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SRILANKA-ATTACKS
Sri Lanka admits ‘major’ lapse over deadly Islamist blasts
COLOMBO, April 24, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government on
Wednesday acknowledged “major” lapses over its failure to prevent the
horrific Easter attacks that killed more than 350 people, despite prior
intelligence warnings.
Recriminations have flown since Islamist suicide bombers blew themselves
up in packed churches and luxury hotels on Sunday, in attacks claimed by the
Islamic State group.
Overnight, security forces using newly granted powers under the
country’s state of emergency arrested 18 more suspects in connection with the
attack, as the toll rose to 359.
Police have so far arrested 58 people, all Sri Lankans, and security
remains heavy, with bomb squads carrying out several controlled explosions of
suspect packages on Wednesday.
But the government faces anger over revelations that specific warnings
about an attack went ignored.
Sri Lanka’s police chief issued a warning on April 11 that suicide
bombings against “prominent churches” by local Islamist group, National
Thowheeth Jama’ath were possible and alerts had been given by a foreign
intelligence agency.
CNN reported that Indian intelligence services had passed on “unusually
specific” information in the weeks before the attacks, some of it from an IS
suspect in their custody.
But that information was not shared with the prime minister or other top
ministers, the government says.
“It was a major lapse in the sharing of information,” deputy defence
minister Ruwan Wijewardene conceded at a press conference on Wednesday.
“The government has to take responsibility.”
– Chilling footage –
Chilling CCTV footage has emerged showing one of the attackers calmly
patting a child on the head and shoulder moments before he walked into the
packed St Sebastian’s church and detonated his bomb among those attending
Easter Mass, unleashing carnage.
President Maithripala Sirisena, who is also defence and law and order
minister, pledged Tuesday to make “major changes in the leadership of the
security forces in the next 24 hours”.
“The restructuring of the security forces and the police will be
completed within a week,” he said.
New details emerged about some of the bombers on Wednesday, with
Wijewardene saying one had studied in Britain and then did post-graduate
studies in Australia before returning to Sri Lanka.
“Most of them are well-educated and come from middle, upper-middle class
families, so they are financially quite independent and their families are
quite stable financially, that is a worrying factor in this,” the minister
added.
A US FBI team is now in Sri Lanka, Wijewardene said, and Britain,
Australia and the United Arab Emirates have all offered intelligence help.
Experts say the bombings bear many of the hallmarks of IS attacks, and
the government has suggested local militants could not have acted alone.
But it has not yet officially confirmed any IS role in the blasts
against three churches packed with Easter worshippers and three high-end
hotels.
A desperate search was under way for other suspects linked to the
blasts, including the head of a local Islamist group believed to have played
a key role in the attacks.
The government has said the National Thowheeth Jama’at group was behind
the attack, perhaps with international help, and its leader Zahran Hashim
remains unaccounted for.
He appears to be among eight people seen in a video released by IS on
Tuesday, leading seven others in a pledge of allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi.
It was not yet clear whether Hashim was among the suicide attackers or
had escaped after the blasts.
– Multiple attackers –
Government officials have said they cannot rule out further attacks while
suspects remain at large.
In all, nine people are believed to have blown themselves up in Sunday,
either during attacks or when police attempted to arrest them.
Sri Lankan police sources have told AFP that two Muslim brothers, sons
of a wealthy Colombo spice trader, blew themselves up at the Shangri-La and
the Cinnamon Grand hotels.
Their father is now one of the 58 in custody.
The Kingsbury hotel in the capital was the last one hit. A fourth
planned attack on a hotel failed, authorities said. The would-be attacker was
followed back to a Colombo lodge, where he blew himself up, killing two
people.
Sources close to the investigation said two more people — a man and a
woman — blew themselves up at another location as security forces launched a
raid. Those blasts killed three police.
Work was continuing to identify foreign victims in the blasts.
A Danish billionaire lost three of his children in the attacks, a
spokesman for his company said.
Eight Britons, 10 Indians, four Americans and nationals from Turkey,
Australia, Japan and Portugal were also reported killed.
The United Nations said at least 45 children, Sri Lankans and
foreigners, were among the dead.
BSS/AFP/RY/1710 hrs