Easter Sunday Sri Lanka church bombings, 321 killed 45 kids

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Warnings of attacks given on Christian churches
Buddhist terrorist?
National Thowheeth Jama’ath?
"This is the CI..., ahem, BBC"
Or Zio-Nazi satanic agenda working with India's Modi.
Yes, looks like Mossad job.

What Is National Thowheeth Jama’ath? Suspicion Falls on Sri Lanka Islamic Group
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/world/asia/ntj-sri-lanka-national-t howheeth-jamaath.html
Sri Lankan soldiers guarding a church in Colombo on Sunday. Hundreds were killed and hundreds more injured in coordinated blasts at churches and hotels in the country on Easter Sunday.

Sri Lankan soldiers guarding a church in Colombo on Sunday. Hundreds were killed and hundreds more injured in coordinated blasts at churches and hotels in the country on Easter Sunday.CreditCreditChamila Karunarathne/Associated Press
By Sandra E. Garcia
April 22, 2019

As the authorities investigate the bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, their focus has centered on National Thowheeth Jama’ath, a little-known group that experts said promotes Islamic terrorist ideology.

No one has claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks, which killed at least 290 people, and the Sri Lankan authorities have so far not identified any group as being behind them, even as they have arrested two dozen suspects.

But 10 days before the attacks, a police official sent an advisory to the security authorities warning of a possible threat to churches by National Thowheeth Jama’ath.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

This was few days back that got reported in English by chance...
This is the context within which it all happenned. Most such attacks - building up to this has been self censored to help tourism boom and the attackers ...
Don't term them terrorists... more misled mobs... are Sinhalese Buddhist idiots
http://www.jdslanka.org/index.php/news-features/human-rights/876-mobs- attack-sri-lanka-methodist-center-for-disabled-on-palm-sunday





Some context?
‘Arrogance’ led to Sri Lanka ex defence chief getting caught in the US (VIDEO)

http://www.jdslanka.org/index.php/news-features/politics-a-current-aff airs/875-arrogance-led-to-sri-lanka-ex-defence-chief-getting-caught-in -the-us
12 APRIL 2019

An international human rights organisation singles out the 'arrogance' of Sri Lanka's former top defence official as the key factor in him being caught in US lawsuits.

The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), in partnership with US law firm Hausfeld and human rights lawyer Scott Gilmore, had filed a civil damages case against Gotabaya Rajapaksa on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor, Roy Samathanam.

A separate case had also been filed by California based Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) on behalf of Ahimsa Wickremetunge seeking justice for her assassinated journalist father Lasantha Wickrematunge.

It alleges that the extra-judicial killing in 2009 was “instigated and authorised” by Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had overall command of the military and the police under his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa's rule that was brought to an end four years ago.

Private investigators working on behalf of the legal teams tracked Rajapaksa down on 7 Sunday night to a Trader Joe’s car park in the Californian city of Pasadena, where he was formally served with notice of the civil suits.



Poetic Justice

How did the former defence secretary get caught?

“Hubris is a good word to describe it,” ITJP’s Executive Director told JDS in London.

“You know the arrogance of believing that you will never be held accountable, and so take a chance once more to visit, even though you may be aware that there are people out there who will be monitoring your movements.”

“When you look at his arrogance, when he is visiting a Trader Joe’s store, and that is poetic justice.”

Roy SamathanamRoy Samathanam, a Canadian national, was arrested on false charges in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo in September 2007 by Sri Lankan police who reported directly to Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the time.

“He was in fact in overall command and control of the Terrorist Investigation Department and in fact dealt directly with the Inspector General, Where both of them also sat and reported on a weekly basis to the national security council. So it is quite easy to prove a direct line to Gotabhaya,” said Yasmin Sooka.

Visiting Sri Lanka to marry his wife, Roy Samathanam was detained for three years and repeatedly denied access to a lawyer or a judge. Guards tortured him, threatened to rape and kill his wife and child, and made him watch the electrocution of other prisoners. He was forced to sign a false confession before being released in August 2010 on a plea deal.

Since his release, Roy has been an outspoken advocate, says ITJP.

UN ruling ignored

In 2011, he testified about his ordeal in the Parliament of Canada. In 2016, Roy Samathanam won a UN Human Rights Committee case, but Sri Lanka has failed to abide by the compensation ruling. It compelled him to seek justice elsewhere.

“Scott GilmoreWhile I was in prison I learned what inhumanity looks like,” said plaintiff Roy Samathanam. “So far, there has been no accountability, so I am happy to take this first step to get justice. This action will give torture victims in Sri Lanka hope for the future.”

Roy Samathanam was praised for having the courage to come forward and speak openly of what he went through.

“Mr Samathanam was one of countless civilians detained and tortured in Sri Lanka because of their ethnic Tamil identity,” said human rights lawyer Scott Gilmore, who led the compensation case successfully brought by the family of Sunday Times journalist, Marie Colvin, against the Government of Syria. “Under international law, Mr Rajapaksa bears command responsibility for the abuses carried by his security forces.”

Gotabaya Rajapaksa who returned to Sri Lanka on 12 April recieved a rousing welcome at the airport by his supporters who hailed him as the "heroic next president of the nation".

Speaking to media upon his arrival, Rajapaksa said that his 'lawyers will work to obtain a stay of proceedings.'

"It is clear that this legal action was taken because of the upcoming presidential election. Many forces have their influence in this, including an international NGO run by the LTTE" he added.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa has got just over two weeks to formally respond to the allegations.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

புண்ணிய காலத்தில் கிறிஸ்தவ மத்திய நிலையத்திற்கு தாமரை மொட்டின் பிரதேச சபை உறுப்பினரது குண்டர்கள் தாக்குதல்; மத அடிப்படைவாதிகள் சுதந்திரமாக வெளியே; அரசாங்கத்தின் நல்லிணக்கம் ஆடை இழந்தது..!
https://lankaenews.com/news/89/ta
The video in Sinhalese in a Tamil article dated 20th Apr...is of a senior priest depositing info on the Anti Christian attacks this year . Most if not all such attacks are by default pointed to Rajapaksa family's new political part activists.


Hezbollah Denounces Sri Lanka Blasts, Hopes Imminent Apparition of Imam Mahdi (P) to Restore World’s Security & Peace
2 weeks ago April 21, 2019
Hezbollah flag
Hezbollah Statements - Lebanon - Live News - News - Top
http://english.almanar.com.lb/721536

Hezbollah condemned the terrorist blasts which targeted churches and hotels in Sri Lanka and claimed hundreds of innocent victims, denouncing endangering the believers at the places of worship on the glorious holidays.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Hezbollah reiterated that terror might never hold any religions identity, calling on all believers who follow the various religious creeds to stand united in face of this dangerous scourge whether represented by individuals or fabricated entities.

“On Imam Al-Mahdi (P) Birthday, Hezbollah hopes that Holy God grant the oppressed all over the world the imminent apparition of the Imam, so that all mankind enjoys security and peace.”

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Rita Katz seems to know all about this attack. Amazing woman!

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

supposed CCTV of one of the bombers
But doesn't really prove anything
Particularly if he put the bomb down before leaving to detonate it
Even whether he knew it was a bomb he was carrying


Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnPmphvxnCk

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Sri Lanka attacks
Sri Lanka authorities were warned of attacks two weeks ago, says minister
More than 20 suspects arrested as death toll from Easter Sunday bombings rises to 290
Sri Lanka bombings: latest updates
Michael Safi in Negombo, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Jason Burke
Mon 22 Apr 2019 12.53 BST
The Sri Lankan authorities received warnings two weeks before the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that killed at least 290 people, a cabinet spokesman admitted on Monday.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/sri-lanka-attacks-death- toll-from-bombings-rises-sharply-to-290

“Fourteen days before these incidents occurred, we had been informed about these incidents,” Rajitha Senaratne told a press conference in the capital, Colombo, a day after the bombings, which also injured at least 500 people.

Senaratne, Sri Lanka’s health minister, also said the names of some of the suspects had been given to authorities earlier this month.

“On 9 April, the chief of national intelligence wrote a letter and in this letter many of the names of the members of the terrorist organisation were written down.”

