The manner in which NTJ was identified was circuitous. The prime minister said there had been warnings made to officials that hadn't been shared with the cabinet. He said only the president would get such briefings, even though it is not clear if he personally did in this instance.<doc-sep>The funerals are over, the investigation continues and the blame game begins and media attention shifts away. This time the victims were Catholic worshippers and patrons of luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. A month ago they were Muslim worshippers in New Zealand, shot by a white supremacist as they prayed. It is almost two decades since attacks launched by al-Qaida on New York, the Pentagon and Washington announced a new era of mass-casualty terrorism. Such violence has long been with us all, of course. Terrorism in its modern form can trace its roots back to the 19th century. The 1970s saw hundreds of terrorist bombings, shootings and hijackings in the US. The 1990s were bloody, too. But the era that began with the 2001 attacks brought something else. The rapidity with which we now learn of violence thousands of miles away, the graphic images and testimony to which we are exposed, or seek out, and the unprecedented scale of the violence combine to give an old threat a new immediacy. Terrorism is part of all our lives – as terrorists want it to be. We know much more about extremist violence than we have ever done. So what can we learn from this latest tragedy? Our view of terrorism is too restricted Every time there is a new attack, there is surprise. One explanation is that we suffer from a form of willed amnesia about violent extremism. Perhaps because terrorism is so rarely experienced personally it often seems that the level of fear we feel is determined by little more than the last thing that we read or saw that involved terrorists. So, for many people, the background to the Sri Lanka bombings was the expulsion of Islamic State from its last redoubts in Syria last month. Thus the sense that this was somehow unexpected. The loss of its last territories was a major defeat for Isis. It will find it much more difficult to organise terrorist attacks in its heartland and further afield without the extensive infrastructure, lucrative opportunities for taxation and looting, and a relatively secure enclave where volunteers could be trained and operations planned. Its failures are now blatant. The international boundaries it boasted of smashing forever remain. Previous caliphates spanned centuries. This one lasted less than five years. But though the group’s ideology and attraction have been undermined, it has not disappeared. No one with any knowledge of how extremist ideologies evolve would have expected that its complex mix of conspiratorial politics, radical theology, sectarianism and apocalyptic prediction would have lost all power to convince overnight. The bombings in Sri Lanka are bloody evidence of this. We don’t know when Isis became involved in the attack, but it is very likely that it was instrumental in turning a ramshackle group focused solely on defacing or destroying Buddhist statues in January into one capable of launching last week’s bombings. This means an intervention within the past few months, when Isis’s final territorial defeat was well under way. A deeper understanding of how the group works, grounded in a longer-term perspective, would have prevented false hopes that the hydra was slain. A closed circuit television image shows a suspected bomber framed in a doorway at St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images The same is true of any surprise that such an attack should occur in South Asia. Once, events there were a major preoccupation of western decision-makers. Since the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, it has disappeared into a news and policy black hole. The multiple militant groups may no longer pose an obvious threat to the west, but it is said 7,664 people were killed in terrorist attacks in the region in 2017. If we had paid more attention in recent years, last Sunday’s atrocities would have been less of a shock. We still don’t understand radicalism We know there is no “terrorist” gene. The number of secular attackers over the decades, and the wave of rightwing violence based on “race” or ethnic identity, not faith, suggests that religion is an insufficient answer. Many religious attackers are not observant at the beginning of the radicalisation process. Some aren’t at the end either. There are examples of European extremists who had used drugs, liked nightclubs and had girlfriends before recruitment by Isis who never fully abandoned their previous ways. The brutally simple response is that there is no single answer.Individuals are drawn into terrorism in the same way they are drawn into all sorts of other extreme ways of behaving. Many routes can lead to the same result. Some of the attackers in Sri Lanka were wealthy and educated. This has surprised some. There is no link between poverty and extremist actions or thinking. Nor is education a predictor. There are extremists with doctorates, and others who are barely literate. There is also much variation globally. Attackers in Europe have different profiles from those in the Middle East or in the US. One general rule is that the process of radicalisation is a progressive one, always gradual, though it can be