Sri Lanka blasts: At least 140 dead and more than 560 injured in multiple church and hotel explosions

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CNN

Sugam Pokharel and Euan McKirdy

Apr. 21 2019

(CNN) An ongoing series of bomb blasts struck luxury hotels and churches across Sri Lanka on Sunday. At least 140 people were killed and 560 have been injured in the coordinated terror attacks, which have put the entire country on lock-down.

The first wave of attacks struck at the heart of the country's minority Christian community during busy Easter services at churches in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa on Sunday morning.

Additional blasts ripped through three high-end hotels, the Shangri La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury Hotel, all in capital city Colombo. In a statement, the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo said that the hotel's Table One cafe was hit just after 9 a.m local time. The hotel is popular with foreign tourists and the country's business community.

A seventh and eighth blast, at a hotel in front of the Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia and at a private house in Mahawila Gardens, in Dematagoda, occurred Sunday afternoon.

Here's the full list of blast sites reported so far:

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Seven arrested as death toll grows

The defence minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, says seven people have been arrested in connection with the attacks. He says at least 190 people have been killed, including 27 foreigners.

(This post was amended as it was initially reported he said the death toll had risen to 160)

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Sri Lankan police issued an intelligence alert warning that terrorists planned to hit ‘prominent churches’ 10 days before the Easter suicide bombings

Ellen Cranley

Apr. 21 2019

Sri Lankan police issued a warning to top officials 10 days before a series of deadly blasts struck churches and hotels across the country, according to intelligence reported by AFP.

Police chief Pujuth Jayasundara reportedly wrote in the intelligence alert that suicide bombers affiliated with a radical Muslim group planned to hit "prominent churches."

"A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama'ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo," the alert reportedly said.

The National Thowheeth Jama'ath, or the NTJ, is a known group in Sri Lanka that was previously linked to the vandalization of Buddhist statues, the report notes.

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Covered bodies and debris in St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka, after a string of explosions ripped through hotels and churches on Sunday.CreditIshara S. Kodikara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

 

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This is what an idiot looks like

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Obama, Clinton, Democrats Denounce Attacks on ‘Easter Worshippers,’ Not ‘Christians’

Former President Barack Obama, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and several other leading Democrats denounced terror attacks on what they called “Easter worshippers” — not Christians — Sunday in Sri Lanka.

Suicide bombers murdered nearly 300 people and wounded 500 more in attacks on three churches, three hotels, and a housing complex. Many were killed as they attended Mass for Easter Sunday. The government reportedly suspects that the bombers, all Sri Lankans, were members of “a domestic Islamist terror group named National Thowfeek Jamaath.”

Yet Obama, Clinton, and other Democrats — including 2020 presidential contender Julián Castro — could not bring themselves to identify the victims of the attacks as “Christians,” calling them “Easter worshippers” instead in eerily similar responses:

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The Islamic State released a video of the terrorists responsible for the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. Led by Zahran Hashim (center), they swore allegiance to Baghdadi.

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Sri Lanka PM warns of more attacks as bombers still at large

Suspects could have access to explosives and aim to carry out more suicide bombings, Ranil Wickremesinghe says

Emily Schmall

Apr. 26 2019

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s prime minister said Thursday that suspects linked to the coordinated Easter Sunday bomb attacks remain at large and could have access to explosives.

Some of the suspects “may go out for a suicide attack,” Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview with The Associated Press.

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Police, meanwhile, issued a public appeal for information about three women and two men suspected of involvement in the attacks.

Wickremesinghe also said that the father of two of the suspected suicide bombers, Colombo spice dealer Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim, had been arrested. He described him as a leading businessman active in politics known as “Ibrahim Hajiar,” a Sri Lankan term for Muslims who have gone on religious pilgrimages to Mecca.

The prime minister expressed doubt about Ibrahim’s complicity in the attack.

“People like that would not have wanted their sons to blow themselves up,” he said.

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Sri Lanka Bombings: A Story of ISIS and Wealthy Terrorists

John Hinderaker

April 26, 2019

In the U.S., coverage of the Islamic terrorist bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has been sparse and generally uninformative. It tells you something when Britain’s Sun, which has mostly abandoned the news in favor of soccer and celebrities in bikinis, is a better source than the New York Times or the Washington Post. That is certainly the case with regard to the Sri Lanka bombings.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings, a claim that initially was doubted. But links between the mass murderers and ISIS have now been confirmed. The Islamist network in Sri Lanka was more extensive than previously known:

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So who were ISIS’s men and women in Sri Lanka? Again, we turn to the Sun for more information than you will get from American newspapers: “GILDED JIHADIS: How Sri Lanka attacks’ upper-class death squad betrays myth ISIS is just career criminals and street thugs.”

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Inshaf Ibrahim’s mansion with his white BMW parked outside

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The Sun portrays these wealthy jihadis as exceptions to the rule, but that isn’t quite correct. While most jihadis are not as wealthy as these Sri Lankans, the majority of those in leadership roles, at least, are solidly middle-class or above. Medicine and engineering are common professions. And jihadis are generally well-educated. The image of Islamic terrorists as pathetic losers is mostly wrong. Rather, they are generally triumphalist: they think they are winning.

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Sri Lanka raids headquarters of hardline Islamist group suspected in church bombings

April 27, 2019 / 11:44 PM / Updated 10 hours ago

COLOMBO/KATTANKUDY (Reuters) - Sri Lankan police raided the headquarters of a hardline Islamist group founded by the suspected ringleader behind the Easter suicide bombings of churches and hotels, a Reuters witness said, as Sunday mass was canceled due to fears of further attacks.

Armed police in the town of Kattankudy searched the headquarters of the National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and detained one man at the premises, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. Police did not comment.

On Saturday the government banned the NTJ under new emergency laws.

The authorities believe Zahran Hashim, the founder of NTJ, masterminded and was one of the nine suicide bombers in the attacks on Easter Sunday which killed 253 people. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks.

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Latest Sri Lanka arrest throws spotlight on Wahhabism in eastern hotbed

May 12 2019

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings, throwing a spotlight on the rising influence of Salafi-Wahhabi Islam on the island’s Muslims.

Mohamed Aliyar, 60, is the founder of the Centre for Islamic Guidance, which boasts a mosque, a religious school and a library in Zahran’s hometown of Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated city on Sri Lanka’s eastern shores.

“Information has been revealed that the suspect arrested had a close relationship with ... Zahran and had been operating financial transactions,” said a police statement late on Friday.

The statement said Aliyar was “involved” with training in the southern town of Hambantota for the group of suicide bombers who attacked hotels and churches on Easter, killing over 250 people.

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