Sri Lanka bombings: doubts over Islamist group's potential role
Read more
The intelligence memo warning about the attacks had named the radical Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath as planning suicide bomb attacks on churches, he said.

But it was unclear whether any new information had emerged since the attacks that firmly established the organisation as their perpetrators.

National Thowheeth Jama’ath is a newly formed group in Sri Lanka committed to a militant and intolerant Islamist ideology. But though it is known for being a virulently anti-Buddhist and has been linked to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues, it has not previously been linked to terrorism. Four of its members were arrested in January.

Experts say it is unlikely the organisation would have been able to rapidly develop the capability to perpetrate a complex attack involving multiple suicide bombings without very significant outside assistance.

A view of the damage at St Sebastian’s church in Negombo.
A view of the damage at St Sebastian’s church in Negombo. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Senaratne told the press conference investigators believed those who had carried out the attacks were all Sri Lankan nationals, but did not rule out that the attackers had international assistance.

Maithripala Sirisena, the Sri Lankan president, will ask for foreign assistance to track international links, his office said.

“The intelligence reports [indicate] that foreign terrorist organizations are behind the local terrorists. Therefore, the president is to seek the assistance of the foreign countries,” it said in a statement.

The president will also declare a nationwide emergency that will go into effect at midnight on Monday local time. This measure, which will grant police and the military extensive powers to detain and interrogate without court orders, was in force at various times during the bloody 26-year civil war with Tamil separatists which ended a decade ago.

The police had 24 suspects in custody on Monday. Police spokesperson Ruwan Gunasekara said they had seized a van and driver they believe transported the suspects into Colombo, and also raided a safe house used by the attackers.

Telecommunications minister, Harin Fernando said: “Right now our biggest priority would be to find what really led these eight or 10 or 12 men to carry out this attack,” he said. “But we are not ruling out a coup as well.”

Senaratne emphasised that the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and his cabinet had not been privy to the warnings about possible attacks because they were not invited to the national security council meetings, which are led by the president.

Soldiers stand guard in front of St Anthony’s shrine on Monday.
Soldiers stand guard in front of St Anthony’s shrine on Monday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
“The prime minister was not informed by these letters and revelations,” Senaratne said. “We are not trying to evade responsibility but these are the facts. We were surprised to see these reports.”

The remarks by the prime minister and his cabinet ministers have led to concerns that security failures leading to the attacks will be used by rival politicians and factions to score political points.

The rift between Wickremesinghe and Sirisena is well known, after the president’s unsuccessful attempt to sack the prime minister in October, and there are fears the country could be thrown into political turmoil once again.

Since that constitutional crisis, Sri Lanka’s two most senior leaders have in effect run parallel governments with little communication between the ministries and institutions they each control.

The divide may have deepened the chaos in the aftermath of Sunday’s attacks: the Guardian understands that Wickremesinghe sought to call a security council meeting with the country’s armed forces chiefs in the aftermath of the attacks on Sunday morning but found none of them would come to his resident at Temple Trees without the authorisation of Sirisena, who was overseas at the time.

The country was still on high alert on Monday afternoon. There was chaos outside St Anthony’s church, which had been gutted in one of the blasts, after a suspicious package was discovered in a van that had been parked nearby since Sunday.

Police also discovered 87 bomb detonators at Colombo’s main bus station on Monday afternoon.

Indian newspapers displaying coverage of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka.
Indian newspapers displaying coverage of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. Photograph: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images
While the government-imposed nationwide curfew was initially lifted at 6am, in the wake of the ongoing security concerns authorities announced it would be reinstated from 8pm on Monday until 4am on Tuesday.

In Negombo, north of the capital, yellow crime scene tape stretched around the perimeter of St Sebastian’s church, a day after a blast ripped through the congregation there.

The courtyard was littered with flowers, shattered stained glass and red and pink debris from the building. Catholic sisters and priests took turns peering through the destroyed windows of the church at the carnage inside.

Parts of the roof and walls had been blown away, revealing the bricks and blue tarpaulin underneath. Red candles were still in bunches at the ends of some of the pews.

Shoes at St Sebastian’s Catholic church in Negombo.
Shoes at St Sebastian’s Catholic church in Negombo. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
Another priest in the courtyard said he was struggling to contain himself. “If this is done by who I suspect – is this their religion?” he said.

Hundreds of Sri Lankans and at least 39 foreigners – including those from the UK, Turkey, Japan, the Netherlands, China, Portugal, Australia and India – were killed in the coordinated attacks, the worst in Sri Lanka since the civil war ended a decade ago.

The eight blasts, which police confirmed were suicide bomb attacks, seemed designed to cause maximum casualties, targeting worshippers at Easter Sunday services and guests having breakfast in the Shangri-La, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand hotels in Colombo.

They saw one young man go into the church with a heavy bag.
Dilip Fernando, St Sebastian’s church-goer
Details about those who had died in the attacks began to trickle out slowly on Monday morning. One of the first Sri Lankans confirmed dead was the celebrity chef Shantha Mayadunne, who had been having breakfast at the Shangri-La with her family when the blast went off.

Sri Lanka needs exemplary leadership during this national catastrophe | Dilrukshi Handunnetti
Read more
The police declined say which site had been worst hit or to break down the death toll. However, it is thought at least 50 people were killed at St Sebastian’s church in the seaside town of Negombo and at least 160 people were injured in a blast at St Anthony’s shrine in Colombo.

A government block on social media sites and apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp remained, which the government said was to prevent the spread of misinformation that could further inflame tensions.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Experts said both the nature of the victims, such as the Holch Povlsen children and local Catholics, and the scale and the sophistication of the operation, meant that Sri Lankan extremists must have had support from the wider global Islamist movement.
Officials blamed the nine bombings, in Colombo and two other cities, on National Thowfeek Jama’ath, a previously low-profile group that has emerged from tensions between Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhist Sinhalese and a Muslim minority.
Amarnath Amarasingam, of London’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told the New York Times he believed local extremists would have needed help to carry out the attacks.
He said: “The target selection and attack type make me very sceptical that this was carried out by a local group without any outside involvement. There’s no reason for local extremist groups to attack churches, and little reason to attack tourists.”
Other experts said that the terrorists would have hoped to incite inter-religious tensions by attacking churches.

22nd April
Sri Lanka attacks: Three children of Scotland's biggest landowner Anders Povlsen killed
By David Leask @leaskyHT
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17589120.sri-lanka-attacks-three-c hildren-of-scotlands-biggest-landowner-anders-povlsen-killed/

Three children of Scotland's biggest landowner Anders Povlsen killed in Sri Lanka attacks

Scotland's biggest landowner lost three of his four children in the wave of suicide bombings to hit Sri Lanka on Sunday.

Billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen had only just announced that his family would continue his controversial efforts to re-wild his dozen Highland estates after his own death.

READ MORE: Scotland's biggest landowner Anders Povlsen says his children will help rewild Highlands once he is gone
His loss was confirmed as officials in Sri Lanka said they believe the attacks – which killed at least 290 and injured another 500 – were carried out by a local Islamist group.


The terrorists focused their assaults on churches and five-star hotels, suggesting Christians and foreigners were the main targets.

READ MORE: Who is Anders Povlsen, Scotland's biggest landowner?
Sri Lankan authorities said some 30 of the dead were foreign nationals, including eight Britons.

Another 14 foreigners are missing and a further 17 are still in hospital receiving treatment.

A British mother, Anita Nicholson, and her two children Alex and Annabel were among those killed after a suicide bomber blew themselves up at the breakfast buffer of their hotel, the Shangri-La in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

The UK victims also included former firefighter Bill Harrop and his partner Sally Bradley from Manchester, who were on holiday.

HeraldScotland:
Experts said both the nature of the victims, such as the Holch Povlsen children and local Catholics, and the scale and the sophistication of the operation, meant that Sri Lankan extremists must have had support from the wider global Islamist movement.

Officials blamed the nine bombings, in Colombo and two other cities, on National Thowfeek Jama’ath, a previously low-profile group that has emerged from tensions between Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhist Sinhalese and a Muslim minority.

Amarnath Amarasingam, of London’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told the New York Times he believed local extremists would have needed help to carry out the attacks.


He said: “The target selection and attack type make me very sceptical that this was carried out by a local group without any outside involvement. There’s no reason for local extremist groups to attack churches, and little reason to attack tourists.”

