Cover image: A vigil in Islamabad to pay tribute to the Sri Lankan blast victims. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images

 

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

1 May 2019

Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury

ET Bureau

 

It's a great pity that Sri Lanka slept on the timely and accurate intelligence given by India and preferred to ignore it to its peril. As this Economic Times report reveals, poliltics took precedence over the lives of so many innocent victims, including many children who had just received their First Holy Communion and lost their lives for no fault of theirs in the hands of reckless terrorists. Isaac Gomes, Associate Editor, Church Citizens' Voice.

 

Sri Lanka had refused to pay heed to india's alert on possible suicide attacks and the involvement of extremists based on its belief that New Delhi is trying to pit Colombo against Pakistan by pointing fingers at the island's Muslim community.

Senior Lankan officials (Defence Secretary and Police Chief who have now been sacked) had claimed that India is trying to instigate Colombo against Islamabad by proposing counter-terror operations among the minority community in the island nation, sources told ET from Colombo on the condition of anonymity.

But this Easter Sunday suicide bombers killed at least 253 people and injured some 500 at churches and top-end hotels across Sri Lanka, leaving the nation stunned.

It is no secret that Sri Lanka had maintained cordial relations with Pakistan for decades that also saw ISI Officers supporting the Lankar Army in its fight against the LTTE.  ISI the intelliegence wing of the Pakistani Army, had become active through Pakistan's High Commission in Colombo when Mahinda Rajapaksa was in power as the Lankan Army was seeking support to crush the LTTE. ISI allegedly was recruiting from the minority community in Sri Lanka. It may be recalled that Lanka had allowed the Pakistani Air Force refuelling during the 1971 war.

Sri Lanka does not want to be dragged into what it claims "India-led Alliance" against Pakistan and felt that India is raising a bogey against Islamabad by claiming that Lanka could face suicide attacks, one of the above-mentioned sources claimed.

The Lankar security apparatus was also apparently casual with the Indian alert as they did not comprehend any threat from jihadists after defeating the LTTE, rued the above-mentioned person.

The Lankar Government had been warned for the past couple of years to crack down on extremist elements but the political leadership feared any such step would alleniate the community. The Lankan political leadership was extremely cautious of any move that would pit the Buddhists against Muslims and thereby disturb the communal harmony of the nation.

ET has leart that India had provided very specific inputs to Lankan security  apparatus about the attacks, including the names of the perpetrators, their modus operandi and movement of terrorists and places which were targeted on Easter Sunday.

In South Asia, Sri Lanka is Pakistan's security partner and had started buying arms and ammunition from Pakistan in a big way from 1999.

The total purchases until December 2007 were worth $50 million while there has been a sudden jump in the quantity of merchandise ordered in 2009 and the amount has been trebled.

In April 2009, Sri Lanka requested $25 million worth of ammunition to be delivered within a month.

 

Meanwhile as reported in The Guardian, 2 May 2019

Sri Lanka’s police have named nine people they say staged the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 253 people, and said the attackers’ assets would be confiscated in line with anti-terror laws.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera confirmed on Wednesday that two of the luxury hotels were bombed by two brothers from a wealthy Colombo family involved in spice exports.

The group of Islamists had used one bomber at each of the locations hit, except at Shangri-La hotel where there were two suicide explosions.

One of the Shangri-La bombers was Zahran Hashim, the leader of the local jihadist group responsible for the attacks that were claimed by Isis. Hashim headed the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) which has since been banned. He attacked the Shangri-La in the company of fellow Islamist Ilham Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim.

Ilham’s elder brother Inshaf Ahmed was the man who bombed the nearby Cinnamon grand hotel.

The third hotel to be targeted, the Kingsbury, was bombed by a man identified as Mohamed Azzam Mubarak Mohamed. His wife was now in police custody, Gunasekera said.

St Anthony’s church was targeted by a local resident named Ahmed Muaz. His brother has been arrested. The St Sebastian bomber was Mohamed Hasthun, a resident from the island’s east where Hashim was based.

The Christian Zion church in the eastern district of Batticaloa was hit by a local resident, Mohamed Nasser Mohamed Asad.

Another man who failed to set a bomb off at a luxury hotel, but detonated his explosives at a guest house near the capital, was identified as Abdul Latheef who had studied both in Britain and Australia.

Shortly after the hotel bomb attacks, Fathima Ilham, the wife of the younger of the two brothers, blasted explosives strapped to herself, killing her two children and three police officers who rushed to the family home in Colombo.

“We are going to use prevention of terrorist financing laws to confiscate their property,” Gunasekera said.