Sri Lanka yesterday said it believed a local Islamist extremist group was behind deadly suicide bomb blasts that killed nearly 300 people as it announced a national state of emergency beginning at midnight.
Government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said investigators were looking at whether the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) group had “international support” for the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and luxury hotels.
Wary of stirring ethnic and religious tensions, officials have provided few details about 24 people arrested since the attacks.
Photo: AP
Not much is known about the NTJ, but documents seen by reporters show that Sri Lanka’s police chief issued a warning on April 11, saying a “foreign intelligence agency” had reported the group was planning attacks on churches and the Indian high commission.
The group has previously been linked to the vandalizing of Buddhist statues.
“We don’t see that only a small organization in this country can do all that,” Senaratne said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We are now investigating the international support for them, and their other links ... how they produced the suicide bombers here, and how they produced bombs like this,” he said.
The death toll from Sunday’s attacks yesterday rose dramatically to 290 — including dozens of foreigners — in the country’s worst attacks for more than a decade.
More than 500 people were injured in the assault that saw suicide bombers hit three high-end hotels popular with foreign tourists, and three churches, unleashing carnage in Colombo and beyond.
Two additional blasts were triggered as security forces carried out raids searching for suspects.
Police yesterday reported a fresh explosion as they attempted to defuse another suspected bomb found near one of the three churches targeted, as well as finding 87 bomb detonators scattered on the ground at a bus station and a nearby garbage dump.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s office said a state of emergency “limited to counterterrorism regulations only” would be introduced from midnight yesterday.
“This is being done to allow the police and the three forces to ensure public security,” the statement said, referring to the army, navy and air force.
Officials said Sirisena would meet today with Colombo-based diplomats to seek international assistance in the investigation.
The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) also announced that it was deploying an Incident Response Team, including experts in disaster victim identification, crime scene examination, explosives and counterterror, at the request of the Sri Lanka authorities.
“If required, additional expertise in digital forensics, biometrics, as well as photo and video analysis will also be added to the team on the ground,” Interpol said.
The government information department said a curfew would run from 8pm last night until 4am today.
Two leading Muslim groups condemned the attacks, with the All Ceylon Jamiyaathuul Ulama, a council of theologians, urging the “maximum punishment for everyone involved in these dastardly acts.”
In Washington, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the US would keep fighting “radical Islamic terror,” saying it remains a threat and “we are continuing to do real work against these evil human beings.”
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