Other experts said that the terrorists would have hoped to incite inter-religious tensions by attacking churches.

READ MORE: Danish tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen splashes out on Highland estate
Sri Lanka ended a decadeslong civil war between Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus a decade ago.

However, there were anti-Muslim riots in 2014 and again last year.

Strained community relations are understood to be “ripe” for exploitation by extremists.

It is not clear which of Mr Holch Povlsen’s children died or where they were staying, or whether they were with their parents.

Jesper Stubkier, communications manager for Mr Holch Povlsen’s clothing business, Bestseller, said: “I can confirm three children have been killed.”

Mr Holch Povlsen, 46, a Danish national, owns 220,000 acres of Scotland and, according to Forbes magazine, has a net worth of £6.1 billion.

The family has five country sports estates between Ben Loyal and Eriboll.


10

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

3 main questions, why hard evidence is not an option in 'suicide bombings'
1. must be hard military target or bomber can 'drop then detonate'
2. remote detonated: is carrier aware bomb is in car or rucksack?
3. is bomb actually guided missile fired from drone or at high altitude?

[TonyGosling]

20. I was asked by someone if ISIS is framing this attack as retaliation for Christchurch? There have been 4 official ISIS communications so far. None of them mentioned Christchurch and we know that targeting churches has long been ISIS policy.

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 23, 2019

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1. The Islamic State’s news agency has claimed responsibility for the string of bombings in Sri Lanka which left 321 people dead. It’s taken them more than 2 days to do so, which is unusually long for ISIS:

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2. The claim published by the Amaq News Agency cites “security sources” and states that “Those who carried out the attack that targeted nationals of the Coalition and Christians in Sri Lanka the day before yesterday are Islamic State fighters” (as translated by @monaelnaggar).

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3. Since the series of bombings on Easter Sunday, which hit churches as well as hotels where foreign tourists were staying, the Sri Lankan government has maintained that a local Islamist group was behind the assault but that they had help from an international network.

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4. There are only two international jihadist groups that in my view have the know-how to do what happened in Sri Lanka: ISIS and al-Qaeda, and I would rule out al-Qaeda because post-Christchurch, their leaders issued a statement saying that attacks on churches are off the table

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5. Remember that ISIS considers both directed attacks (meaning ones carried out by combatants they dispatched) and inspired attacks (meaning killings carried out by people inspired by their ideology) to be equally part of their war arsenal. Both in their eyes are legitimate.

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6. The reason that intelligence agencies believe the Sri Lankan attack is the handiwork of an international jihadist organization is because of its sheer sophistication: 6 sites in 3 cities hit by 7 suicide bombers. Nearly all of the explosive charges went off with deadly effect.

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7. Even the attackers who were dispatched directly from Syria to attack Paris in 2015 were not as deadly. The suicide bomber who entered Paris’ Comptoir Voltaire killed only himself, for example. Death toll in Paris from 10 attackers was 130. Sri Lanka = 321.

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8. Carrying out that level of murder means that the cell had a talented bombmaker. We’ve seen numerous directed ISIS plots where the attackers couldn’t cook the explosives including in Hyderabad:

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9. A plot of this nature involving at least 7 suicide bombers means this was no small cell. Imagine the backup that you need: Who drove the attackers to the sites? What safehouses did they use? Not hard to imagine that the core group relied on a dozen or more support staff

1:16 PM - 23 Apr 2019
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Tony Gosling ✈Tweet text




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10. Once you have so many people involved, you need good operational security to make sure word of the looming attack doesn’t get out. They weren’t perfect given that authorities were warned earlier this month. But a plot of this nature takes longer than a month to hatch

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11. I’m still researching this, but if the ISIS link in Sri Lanka proves true, this could be their most deadly attack outside Iraq and Syria. The only other attack that I can find that comes close is the Sufi mosque attack in the Sinai (311 dead). Sri Lanka is 321 and climbing.

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12. Finally, it bears noting that ISIS has put out numerous claims for attacks in other theaters in the 2+ days since the Sri Lanka attack. Claims that take longer than 1 day are not uncommon. But 2 days? That’s rare. There’s a reason for this delay & I’d like to know what it is

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13. Meanwhile, ISIS supporters say that Sri Lanka is the deadliest attack since the declaration of the caliphate in 2014. They brag that removal of their physical caliphate has done nothing to stop them:

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14. ISIS has just issued a longer press release on the Sri Lanka attack, in which it provides what it says are the noms de guerre of the 7 bombers: Abu Ubayda, Abu al-Mukhtar, Abu Khalil, Abu Hamza, Abu al-Baraa, Abu Muhammad and Abu Abdullah.

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15. The statement goes on to say, according to a translation by @siteintelgroup, that Abu Hamza detonated his vest in St Anthony’s Church in Colombo; Abu Khalil detonated his in St Sebastian in Negombo; Abu Muhammad in Zion Church. The rest were dispatched to target hotels.

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16. Three of the noms de guerres used in the ISIS statement today match the names provided by an unofficial ISIS supporter channel on Monday, which showed pictures of three of the alleged “commandos” who carried out the attacks, shown masked and posing before the ISIS flag.

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14. The Amaq news agency of ISIS has now provided an image of what it says were the attackers in Sri Lanka standing before the ISIS flag:

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15. And finally, ISIS has issued a video from the alleged attackers. It shows the same 8 men as in the still photo above. They hold their hands together and pledge allegiance to Abu Bak al-Baghdadi, calling him "emir al-mumineem," the emir of the believers:

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16. At the end, they yell Allahu akbar, "God is great," and point their index fingers at the sky, in a sign appropriated by ISIS which indicates their belief in monotheism. Does this prove that ISIS was behind the attack?

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17. It doesn't prove the group was in direct communication with ISIS. What it does indicate - providing the video is proven authentic & really does show the attackers - is that the cell in Sri Lanka took pains to make sure their violence would be seen as being on behalf of ISIS.

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18. It also shows that the alleged attackers were steeped in ISIS lingo. They knew that attackers are supposed to pledge allegiance to the caliph of the Islamic State before an attack. They correctly went through the honorific and the long sequence of family names in their pledge

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19. Again, provided this video really does show the attackers, what we have is at a minimum an ISIS-inspired attack. The investigation that follows should tell us whether there was more substantive direction from ISIS. Either way, this shows the group’s lethality is far from over

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20. I was asked by someone if ISIS is framing this attack as retaliation for Christchurch? There have been 4 official ISIS communications so far. None of them mentioned Christchurch and we know that targeting churches has long been ISIS policy.

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21. That said in ISIS’ larger ecosystem online in the chatrooms used by their supporters, Christchurch has been invoked. See this poster bragging about how many more Christians were killed versus Muslims in NZ. Again this is put out by supporters / is not official ISIS propaganda

[TonyGosling]

Sri Lankan Authorities May Have Fallen Into a Trap Set by a Foreign Power
Written by Adam Garrie on 2019-04-22
More in Analysis and Policy:
https://eurasiafuture.com/2019/04/22/sri-lankan-authorities-may-have-f allen-into-a-trap-set-by-a-foreign-power/


The entire world remains confronted with the horrors that unfolded yesterday throughout Sri Lanka. Whilst the country remains under curfew, the authorities have pinned the blame for the attack on an obscure group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ). NTJ is reportedly an Islamist terror group that as noted by Sri Lankan authorities, has multiple links to foreign countries. The links to foreign countries appears to hold the key to determining who is really behind the attacks. Notably, it has been reported by journalists that the group trains in Chennai in Tamil Nadu – the same location where LTTE had previously trained. Others yet claim that NTJ is such a small and obscure group that even if it wanted to pull off such an attack, it did not have the capacity to do so.

As the Muslim population of Sri Lanka is less than 8% of the country’s entire population, it is difficult to conceive that any genuine local Islamist group would seek to stage such massive attacks when the possibility of any material gain would be limited by the fact that not only is Sri Lanka’s Muslim population at harmony with the Buddhist majority, but the population of Muslims is incredibly small. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Syria where a Sunni Muslim majority was weaponized against a leadership comprised of the minority Alawite faction.

