321 killed and 500 injured | Islamic State menace is back
“We believe that the NTJ were only the foot soldiers and the controllers were someone else,” – Sri Lankan Government
- Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the gruesome bombings in Sri Lanka through the group’s AMAQ news agency
- However, the ISIS did not substantiate its claim with any evidence
- Sri Lanka’s defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene had stated that the bombings were a “retaliation” for the Christchurch Mosque massacre
- Initially, Sri Lankan authorities had suspected homegrown Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) but speculated “international support”.
- Sri Lankan investigations brought out NTJ’s links to a lesser-known radical Islamist group in India called Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen India (JMI)
Sir Lankan Defence Minister Wijewardene said in the parliament:
“The preliminary investigations have revealed that what happened in Sri Lanka was in retaliation for the attack against Muslims in Christchurch,”.
Government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said there was certainly an international network which enabled local links to succeed in the coordinated suicide bombings. He said:
“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.”
Senaratne revealed that investigations established a strong link between National Thowheeth Jama’ath group which carried out the attacks on ground and an Indian outfit known as JMI.
