| Day 4 events can be seen here. |
[AnNahar] Sri Lankan security forces detained 18 new suspects in the Easter bombings that killed more than 350 people, as the government admitted Wednesday that "major" intelligence lapses had led to a failure to prevent the attacks. The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group's claim of responsibility for Sunday's strikes on three hotels and three churches increased pressure over ignored warnings of the bombings, and the government was expected to announce sackings in the security forces and police leadership.
The 18 new arrests were made in night-time raids using emergency powers, said police front man Ruwan Gunasekera.
Fifty-eight people are now in jug and more arrests are expected in coming days, deputy defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene told a presser.
The government has said more attacks are possible and in a sign of the heightened tensions, authorities carried out at least two controlled kabooms of a suspect package and vehicle on Wednesday.
Wijewardene also gave new details on the bombers. One had studied in Britannia and then did post-graduate studies in Australia before returning to Sri Lanka. Others were also believed to have travelled abroad, he told a presser.
"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 said.
- IS CLAIM -
Amid the frantic hunt for suspects, Islamic State grabbed credit for the strikes and released photos and video of the men it said were involved in the attacks. Seven of the eight men in the images had their faces covered. Islamic State group called the blasts "blessed attacks" on the "infidel holiday".
The authenticity of the images could not be independently verified but experts said the attacks bear many hallmarks of a coordinated Islamic State operation.
The government has blamed a local Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), and said they were investigating whether the bombers had foreign help.
The deputy defence minister said it was believed the jacket wallahs came from an NTJ "splinter group" whose leader had killed himself.
In the Islamic State video, a man believed to be the leader of the NTJ, Zahran Hashim,
| ...also known as Mohammed Zahran and Zahran Hashmi, he became known three years ago for his fiery YouTube speeches... |
...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart...Sri Lankan police sources have told AFP that two Moslem 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 jug.
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 went
kaboom!, killing two people.
The funerals of dozens more victims were held Wednesday but the government became embroiled in recriminations over warnings about the attacks up to two weeks before they were carried out.
- LEADERSHIP CULL -
President Maithripala Sirisena, who is also defence and law and order minister, has pledged "major changes" to the security forces and police leadership.
Sri Lanka's police chief issued a warning on April 11 that NTJ suicide kabooms were possible and alerts had been given by a foreign intelligence agency. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has acknowledged the information was not passed to his office or other top ministers.
"It was a major lapse in the sharing of information," the deputy defence minister said. "The government has to take responsibility."
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.
The US ambassador to Sri Lanka has denied that her government had prior knowledge of the planned attacks.
A US FBI team is now in Sri Lanka, Wijewardene said, and Britannia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates have all offered intelligence help.
Sri Lankan Moslem leaders said they had many several complaints to police about Hashim's activities. His whereabouts after the bombings were unknown however.
- IDENTIFYING THE DEAD -
Work was continuing to identify foreign victims in the blasts.
A Danish billionaire lost three of his children in the attacks, a front man for his company said.
Eight Britons, 10 Indians, four Americans and nationals from
...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor....
, Australia, Japan and Portugal were also reported killed.
The United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
said at least 45 children, Sri Lankans and foreigners, were among the dead.
Sri Lanka suicide bomber who studied in UK named as Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed[NEWS.SKY] Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohammed is believed to have studied in the southeast of England at some point between 2006 and 2007.
One of the nine jacket wallahs was a woman, who killed herself as police raided her home, and another - who targeted the Shangri-La hotel - has been identified as factory owner Insan Seelavan.
The woman, thought to be the wife of one of the bombers, blew herself up at the home of her father-in-law, who has been taken into custody.
Indian intelligence warned of threat hours before Sri Lanka suicide attacks
[DAWN] Sri Lankan intelligence officials were tipped off about an imminent attack by Islamist bully boyz hours before a series of suicide kabooms killed more than 300 people on Easter Sunday, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Indian intelligence officers contacted their Sri Lankan counterparts two hours before the first attack to warn of a specific threat on churches, one Sri Lankan defence source and an Indian government source said.
Another Sri Lankan defence source said a warning came "hours before" the first strike.
One of the Sri Lankan sources said a warning was also sent by the Indians on Saturday night. The Indian government source said similar messages had been given to Sri Lankan intelligence agents on April 4 and April 20.
IS has an exclusive picture with the Lanka attack team and now have released a video
[TWITTER]
Updated with the latest information, including IS’s claims. It seems that this was at the very least guided, if not a directed attack. IS has an exclusive picture with the attack team and now have released a video. https://t.co/99ylLblzB2
— Aaron Y. Zelin (@azelin) April 23, 2019
Sri Lanka: One female suicide bomber who blew herself & her children up when police tried to raid the home
[TWITTER]
#UPDATE: Earlier Sri Lankan police confirmed that in fact 9 suicide bombers had been involved in the attacks in total. Including one female suicide bomber who blew herself & her children up when police tried to raid the home
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) April 24, 2019
#SriLankaAttacks IS/prominent Scholars spread this message confirming these kinds of attacks are planned by IS Central
[TWITTER]
#SriLankaAttacks IS/prominent Scholars spread this message confirming these kinds of attacks are planned by IS Central and done also for psychological tactics to boost moral of Muslims and Mujahideen. This target is worth more than the blood of 1000 innocents @StateDept @CIA pic.twitter.com/oiqQ2dcDUJ
— Rosanna (@RosannaMrtnz) April 24, 2019
| The Daily Mail has the usual photos and videos, plus |
- Wealthy brothers Inshaf and Ilham Ibrahim, the sons of a millionaire spice trader, bombed the luxury Shangri-La and Cinnamon Grand hotels in Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday terror attack
- Their attacks claimed the lives of at least 41 foreigners, including eight British holidaymakers - three of whom were children
- As police raided their £1m mansion in an exclusive neighbourhood of Colombo, Ilham's pregnant wife Fatima blew herself up, killing her three children and three officers
- Inshaf, a successful businessman, owned a copper factory thought to be where the suicide bombs were made
- Chilling footage shows Ilham and an accomplice bomber attack the Shangri-La while guests had breakfast
- Second clip earlier showed different bomber patting a girl on the head before launching attack on a church