Therefore, due to NTJ’s foreign links, it is highly likely that a foreign entity, most likely a foreign state or state intelligence agency was behind the attacks and that the men on the ground who have been captured are merely pawns in a much larger and even more dangerous game. When it comes to seeking to pin-pointing the country with a clear motive for orchestrating the attacks, India is the one that springs immediately to mind, not least because NTJ reportedly trains where the LTTE once did.

India has a long history of seeking to manipulate the power balance in Sri Lanka in order to turn the country into something of an Indian protectorate. These attempts have notably been resisted by most contemporary Sri Lankan leaders who seek an independent foreign policy that aims at securing win-win friendship not only with India but crucially, also with China and Pakistan.

In spite of this, India was one of the first open backers of the LTTE’s reign of terrorism that gripped Sri Lanka beginning in 1983. India ultimately paid a price for its dithering in the early stages of the Sri Lankan civil war. By the end of the 1987, India had given up on LTTE and instead sought to influence the situation by committing a deeply controversial peace keeping force to Sri Lanka whose overall effect only served to provoke further violence. As a result of India’s 1987 decision to publicly “switch sides”, LTTE assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. In spite of this, it has been widely known in Sri Lanka and elsewhere that in spite of the official rhetoric in New Delhi, India’s RAW intelligence agency resumed covert support of LTTE later in the 1990s.

Since the end of the war against LTTE in 2009, India has sought to monopolise foreign influence in a post-war Sri Lanka that has developed ever more economic ties with China and plays a key role in the Belt and Road initiative. This has clearly been a source of consternation for an Indian state that has a track record of meddling in the affairs of both Sri Lanka and the much smaller Maldives. In both Sri Lanka and the Maldives, political factions are often divided by foreign observers into a pro-India side and a pro-China side. Although such divisions are not black and white, there is a level of truth to such descriptions. As such, India recently engaged in what geopolitical expert Andrew Kroybko described as a “electoral regime change in the Maldives”. This came after the prominent BJP supporter Subramanian Swamy called for a traditional war against the Maldives.

India was clearly looking to the south both in terms of Maldives and Sri Lanka for much of late 2018 and early 2019. Beginning in late 2018, Sri Lanka experienced a serious political crisis after President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former political rival (and former President) Mahinda Rajapaksa. According to Sirisena and his supporters, the proximate causes of Wickremesinghe’s dismissal were personal, cultural and class differences that Sirisena called irreconcilable. Furthermore, it was claimed by some in the Sri Lankan press that the sacking of Wickremesinghe was due to an Indian backed assassination plot against the President which resulted in the abrupt about face in respect of the Sri Lankan President’s loyalty. Later however, Sirisena assured Indian Premier Modi that he had never made such an accusation.

But while Sirisena took the time to assure India that stories regarding an Indian assassination plot are ‘fake news’, an inevitable geopolitical justification for Wickremesinghe’s sacking was offered from many quarters of Indian media.

According to the Indian narrative throughout the end of the 2018, the traditionally/”formerly” pro-India Sirisena dismissed the pro-India Wickremesinghe in favour of the pro-China Rajapaksa due to pressure from Beijing. Of course, no one has been able to present any evidence of any Chinese involvement in the matter while China itself has taken a diplomatic line on the matter that has respected Sirisena’s decision in a rather subdued manner.

Ultimately, the courts overruled Sirisena and Wickremesinghe has continued to serve as the country’s Prime Minister.

Whilst the saga which pitted Wickremesinghe against Rajapaksa on the orders of Sirisena does ultimately seem to have been a completely internal matter, India clearly has not forgotten that Sirisena had moved to install a Prime Minister who ostensibly was more favourable to China and less so to India. As Sri Lanka is a much larger country than Maldives, meddling in the political situation was clearly going to be more difficult than the “electoral regime change” that New Delhi pulled off in Malé. Beyond this, whilst Indian media did their best to meddle in the situation in Sri Lanka during late 2018 and early 2019, this may well not have been enough to satisfy elements of the Indian deep state seeking revenge against Sirisena.

Beyond this, the timing of the attacks is incredibly suspicious. After India’s recent provocation against Pakistan resulted in humiliation after Pakistan downed two Indian jets and safely captured and later released an Indian pilot, it can be logically deduced that India sought to create a different regional disturbance against a target that is generally seen as “softer” from the Indian perspective vis-a-vis Pakistan.

As Sri Lanka defeated LTTE ten years ago, the atmosphere of peace that had prevailed may well have created a false sense of security that was ripe for exploitation. Even before Colombo named an obscure Islamist group as the culprits of the attacks, Indian politicians up to and including Narendra Modi began banging the drums of jingoistic Islamophobia as is par for the course when it comes to the radical Hindutva BJP.

Therefore, when one connects the dots, one sees that India stands to uniquely benefit from Sri Lanka’s turmoil not only in terms of internal electoral politics but in terms of weakening a Sri Lankan government that in spite of its allegedly pro-India Prime Minister maintains healthy and growing ties to China and Belt and Road. Thus, the attack could well serve as a “punishment” for Sri Lanka’s “crime” of moving closer towards Belt and Road. Making matters all the more beneficial for India is that a relative of the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s family was also killed in the attack which took place on a five star hotel in which he was staying. It cannot be ruled out that RAW had knowledge of this and specially targeted the hotel in order to inevitably inflame Bangladeshi sentiment against Sri Lanka for its self-evident security failure.

Taken as a whole, India has clear motives for seeking to destabilise Sri Lanka at this time. What’s left for Sri Lankan investigators to do is make the foreign links of NTJ know to the wider world whilst Sri Lanka must also record and make public the voices of the surviving suspects so that experts can determine if the suspects speak in the language, dialect and vernacular that one would expect. Also, the bodies of the terrorists must be examined to determine whether they are circumcised or not. This is crucial as previous Indian false flag attacks have involved non-circumcised men (therefore not Muslims) participating in allegedly Islamist attacks whilst also, previous false flag attacks in India allegedly involving Pakistanis were later exposed due to the fact that the “Pakistani” suspects could not speak Urdu or any other official Pakistani language but instead spoke in languages and vernaculars common only to India.

Therefore, while it cannot be concluded with certainty that yesterday’s atrocity was a false flag attack, it can certainly not be ruled out. As such, anyone with a clear motive for conducting a false flag attack should be thoroughly investigated by the Sri Lankan authorities.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Heres SL cabinet minister Harin Fernando
Sri Lankan Minister Harin Fernando: ‘if it is a conspiracy, this should be really dealt with’
Before Islamic State claimed they had carried out the attack, we spoke to Harin Fernando, Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister for Telecomms.
https://www.channel4.com/news/sri-lankan-minister-harin-fernando-if-it -is-a-conspiracy-this-should-be-really-dealt-with

So this is how SITE works ... https://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-is-jihadist-is-actually-an- jewish-american-troll-20150911-gjk852.html

Distracting the suffering in SL... :
http://powerbase.info/index.php/SITE_Intelligence_Group
http://powerbase.info/index.php/Rita_Katz

Incredible interview ...
https://lankaenews.com/news/2988/en


PREVIOUS CHRISTIAN ATTACK
Found an English article describing attack/s on Christian places mentioned in previous SMS. http://www.dailymirror.lk/plus/No-%E2%80%9CHosannas%E2%80%9D-for-inter -religious-harmony-as-Methodist-prayer-centre-faces-Palm-Sunday-attack  /352-165534

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

‘These Attacks Could Target Catholic Churches’: The Warning That Sri Lankan Security Officials Failed to Heed
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/world/asia/sri-lanka-religion-musli ms-catholics.html

By The New York Times April 22, 2019

Ten days before devastating bombings on Easter Sunday, a top Sri Lankan police official warned the security services in an advisory that a little-known radical Islamist group was planning suicide attacks against churches. Top government officials say the warning never reached them, and no action was taken against the group.

On Monday, the government blamed the group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath, for the attacks, saying it received help from unspecified international terrorist organizations.