rapid. It usually involves a charismatic leader, a simple idea that resolves a profound personal crisis, a binary narrative that answers a particular grievance, a group of friends, relatives or other associates who reinforce each other’s behaviour creating a feedback loop of greater separation from the rest of a community, society and nation. Few set out to be a suicide bomber. A recent study of Saudi recruits to Isis found that only one in 10 signed up for martyrdom. The faithful of St Sebastian’s will worship in a tent outside the church on Sunday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Crucially, someone vulnerable to radicalisation at one moment in their life may be much less so just months later. A key element in the explanations of former terrorists for their own actions – as well as in accounts given by Nazi mass killers and others – is that their acts are necessary to head off a catastrophic outcome for their community, that they are an obligation for any rational individual. Combine this with the total dehumanisation of the victims – another product of groupthink, separation and propaganda – and you are already a long way to mass murder, whether in a death camp, through an artificial famine, by a mob armed with knives and axes, or a multiple suicide bombing. All politics is local, and so is all (successful) extremism For more than 20 years, our vision of Islamic extremist atrocities has been distorted by the events of 9/11, which involved a team of attackers from the Middle East striking in the US. But terrorists rarely come from overseas to attack, as they did then. The vast majority launch their operations close to where they live, often only a short journey in a car, train, rickshaw or by foot. In Afghanistan, internal intelligence assessments have shown that most attacks were made by people living less than a mile from their target. The Sri Lanka bombings show this. We know the identities of four bombers. The leader of the network was from a village three hours’ drive from Colombo, the capital, where all but one attack occurred. Two brothers lived in an upmarket neighbourhood of the city, and may well have been familiar with the luxury hotels they bombed. The fourth had studied in Britain and Australia, but lived in the capital too. Even when bombers succeed in reaching jihadist groups to get training, their success often depends on the advantages that come with attacking targets on their home turf. As Scott Atran, an anthropologist and expert in extremism, noted in the Guardian last week, all but one attack by Isis in Europe in 2014 failed owing to a lack of local contacts. When, a year later, Isis sent operatives into Europe who could engage an extensive network of overlapping and pre-existing social ties among families, friends, workmates and petty criminal bands clustered in particular neighbourhoods, the result was carnage. A funeral in Colombo last week.<doc-sep>The Editorial Board USA TODAY So vast and disorienting was the Easter Sunday carnage strewn by coordinated suicide bombings on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that investigators at first overestimated the death toll. It was recalibrated at 253 dead Christian worshipers and tourists, mercifully lower than the 359 first reported, but still a barbarous record for any attack linked to the Islamic State terrorist group. Sri Lanka suffered nearly twice the number killed in Paris in a similarly coordinated fashion by ISIS attackers in 2015. In fact, in the four months since President Donald Trump stood on the White House lawn and declared "we have won against ISIS" by recapturing its territorial caliphate, the terror group has claimed responsibility for deadly assaults in Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Eight Islamic State branches and a dozen networks operate around the world, along with an unknown number of sleeper cells. Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appeared in a video for the first time since 2014, praising the Sri Lanka attacks. Al-Qaeda, the group behind the 9/11 attacks, also remains a threat. Despite being driven from Afghanistan in 2001 and suffering the death of leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, al-Qaeda continues operating in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and controls a northern Syrian province. Its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, remains at large. OPPOSING VIEW:Sri Lanka bombings do not mean there's an ISIS worth fighting Terrorist attacks have increased fivefold since 2001, according to a study of extremism by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Hateful ideologies are pumped into the bloodstream of fragile states via a social media network using videos and newsletters and directing collaborators through encrypted messaging apps. The island nation of Sri Lanka, with its history of civil war that lasted from 1983 to 2009, was in many ways a perfect host for this viral extremism. Minority Muslims feel persecuted, and investigators now suspect that a radical cleric, Zahran Hashim — who ran an organization with a record of little more than vandalism — could have received ISIS assistance in pulling off the complicated Easter attacks. In the face of global extremism, the United States must remain vigilant and forward-leaning. Now is no time for complacency. American counterterrorism operations are vital, and it was a mistake for Trump to sharply reduce U.S. troop levels in the former caliphate region of northeast Syria. That area is at risk of ISIS resurgence. Even so, counterterrorism is only part of the solution. As USIP President Nancy Lindborg said last week, "We can't kill our way out of this." While nation building is not America's job, the Trump administration can partner with the more than 70 nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fashioned to fight ISIS. The United States can offer modest bilateral assistance to fragile countries most susceptible to extremist violence. This is a war that doesn't end with the capture of a nation's capital or a signed armistice. It's a battle of ideas that remains to be won. If you can't see this reader poll, please refresh your page.<doc-sep>
