The Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka that left at least 321 people dead and more than 500 injured. A statement on the group’s official al-Amaq news agency made the claim on the encrypted messaging app Telegram saying the suicide bombers were “fighters of the Islamic State”. The group did not provide any evidence to back the claim. However, now a video of a suspected suicide bomber is going viral, where he can be seen entering into St Sebastian church on Easter Sunday with a backpack.
Earlier, today Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe described the Easter Sunday’s attacks as “global terrorism reaching Sri Lanka”.
Wickremesinghe said in his address in Parliament that the attacks were of a different nature than the political objectives of the terrorist campaign which Sri Lanka faced until 2009 when the three-decade long conflict ended with the defeat of the LTTE. “Muslim community is against these attacks. There are only a few who are involved in these attacks,” Wickremesinghe said, adding that the international community has expressed solidarity with Sri Lanka over the blasts.
The group which carried out the attacks was trained for the planned attacks. The government will deal with the situation and end the threats from extremists, he said. Leader of the Opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa blamed the government for failing to ensure national security.”When I handed over the government it was free of terrorism. No such attack would have happened under my government,” he said. Rajapaksa said the government must step down if public security cannot be guaranteed.