Here is a translation of the cover letter and summary of the advisory. In several cases, The Times has redacted an address or phone number from the translation.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Katz strikes again... What are these fools in NZ like?
She's touted as world renowned expert ...
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2019/04/sri-lanka-attack-foreign- group-likely-behind-teh-atrocity-us-says.html

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Sri Lanka Attacks: What We Know and Don’t Know
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/world/asia/sri-lanka-easter-bombing -attacks.html

Mourners at a mass burial on Wednesday near St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka. More than 100 people were killed at the church on Sunday.
Adam Dean for The New York Times

Mourners at a mass burial on Wednesday near St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka. More than 100 people were killed at the church on Sunday.CreditCreditAdam Dean for The New York Times
By The New York Times
April 24, 2019

The investigation into the bombings on Sunday in Sri Lanka that killed more than 350 people entered a fourth day on Wednesday. Information continues to emerge, while some basic questions remain unanswered.

What we know about the investigation
• Indian intelligence officials warned their Sri Lankan counterparts of the attack just hours before the first bomb was detonated, but the Sri Lankans failed to act. It was the last in a series of unheeded alerts, including an April 4 warning and an April 11 intelligence memo that warned of attacks on churches and named the plotters.

• As anger mounted over the intelligence failures, one lawmaker, Wijedasa Rajapakse, called on Wednesday for the arrest and prosecution of two top security officials, and President Maithripala Sirisena asked the two officials to resign. In a letter to Mr. Sirisena, Mr. Rajapakse said that Hemasiri Fernando, the defense secretary, and Pujith Jayasundara, the inspector general of police, “hid these facts from you and the prime minister,” and urged the president to “arrest them and bring the full force of the law to bear against them.”

• The suicide bombers who struck churches and hotels were all well-educated, middle-class Sri Lankans, officials said on Wednesday. Some had been educated overseas, including one who was an undergraduate at a university in Britain and went to graduate school in Australia. The officials said nine bombers blew themselves up — eight men and one woman — including the man described as the leader of the homegrown, militant Islamist group said to have carried out the attack.
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• There is a danger of more bombings, officials have warned, as the police continue to find explosives. The American ambassador said investigators believed there were “ongoing terrorist plots,” and Sri Lankan officials have said they are still searching for people believed to be linked to the attacks.

• The government has blamed the group National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the attacks and said it received foreign assistance. On Tuesday, the Islamic State claimed its “fighters” were responsible.

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• Sixty people have been arrested in connection with the attacks on Easter Sunday, Ruwan Wijewardene, the country’s state minister of defense, said on Wednesday.

• More than 350 people were killed, including at least 45 children, and about 500 were wounded. The victims came from more than a dozen countries, and included people worshiping at Easter services.

• Sri Lankan officials said on Tuesday that the bombings may have been in retaliation for attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. On Wednesday, a government minister and former army chief said planning may have been underway for several years.
• The United States Embassy confirmed that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation were in Sri Lanka to assist.
Security personnel standing guard at St Anthony’s Church in Colombo on Wednesday.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Beautifully written by an Indian convert sister. (It is written to the killer who attacked Christians in SL)

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Harin Fernando's father warned him 'don't go to church this morning'
The rest is history!

"Minister Harin Fernando’s Statement:
"Meanwhile, Minister Harin Fernando noted that his father who has been hospitalized for a while knew of the attack and requested him not to attend church."

Read through the text of the article:
Harin Fernando' omnipotent father and see more in this informative video on a pro Rajapaksa media outlet...
Interesting CH4 omitted that...

https://www.newsfirst.lk/2019/04/23/easter-bombings-who-knew-but-turne d-a-blind-eye/

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Whoa! Found this via Morningstar!
https://srilankamirror.com/news/796-thowheed-jamath-bbs-both-funded-by -single-secret-account

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/sri-lankan-intellignce-links -islamist-terror-group

[TonyGosling]

Letter to the killers of Easter Sunday massacre in Sri Lanka
27 April 2019 12:04 am - 0 - 9
http://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Letter-to-the-killers-of-Easte r-Sunday-massacre-in-Sri-Lanka/131-166054
Appreciate that you made the effort to find out the timing of our mass.

Appreciate that you learnt more about our religion to know that Sundays are the days we go to Church for the congregational prayers and Mass. But I guess there were some things you, rather unfortunately, didn’t get to learn.

Perhaps you didn’t know that what you did made them Martyrs.

And how you have single-handedly raised the statuses of our brothers and sisters in the eyes of their beloved Jesus. Through your actions, they will be raised as the most righteous and pious of Christians.

Perhaps you didn’t know that doing what you did, at the time and place you chose, it actually meant that the last words that escaped their lips were probably words of remembrance and praise of Jesus. Which is a noble end many Christians could only dream of.

What you did would almost guarantee them paradise.

Appreciate that you showed the world how Christians welcome, with open arms, even people like yourself into our Church, which is our second home. Appreciate you for showing that our Church have no locks or gates, and are unguarded because everyone is welcome to be with us.

Appreciate you for allowing the world to see the powerful image of men you injured, lying on back on the stretcher with his index finger raised high, as a declaration of his faith and complete trust in Jesus.

You brought the Churches, Government and communities together to stand with us.

You made countless Sri Lankans come out of their homes to visit the Church nearest to them with beautiful messages of peace and love.

You have broken many hearts and made the world weep. You have left a huge void.

But what you have done have brought us closer together. And it has strengthened our faith and resolve.

In the coming weeks, more people will turn up in the Church, a place you hate so much, fortified by the strength in our faith, and inspired by our fallen brothers and sisters.

In the coming weeks, more non Christians will turn up at the gates of Churches with beautiful handwritten notes. They may not have known where the Church in their area was. But now, they do. All because of you.

I hate to say that after all of that elaborate planning, and the perverse and wretched efforts on your part, you still failed to drive a divide among the the Catholics and non-Christians in the world.

For that, I can’t say that I’m sorry.

[TonyGosling]

Sri Lanka Blasts: Terrorism Targets Another Ally of China?
By Tony Cartalucci Global Research, April 27, 2019
https://www.globalresearch.ca/sri-lanka-blasts-terrorism-chinese-ally/ 5675706

The recent, tragic Easter attack in the South Asian state of Sri Lanka – killing and injuring hundreds – follows a now unfortunately all too familiar formula.

The New York Times has reported in its article, “What We Know and Don’t Know About the Sri Lanka Attacks,” that:

The authorities in Sri Lanka said a little-known radical Islamist group, the National Thowheeth Jama’ath, [believed to have ties to the Islamic State] carried out the attacks, with help from international militants.

It is also reported that these extremists received assistance for the large-scale attack from foreign sponsors. The attack has put Sri Lanka on the map for many in the general public for the first time – but for all the wrong reasons.

Countering OBOR: Divide and Destroy

Sri Lanka has recently and decisively pivoted toward Beijing as a major partner of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. This is despite Washington’s best efforts to prevent it from doing so.

Consequently, extremists fuelled by Washington’s “clash of civilizations” have helped set the stage for growing violence between Sir Lanka’s majority Buddhists and its minority Muslim communities. The resulting violence serves as a medium for US coercion, destabilization, and intervention aimed at undermining Sri Lanka’s unity as a nation, and thus its viability as a partner for China.

A nearly identical ploy has been used in nearby Myanmar where US-backed Buddhist extremists battle against US-Saudi-Qatari backed extremism rising from the ranks of the nation’s Muslim Rohingya minority.

The resulting violence and growing humanitarian crisis – without coincidence – is unfolding in Myanmar’s Rakhine state – precisely where China is attempting to build another leg of its region-spanning OBOR initiative.

Sri Lanka has signed on to OBOR in a big way, with major rail, port, airport, and highway projects all moving forward with Beijing’s support. Sri Lanka is also considered by Western policymakers as one of several among China’s strategic “String of Pearls,” strong points where China can secure maritime routes through waters traditionally dominated by the United States.

These projects are derided across the Western media with headlines like the New York Times’ article, “How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port” and France24’s article, “In Sri Lanka, the new Chinese Silk Road is a disappointment” – characterizing Washington’s growing opposition to China’s expanding influence across Asia – a region Washington has long presumed primacy over.

Washington’s ability to compete with China regarding regional development is nonexistent. Instead, the US has tried to tempt nations like Sri Lanka with military aid.

Towards a New “Humanitarian Front”? Myanmar and the Geopolitics of Empire
AFP in an article titled, “US gives Sri Lankan military US$39 million, countering China’s investments in strategic island,” would claim:

The US funding for Sri Lanka is part of a US$300 million package Washington is setting aside for South and Southeast Asia to ensure a “free, open, and rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region”.