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 320 people, the group’s Amaq news agency has said. The terrorist group released a photograph of the alleged ringleader of the attacks, as well as what it said was the nom de guerre of each attacker. The group said the bombers targeted citizens of the US-led coalition fighting Isis and referred to Easter as an “infidel holiday”. Experts have said the suicide bombings of three churches and three luxury hotels bear the hallmarks of the group. Sri Lanka’s prime minister said on Tuesday there were more explosives and militants “out there”. Ranil Wickremesinghe also acknowledged there was a prior warning of the attacks and said some officials would likely lose their jobs over intelligence lapses. He also revealed there was a fourth failed attack on another major hotel and that the Indian embassy was also a possible target. Footage has also emerged of a suspected suicide bomber entering St Sebastian’s church in Negombo moments before the attack there. The subsequent explosion, not shown in the video, was the deadliest of the series of coordinated bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, with at least 110 people thought to have been killed. The footage was broadcast widely on Sri Lankan news channels. 00:30 CCTV footage shows suspected Sri Lanka suicide bomber entering church – video Earlier, Sri Lanka’s defence minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, said the attacks were a response to the recent mass shooting of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch in New Zealand. “The preliminary investigations have revealed that what happened in Sri Lanka was in retaliation for the attack against Muslims in Christchurch,” Wijewardene told a special sitting of parliament, referring to the terrorist attack by a white supremacist in March in which 50 people were killed. The minister did not present any evidence for his claim. An intelligence memo circulated to some in government in the weeks before the attack noted that one member of the terrorist group, since named as a perpetrator, had started to update his social media accounts with extremist content after the New Zealand shootings. But terrorism researchers have said the sophisticated nature of the attack and the equipment used would probably have required months of preparation, including target reconnaissance, recruiting of the suicide bombers and obtaining explosives. A soldier stands guard during a funeral service at St Sebastian’s church in Negombo on Tuesday. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images One emerging scenario among western and south Asian security officials who spoke to the Guardian on Monday – before the Isis claim – was that the global group had established a connection with existing Sri Lankan networks of extremists already attracted by its ideology, but who lacked organisation and experience. Sri Lankan veterans who had fought for Isis in Syria or Iraq may have acted as “connectors”, one South Asian official said, pointing to the group’s operations in Bangladesh in recent years as an example of how it had learned to “subcontract” to local militants. The Isis claim was issued used terms familiar from previous such statements, citing “security sources” and describing the attackers as “fighters” of the group. Until Isis began to lose its most important bases in the Middle East, the group’s claims of responsibility were treated as reliable indicators that it had been directly involved in an attack. In recent years, however, an increasing number of claims have been made for operations that either had nothing to do with the organisation or were only tenuously linked to it. Wijewardene also told parliament on Tuesday that the death toll had climbed to 321 people – including 38 foreigners – and reiterated that the prime minister and other key officials were never told about the possibility of an impending attack. Sri Lankans have started to bury the dead from the string of bombings. Tuesday has been declared a national day of mourning and white flags were hung from buildings across Colombo as a three-minute silence was held from 8.30am, about the time of the first of Sunday’s bombings. Security personnel observe the three-minute silence in Colombo on Tuesday. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters At St Sebastian’s in Negombo, more than 20 coffins were brought in for individual services in the run-up to a mass memorial. “There are so many bodies that we can’t accommodate them all at once,” Anthony Jayakody, the auxiliary bishop of Colombo, told Agence France-Presse.