official to resign after failing to stop the attacks despite receiving reports that the group was planning to target churches, The Washington Post reports.

In the weeks leading up to the attacks, parts of the Sri Lankan government received intelligence reports from international agencies, including India, indicating a possible plot to attack targets in Sri Lanka.

"What the allegation is, is that portions of the government — the security services, the police — did not do enough in advance to alert the Christian community, to alert hotels that they could be targets," Shashank Bengali, Southeast Asia correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, told NPR's Up First. "That's where the war of words and the finger pointing has got us right now."

Police in Sri Lanka have arrested 40 suspects since the wave of deadly suicide attacks Sunday killed hundreds and wounded hundreds more.

According to The Associated Press, among the suspects arrested were the driver of a van allegedly used by suicide bombers, and the owner of a house where some of the attackers lived. Most of the people arrested are Sri Lankans, but police are also investigating whether foreigners were involved in the attacks.</s>A Sri Lankan government official says coordinated suicide bombings in the island nation on Easter Sunday, which killed more than 320 people, were carried out in retaliation for last month's mass shooting at mosques in New Zealand.

The state minister for defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, said the attacks were carried out by two Islamist organizations. As NPR's Lauren Frayer reports, "it's not immediately clear how he knows that – whether the information comes from suspects being interrogated, or evidence the suicide bombers may have left behind."

One of the organizations is a little-known radical Islamist group named National Thowfeek Jamaath. Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne has called for the top police official to resign after failing to stop the attacks despite receiving reports that the group was planning to target churches, The Washington Post reports.

In the weeks leading up to the attacks, parts of the Sri Lankan government received intelligence reports from international agencies, including India, indicating a possible plot to attack targets in Sri Lanka.

"What the allegation is, is that portions of the government — the security services, the police — did not do enough in advance to alert the Christian community, to alert hotels that they could be targets," Shashank Bengali, Southeast Asia correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, told NPR's Up First. "That's where the war of words and the finger-pointing has got us right now."

Police in Sri Lanka say they have arrested 40 suspects since the wave of deadly suicide attacks Sunday killed hundreds and wounded hundreds more.

According to The Associated Press, among the suspects arrested were the driver of a van allegedly used by suicide bombers, and the owner of a house where some of the attackers lived. Most of the people arrested are Sri Lankans, but police are also investigating whether foreigners were involved in the attacks.</s>WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday that her government was not aware of any intelligence suggesting that a devastating attack on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka was in retaliation for deadly shootings on a mosques in Christchurch.

Sri Lanka’s junior minister for defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, told his country’s parliament on Tuesday that an initial investigation had revealed the coordinated bombings on churches and hotels, which killed 321 people, had been carried out in revenge for deadly shootings in two New Zealand mosques on March 15.

Ardern’s office said the prime minister had seen reports of the minister’s statement.

“We understand the Sri Lankan investigation into the attack is in its early stages. New Zealand has not yet seen any intelligence upon which such an assessment might be based,” a spokeswoman for Ardern said in an emailed statement.

Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the Sri Lanka attacks on Tuesday and named what it said were seven attackers who carried them out. It gave no further evidence to support its claim of responsibility.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told a news conference investigators were making progress in identifying the perpetrators and believed there could be some links to IS.

Sri Lanka’s junior defense minister had earlier told Parliament that two Sri Lankan Islamist groups - the National Thawheed Jama’ut and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim - were responsible for the blasts early on Sunday during Easter services and as high-end hotels served breakfast.

He did not elaborate on why authorities believed there was a link to the killing of 50 people at mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch during Friday prayers in March. A lone gunman carried out those attacks. A suspected white supremacist has been charged with murder in connection to the shootings.

“New Zealanders oppose terrorism and extreme violence in all its forms. In the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks, it was the condemnation of the perpetrators of violence and a message of peace that unified us all,” Ardern’s spokesperson added.</s>CARNAGE: St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, was damaged in a terrorist attack. Sri Lankan authorities blame seven suicide bombers of a domestic militant group for coordinated bombings that ripped through Sri Lankan churches and hotels.

CARNAGE: St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, was damaged in a terrorist attack. Sri Lankan authorities blame seven suicide bombers of a domestic militant group for coordinated bombings that ripped through Sri Lankan churches and hotels. Chamila Karunarathne

TOOWOOMBA'S Sri Lankan community are in shock following the devastating terrorist attacks across the country that have killed 310 people and injured hundreds more on Sunday.

Groom MP John McVeigh said he, Mayor Paul Antonio and Cr Joe Ramia gathered with the Sri Lankan community on Tuesday night for a "very moving” prayer ceremony to remember those impacted by the attacks.

"(The Sri Lankan community) are shocked and saddened,” Dr McVeigh said.

"As we said (on Monday night) and as we said a few weeks back after the tragedy in New Zealand, terror has no religion, terror has no home.

"It doesn't belong in Islam, in Christianity, in any great religion of the world or any part of the world, whether it is Sri Lanka, New Zealand, the Middle East, Europe, the US.

"This hits us all, this is a tragic event and our prayers are with those killed and injured.”

Suicide bombers targeted three churches, three luxury hotels and a guesthouse on Easter Sunday across the country, including in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.

The bombers were all linked to National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a local militant radical Islamist group.

Forty suspects have been arrested in relation to the attack, including the driver of a van allegedly used by the suicide bombers and the owner of a house where some of them lived.

Islamic Society of Toowoomba president Shahjahan Khan wrote a letter of condolence to the Catholic Church following the attack.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the terrorist attack and their families,” Prof Khan said.

"We feel their pain and sufferings and share their grief, the same way you and we felt after the massacre in the mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.”

"The peaceful people in the civilised world should unanimously reject all radical extremists and forces of hate and violence.”
Sri Lankan investigators believe that the bombings were revenge for attacks on New Zealand mosques in March.