This “free, open, and rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region,” is how the US regularly refers to US primacy in Asia throughout policy papers, diplomatic statements, and even political speeches.

It is obvious that “military aid” can in no way compete with massive investments by China aimed at spurring national development through tangible infrastructure projects.

America’s inability to compete openly and on equal economic footing has given way to political interference and even the use of violence.

Sri Lanka’s Crisis Linked to US-Driven Crisis in Myanmar

In Myanmar, the US is documented to have supported ethnic violence for years. The US all but installed current “State Counsellor” Aung San Suu Kyi into power along with her political party – the National League for Democracy (NLD) lined top to bottom with US State Department-funded “activists.“



Despite the liberal facade constructed by the Western media around Suu Kyi, her political party, and factions supporting both – rampant bigotry and racism pervades all three.

Simultaneously, US-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have worked to co-opt and wield Rohingya communities as an equal but opposing political weapon while US-allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar have begun radicalizing and arming factions within Rohingya communities to carry out armed violence across Rakhine state.

The resulting conflagration affords the US and its partners a pretext to intervene on an ever expanding scale – giving Washington access to and leverage over Myanmar to counter Beijing’s growing influence.

And in precisely the same way the US has inserted itself into the heart of Myanmar’s political affairs – it is attempting to do so again in other Asian nations – including now Sri Lanka.

Articles from across the Western media including the UK Independent’s 2018 article titled, “Violent Buddhist extremists are targeting Muslims in Sri Lanka,” even establish direct links between Myanmar’s and Sri Lanka’s growing conflicts.
The article would admit (emphasis added):

Currently, Sri Lanka’s most active Buddhist extremist group is Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist power force, or BBS). BBS entered politics in 2012 with a Buddhist-nationalist ideology and agenda, its leaders claiming that Sri Lankans had become immoral and turned away from Buddhism. And whom does it blame? Sri Lankan Muslims.

BBS’s rhetoric takes its cue from other populist anti-Muslim movements around the globe, claiming that Muslims are “taking over” the country thanks to a high birth rate. It also accuses Muslim organisations of funding international terrorism with money from Halal-certified food industries. These aren’t just empty words; in 2014, one of their anti-Muslim protest rallies in the southern town of Aluthgama ended with the death of four Muslims.

BBS also has links to Myanmar’s extremist 969 movement. Led by nationalist monk Ashin Wirathu, who calls himself the “Burmese Bin Laden”, it is notorious for its hardline rhetoric against the Rohingya Muslim community.

The West’s use of “Islamophobia” to sell its serial wars of aggression and to divide nations around the globe is a classic example of “divide and conquer.

While the West no longer possesses any real means to “conquer” the nations it is now targeting – it does possess the capacity to use resulting divisions to destroy them. If the US cannot hold primacy over Asia – no one will. It is a “War on Peace” waged under the guise of a “War on Terrorism.”

Sri Lanka appears to be but the latest victim of Washington’s now trademark “slash and burn” foreign policy – where it is fueling conflict to consume political orders that oppose its interests, and building upon the ashes ones that do serve them instead.

In the coming days, weeks, and months – not only will more information emerge linking the recent attacks in Sri Lanka to Washington, Riyadh, and Doha’s global network of terrorism – but additional pressure will also be mounted upon Sri Lanka to divest from Beijing and pivot back toward the West.

In reality – Sri Lanka’s violence is an artificial construct carried out by a tiny minority of extremists on either side of an equally artificial ethnoreligious divide. The nation and the region must unite in purpose – as peace and stability benefit them all – while chaos benefits only a handful of waning interests from afar.




Sri Lanka: US-Saudi Terror Targets China’s Allies
Column: Politics Region: Southeast Asia
https://journal-neo.org/2019/04/28/sri-lanka-us-saudi-terror-targets-c hinas-allies/

As predicted, the Sri Lankan Easter Day blasts which killed hundreds and injured hundreds more – have been connected to the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS).

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka – Alaina Teplitz – would openly claim foreign groups were most likely behind the attacks. Reuters in an article titled, “Foreign groups likely behind Sri Lanka attacks, U.S. ambassador says,” would report:

The scale and sophistication of the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka suggested the involvement of an external group such as Islamic State, the U.S. ambassador said on Wednesday as the death toll jumped to 359.

ISIS itself would also later claim responsibility for the attacks. The Washington Post in an article titled, “Sri Lankan Easter bombings, claimed by ISIS, show the group maintains influence even though its caliphate is gone,” would claim:

On Tuesday, video emerged of the suspected ringleader of the attacks and seven followers, their faces obscured by scarves, swearing allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Islamic State also issued a formal communique asserting responsibility for the attacks, which it said targeted Christians and “coalition countries.”

Absent from US diplomatic statements and Western media reports is any mention of ISIS’ inception, its state sponsors, and even admissions by Western intelligence agencies themselves of Washington and its allies’ role in the terrorist organization’s rise.

At face value – devastating and disruptive terrorist attacks visited upon Sri Lanka – a nation that has recently and decisively pivoted from West to East and is now a major partner of Beijing’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative – is suspiciously coincidental.

Examining the West’s decades of using terrorism – particularly terrorism fuelled by Saudi Wahhabism – and the inception of ISIS itself – leaves Washington and its partners as the prime suspects behind Sri Lanka’s tragic terrorist attack – with its motivation strikingly similar to what prompted the US-Saudi aided rise and use of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda throughout the Cold War.

DIA Admitted West Sought “Salafist Principality” in Eastern Syria

When US-engineered regime change stalled in Syria between 2011-2012, it became clear more drastic and open measures would be required. This included not only the Western media mobilizing a massive propaganda campaign to account for the increasingly overt role terrorist organizations were playing among supposed “moderate rebel” formations – but also in the sudden appearance, rise, and overwhelming force of the “Islamic State.”

It was in a leaked 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo (PDF) – however – that revealed it was the US and its allies’ deliberate intent to create what it called a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria. The memo would explicitly state that (emphasis added):

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

On clarifying who these supporting powers were, the DIA memo would state:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

The “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) would indeed be created precisely in eastern Syria as US policymakers and their allies had set out to do. It would be branded as the “Islamic State” and be used first to wage a more muscular proxy war against Damascus, and when that failed, to invite US military forces to intervene in the conflict directly.

Since then, ISIS has been used as a convenient and even predictable element amid Washington’s various gambits as it struggles globally to maintain its unipolar world order.

Washington’s “Salafist Principality” vs China

In Asia where Washington’s self-proclaimed primacy has waned in recent years as China rises, traditional “allies” like the Philippines have begun to seek bilateral ties with Beijing negating Washington’s supposed role in underwriting what it calls its “free, open, and rules-based“ order in the Indo-Pacific region.

In 2016, Manila sought to have US troops removed from its territory.

An October 2016 article by the Independent titled, “Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte orders US forces out of country, cutting 65 years of military ties,” would report:

The president of the Philippines has promised to dismantle the nation’s 65-year military alliance with the United States, warning Washington not to treat the nation “like a doormat”.

Rodrigo Duterte has ordered 28 annual military exercises with US forces to be halted and an ongoing US-Philippines amphibious beach landing exercise to be the last in his six-year presidency.

“This year would be the last,” said Mr Duterte, referring to military exercises involving the US in a speech on Friday in southern Davao city.

The Independent would also report (emphasis added):

“For as long as I am there, do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China.”

The following year, beginning in May 2017, ISIS terrorists suddenly appeared, overrunning the city of Marawi. The US used the “serendipitous” development to not only insert US military forces into the fighting – the NYT reported, but has since used the threat of ISIS’ resurgence in the Philippines as a pretext to pressure Manila in maintaining a permanent US military presence in the Southeast Asian state.

US government-funded propaganda outlet “Rappler” would report in a 2019 article titled, “[ANALYSIS] Despite Duterte rhetoric, US military gains forward base in PH,” that:

The United States has gained a forward base for its Pacific Air Force in the Philippines despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s rhetoric against the country’s oldest security ally and former colonial master and his pivot to China.

