The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the deadly terrorist blasts in Sri Lanka, as investigations intensified into Sunday’s coordinated attacks that killed 321 people in churches and high-end hotels.
“Those who carried out the attack that targeted citizens belonging to the alliance countries and Christians in Sri Lanka are fighters with the Islamic State,” read a statement on IS news agency Amaq carried by SITE, which tracks groups.
“Alliance countries” refers to those involved in the US-led military coalition against the IS in Syria, which includes 79 nations from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, although Sri Lanka is not among them.
Photo: Reuters
The US last month declared that the last swath of territory once held by the group in Iraq and Syria has been liberated.
It is too early to say the extent of involvement — if any — the IS group had in the planning and coordination of the attacks, said Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a researcher in London who tracks IS and maintains a database of the group’s archives.
“It’s possible they didn’t know about it in advance and like every one else they were following various reports,” al-Tamimi said. “As it began to point more and more toward IS supporters, they felt they could claim it.”
Interpol has joined the investigation to help identify potential international connections, with attention also focused on a second extremist group called Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen based in Bangladesh.
In a special session of the parliament yesterday, Sri Lankan State Minister of Defense and Mass Media Ruwan Wijewardene said that investigators were probing links between the local group National Thowheed Jama’ath and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.
The bombings could have been retaliation for the terrorist attacks on two New Zealand mosques last month, he said.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last night addressed the media in Colombo and acknowledged the government needed to make policy changes in to “avoid security lapses.”
“The security apparatus is of the view that there are foreign links, and there is evidence that points to that,” Wickremesinghe said. “We will be following up on the claim by IS — there were some suspicions that there were links with IS.”
So far only Sri Lankan citizens had been taken in for questioning, he said, noting some may have traveled abroad and returned.
Wickremesinghe vowed that Sri Lanka would not allow the attacks to lead to another war, referring to the three-decade civil war that ended in 2009.
“The intelligence agencies have reported that there were international organizations behind these acts of local terrorists,” Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said in a statement. “Hence, it has been decided to seek international assistance for investigations.”
The government said that other nations had shared intelligence ahead of the blasts.
More than 40 suspects were in custody, national police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.
Authorities had received warnings, but “not enough attention had been paid,” Wickremesinghe said.
“There had been several warnings from foreign intelligence agencies about the impending attacks,” Sri Lankan Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicine Rajitha Senaratne told a news conference in Colombo on Monday.
EFFICIENCY: The rules for Philippine arrivals were revised after 17.6% of arrivals with symptoms tested positive, compared with 0.7% of those with no symptoms Starting today, Chinese spouses who hold a reunion permit can apply to enter Taiwan and travelers without symptoms from the Philippines do not need to be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival, but are to be tested after a 14-day quarantine, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that from today, Chinese who are married to a Taiwanese citizen and hold a reunion permit can apply to the National Immigration Agency for entry into Taiwan. Chinese who are married to a foreign national and hold an accompanied reunion permit
CONSOLIDATION? Taiwan Thinktank deputy executive-general Doong Sy-chi said Beijing’s intimidation tactics are further alienating those who identify as Chinese Only 2 percent of respondents to a poll on constitutional amendments and national identity identified as Chinese, while 62.6 percent identified as Taiwanese, the Taiwan Thinktank said yesterday. Legislators have proposed amendments to the Additional Articles of the Constitution (憲法增修條文), which would change the definition of the nation’s territory, remove the Taiwan Provincial Government as an entity, prioritize the use of “Taiwan” for national groups at international events, and remove restrictions on defining the national emblem, national flag and national anthem. The poll showed that 80.5 percent of respondents agreed that the nation should participate as “Taiwan” at events organized by world
MISTAKE: The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy is not a UN body, and the government is committed to protecting the nation’s name, Joseph Wu said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday condemned the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy for listing Taiwanese cities as belonging to China on its Web site, and asked that it correct the error. The organization was inaugurated in Brussels in 2016 as a global coalition of mayors committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Six Taiwanese cities at the time joined the coalition as cities in “Taiwan,” the ministry said. However, officials from the Kaohsiung City Government — one of the organization’s members — last week noticed that the city was now listed on the organization’s Web site as a
BALANCED DEVELOPMENT: TSMC chairman Mark Liu said the firm is committed to local investment: a third in the north, a third in the center, a third in the south Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that, based on its strategy of balancing capacity, it plans to make northern Taiwan its manufacturing hub for advanced technologies that go beyond 2 nanometers. “As the company is committed to investing in Taiwan, we try to deploy one-third [of our total production capacity] in the north and have one-third each in the center and south” of the nation, TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) told reporters on the sidelines of Semicon Taiwan’s Master Forum in Taipei. TSMC last year reached its goal of deploying capacity equally across those parts
RSS