The Sri Lankan government yesterday 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 (IS) 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.
Photo: AFP
Police have so far arrested 58 people, all Sri Lankans, and security remains heavy, with bomb squads yesterday carrying out several controlled explosions of suspect packages.
However, 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.
However, 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,” Sri Lankan State Minister of Defense and Mass Media Ruwan Wijewardene said at a news conference yesterday. “The government has to take responsibility.”
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has asked the police chief and defense secretary to quit, two sources close to the president said yesterday, although the sources declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter amid government accusations.
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.
New details emerged about some of the bombers yesterday, with Wijewardene saying that 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,” Wijewardene added.
A US FBI team has arrived in Sri Lanka, Wijewardene said, and the UK, Australia and the United Arab Emirates have all offered intelligence help.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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