And despite the “terror” pretext Washington has used to cling to its military holdings in the Philippines, Rappler itself admits that the true goal is confronting China:

The forward deployment of US air assets in the Philippines is important in light of the increasing tension between Washington and Beijing in the disputed South China Sea, a strategic waterway where about $3 trillion of seaborne goods pass every year and where China has constructed man-made islands and begun installing military structures, including possible missile sites.

US-Saudi backed extremism in another Southeast Asian state – Myanmar – has created a growing conflict in Rakhine state where China is attempting to build another major leg of its OBOR initiative.

In neighboring Thailand – another pivotal OBOR partner – similar US-Saudi led efforts to sow ethnoreligious tensions and create a vector for ISIS-style terrorism are underway.

Even in China itself – the threat of ISIS militants returning from Syria and expanding an already looming US-Saudi backed extremist threat in Xinjiang – plays into Washington’s wider efforts to sabotage OBOR and contain China’s regional and global rise.

The recent blasts in Sri Lanka and ISIS’ now supposed “interest” in the South Asian state follows massive inroads made by China in including the nation in its OBOR initiative. Highways, railways, and ports developed with China’s assistance have transformed Sri Lanka into a strategically valuable partner for Beijing, and yet another example to the world of Washington’s waning influence not only in Indo-Pacific – but globally.

The US went as far as creating ISIS in the first place in a desperate bid to rescue its failed regime change campaign in Syria. It and its partners in Riyadh are now the prime suspects behind ISIS’ coincidental arrival on the shores of a newly established and major OBOR partner.

ISIS is the New Al Qaeda

If the US using extremism to fight its major power rivals sounds familiar – that’s because the US and its Saudi partners used Al Qaeda in precisely the same way throughout the Cold War vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.

Al Qaeda’s precursor – the Muslim Brotherhood – took part in a failed attempt to overthrow Syria – then a Soviet ally – in the early 1980s. Many of the fighters that took part in the failed uprising fled to Afghanistan and participated in the US-Saudi backed war against the Soviet Union there.

The virulent perversion of the Islamic faith that serves as the ideological bedrock of groups like Al Qaeda and now ISIS – Wahhabism – is admittedly a political tool used by Riyadh in the aid of Washington’s decades-spanning geopolitical ambitions.

In a 2018 Washington Post article titled, “Saudi prince denies Kushner is ‘in his pocket’,” it was admitted (emphasis added):

Asked about the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism, the austere faith that is dominant in the kingdom and that some have accused of being a source of global terrorism, Mohammed said that investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.

Thus it is all but admitted that the US and Saudi Arabia used extremism as a geopolitical tool to hinder the Soviet Union and both protect and expand Western hegemony globally.

It is admitted that the US and its partners sought the creation of ISIS – its sudden appearance everywhere China is attempting to do business fits the now documented and admitted pattern of Washington’s use of extremism to fight and coerce wherever its standing armies cannot afford to intervene and a degree of “plausible deniability” is desired.

When terrorism strikes – as in any sort of criminal investigation – the first question that must be asked is “cui bono?” To whose benefit? The US played a central role in deliberately creating ISIS. If ISIS is indeed behind the attack on Sri Lanka, then it is by extension an act of terror carried out by Washington.

Destabilizing Sri Lanka – a critical South Asian partner of Beijing and its OBOR initiative – with terrorism and ethnoreligious conflict, serves only the interests of China’s overt global opponent – Washington – as well as elements within India’s ruling elite and intelligence agencies.

The US is both arsonist and self-appointed fireman. And until this racket is fully and repeatedly exposed – until after each terrorist attack the US is put forth as the primary suspect and made to pay a high political price for its use of global terrorism – this game of arson-firefighting will continue at the cost of innocent lives, national development, and global peace and stability.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
https://journal-neo.org/2019/04/28/sri-lanka-us-saudi-terror-targets-c hinas-allies/

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Simply astonishing if true. IBC Tamil are big and mother to an apparently enforced convert apparently married to that nasty alleged church bomber (who patted a child before) seems to have come forward. There's a small English clip of a senior minister, Rajitha Senaratne, giving a news conference at 7.20 sums it up in a nutshell. Razick of SLTJ apparently is military intel officer and through the enforced conversion of the woman claim (she's now allegedly dead in the house that went under siege from my reading of other news) SLTJ is closely aligned with NTJ
https://www.tamilwin.com/srilanka/01/213659

This is also important and looks like the same Major General minister Rajitha Senaratne mentions in previous SMS link.
Why Colombo Times wouldn't divulge more details of how they got the voice recording is confusing so only if authentic...
This is very very important bust of some seriously twisted crooks.
Kapila Hendavitharana is in bail for a miniscule part of his heinous crimes and was head of security at Shangri -La hotels (where some heavyweights like Poulvsen and bankster families were affected) ...and that itself is enough to look at it all from a fresh perspective.
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/exclusive-gotas-intelligenc e-czar-caught-red-handed-as-chinese-mole/

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

WTF are FB officials doing meeting ppl who had it banned now multiple times...
and getting scolded for not censoring a UK based dissident Website??

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/unfit-to-lead-sirisenas-mee ting-with-facebook-executives-after-easter-sunday-massacre-focuses-on- lankaenews/

[TonyGosling]

Saudi Arabia Has, ‘Literally’, Sri Lankan Blood on Its Hands!

https://english.alahednews.com.lb/47824/269

By al-Ahed

In a leaked ‘urgent, confidential and top secret’ document, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confesses responsibility or at least ‘relation’ to the terrorist attacks that hit Sri Lanka two weeks ago as Christians celebrated Easter Sunday.

Obtained by al-Ahed, the paper, which carries the Hijri date of 11/8/1440, the day equivalent to April 16, 2019, some five days that preceded the massacre, was tailed by the Saudi Foreign Minister Ibrahim bin Abdul Aziz al-Assaf’s signature. It is a letter sent to Saudi Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Abdul Nasser al-Harethi.

The document reads the following:

Urgent – Top Secret

His Excellency Ambassador Abdul Nasser bin Hussein al-Harethi

You should carry out the following measures immediately:

First: You should delete all documents, computer data and latest correspondence with domestic and foreign members and groups, in addition to imposing a curfew for the embassy personnel unless it is necessary

Second: You should inform all those related to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia including counselors, security forces and intelligence during the three coming days, especially on the Christian Easter Day, to avoid presence in public and crowded places namely churches

Third: You should send written news about the Sri Lankan authorities and their viewpoints regularly to this ministry

Ibrahim bin Abdul Aziz al-Assaf

Foreign Minister

It was on April 21st, 2019 -coinciding Easter Sunday- that three Christian churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital Colombo were targeted in a series of coordinated terrorist suicide bombings.

Later that day, there were smaller explosions at a housing complex in Dematagoda and a guest house in Dehiwala. 253 people were martyred, including at least 42 foreign nationals and three police officers, and at least 500 others were injured.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

[TonyGosling]

The contents of the memo from the Saudi foreign minister to the Saudi ambassador to Sri Lanka, particularly its indication of prior knowledge of danger in crowded places and churches on Easter Sunday, have taken on a new significance following the arrest last Friday of Mohamed Aliyar, a 60-year-old, Saudi-educated Wahhabi scholar who operated the Center for Islamic Guidance in Zahran Hashim’s hometown of Kattankudy. According to a plaque outside of the Wahhabi religious center operated by Aliyar, the center is funded by unnamed Saudi and Kuwaiti donors.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3009906/sri-lank as-saudi-connections-revealed-latest-arrest-over

A statement released by Sri Lankan police stated that “Information has been revealed that the suspect arrested [Mohamed Aliyar] had a close relationship with … Zahran and had been operating financial transactions” on his behalf and was also “involved” in the training of the suicide bombers responsible for the massacres on Easter Sunday.

A group of board members of the center, who spoke to the South China Morning Post prior to Aliyar’s arrest, stated that the center was funded by “local donations, student fees, and private donors who were classmates of Aliyar’s in Riyadh;” denounced Zahran Hashim as a “troublemaker;” and could not recall having seen him at the center recently. However, the police statement that followed Aliyar’s arrest suggested that his relationship with Zahran Hashim was not a part of his public persona.


Of key interest in the police statement is the mention of Aliyar’s operating of “financial transactions” on Zahran Hashim’s behalf in the lead-up to the attacks. Several reports, such as this one from the BBC, noted that the attacks “required detailed planning, safe houses, an extensive network of planners and handlers, expertise on bomb-making, and significant funding.” Aliyar’s connections to wealthy Saudi donors and to Zahran suggest that he may have been a liaison for much of that funding.

In addition, the leaked memo’s instruction for the Saudi ambassador to “delete all documents, computer data and latest correspondence with domestic and foreign members and groups,” suggests that the Saudi Embassy in Sri Lanka may have been aware or party to these or other transactions related to the Zahran-led attacks.

While it is possible that funding had come from elsewhere, the fact that Zahran’s sister, Mohammad Hashim Madaniya, had been sent 2 million Sri Lankan rupees (around $12,000) from Zahran just days before the blast suggests that the amount of money involved in funding this operation was significant indeed and likely of foreign origin.



Extent of Saudi role
The fact that the Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the bombings — and that Zahran pledged loyalty to the group just hours before the attack — further suggests a Saudi role, since the Saudi government was revealed to be funding and logistically aiding the terror group in 2014. Leaked emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that the U.S. government has long known that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are among the main financiers of the international terror group.

The leaked memo contained in the email to Clinton states:

We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIS and other radical groups in the region.”

While mainstream reports have long asserted that it was private Saudi donors funding the terror group, this email revealed that U.S. intelligence had determined that the Saudi government was funding the group and also providing them it logistical assistance.

The Islamic State’s widely acknowledged role in the attacks and its known relationship to the Saudis — in combination with the recent arrest and role of Mohamed Aliyar in the attacks and the contents of the memo from the Saudi Foreign Minister — strongly suggest that the government of Saudi Arabia not only had foreknowledge of the brutal bombings (and did nothing to stop them) but may have also played a more active role in the bloodshed.

Feature photo | A screenshot from an ISIS video shows Zahran Hashim, alleged ringleader of the Sri Lanka Easter Bombings.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

[TonyGosling]

Sri Lanka’s Saudi connections revealed in latest arrest over Easter bombings
Ultraconservative Salafi-Wahhabi Islam, which has its roots in the Middle Eastern kingdom, has been taking root among the South Asian island’s Published: 5:04pm, 12 May, 2019
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3009906/sri-lank as-saudi-connections-revealed-latest-arrest-over

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 more than 250 people.
Officials inspect the site of an explosion at Shangri-La hotel in Colombo on April 21. Photo: Reuters
Officials inspect the site of an explosion at Shangri-La hotel in Colombo on April 21. Photo: Reuters
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A police spokesman declined to provide details on the accusations. Calls to Aliyar and his associates went unanswered.
The government says Zahran, a radical Tamil-speaking preacher, was a leader of the group.
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Two Muslim community sources in Kattankudy said his hardline views were partly shaped by ultraconservative Salafi-Wahhabi texts that he picked up at the Centre for Islamic Guidance’s library around two to three years ago. The sources are not affiliated with the centre.
“I used to always run into him at the centre, reading Saudi journals and literature,” said one of the sources.
In Sri Lanka, rising Islamic militancy was the proverbial elephant in the room
During that time, Zahran started criticising the practice of asking God for help, for instance, arguing that such pleas were an affront to pure Islam.
“That kind of teaching was not in Sri Lanka in 2016, unless you read it in Salafi literature,” the source added, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions in Kattankudy.
Salafism, a puritanical interpretation of Islam that advocates a return to the values of the first three generations of Muslims and is closely linked to Wahhabism, has often been criticised as the ideology of radical Islamists worldwide.
Wahhabi Islam has its roots in Saudi Arabia and is backed by its rulers, although Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has committed the kingdom to a more moderate form of Islam.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Photo: AFP
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Photo: AFP
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Other than the fact that Zahran visited the centre, the sources in Kattankudy said they did not know of any personal ties between him and Aliyar.
Aliyar founded the centre in 1990, a year after he graduated from the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, in what one resident said marked a key moment in the spread of Salafi doctrine in Kattankudy. The centre was partly funded by Saudi and Kuwaiti donors, according to a plaque outside.
TROUBLEMAKER
Three members of the centre’s board spoken to before Aliyar’s arrest said Zahran was a troublemaker and that they had warned authorities about his extremist views. The members, who asked to remain anonymous, citing security concerns amid a backlash against some Muslims, said they thought Zahran frequented the library around a decade ago, but had no recollection of him visiting recently and denied that any of its books were to blame for his views.
Funding for the centre came from local donations, student fees, and private donors who were classmates of Aliyar’s in Riyadh, the centre’s sources said. Further details about the funding of the centre were unavailable.
The Saudi government communications office in Riyadh did not respond to requests for comment on the funding of the centre.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Salafi link revealed in Sri Lanka bombings

[TonyGosling]

Sri Lanka Easter bomb attacks and the role of Western intelligence agencies

Tue, 2019-06-18 00:48 ­ editor
http://www.asiantribune.com/node/92822

By Lasanda Kurukulasuriya
Colombo, 07 June, (Asiantribune.com):

Speculation that Western intelligence agencies had a hand in the well-coordinated, precision-timed Easter suicide bombings in Sri Lanka arises from a number of sources and circumstances. Analysts are still trying to figure out how the little-known group ‘National Thawheed Jamaath’ (NTJ) could have orchestrated such a feat.

The terror group known as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as Islamic State (IS) or Daesh, claimed responsibility through online videos. ISIS” s enemy is the West, and so Western governments unanimously expressed solidarity with Sri Lanka in its fight against the new terror (in a way they did not, with regard to Sri Lanka’s 30-year war against LTTE terror). One might recall how US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “This is America’s fight too.” Though IS is fronted for the attacks, answers to more specific questions such as who the handlers of the nine suicide bombers were, remain murky.

Some analysts say that the targeting of Sri Lanka was not surprising. Sri Lanka is among several other Asian countries where ISIS attacks have unexpectedly occurred in recent years, offering an entry-point for Western-sponsored counter-terrorism activity or humanitarian assistance. Many targets of these latter-day, often inexplicable attacks claimed by IS, or other little-known terror outfits, have been strategically located states benefiting from China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which dispenses multi-billion-dollar investments for infrastructure projects like deep water ports, roads, railways and industrial parks. Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh are cases in point.

The Philippines, whose president Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 threatened to ditch its longtime military alliance with the US, and turn to China, next year faced an attack by IS terrorists in the town of Marawi, leading Americans to further consolidate their military presence.

In Myanmar in 2017 a little-known terrorist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) staged attacks on security posts in Rakhine state, sparking a destabilizing security crackdown on the Rohingya community that resulted in a huge refugee exodus to neighbouring countries. Rakhine state is home to Sittwe port and a starting point of BRI infrastructure projects linking Myanmar with China’s Kunming city. The shadowy leader of ARSA is said to be not native to Myanmar but a Rohingya born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia.

Last month in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province five people were reported to have been killed in an attack on a star class hotel located near the port of Gwadar, which is being modernized under China’s BRI. Baluch separatists claimed responsibility. “The Baluch Liberation Army carried out a dozen attacks last year against Chinese-linked projects. In November, the group attacked a Chinese consulate in the major southern city of Karachi …” AP reported. It’s worth noting that in Sri Lanka too, two of the sea-front hotels that came under suicide bomb attacks overlooked the $1.4 billion Port City project, China’s single biggest infrastructure investment in Sri Lanka.

Those who hold a microscope to these ‘politically convenient’ conflicts in South and South-East Asia keep finding foreign fingerprints of big powers that seek to gain a foothold, in order to challenge a rising China. The American geopolitical researcher Tony Cartalucci gives a clue to what is happening on the global stage when he says “The US is both arsonist and self-appointed fireman.’

Creation of ISIS

Analysts have long argued that ISIS, like Al Qaeda before it, is a creation of US intelligence agencies. “Even as American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, they knowingly foment it as a weapon of foreign policy” says Garikai Chengu, writing for Global Research (‘America created Al Qaeda and the ISIS terror group’). Tracing IS’s roots to back to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 the Harvard researcher shows how the pre conditions for radical Sunni groups like IS were created.

Writing specifically in the aftermath of the Sri Lanka attacks, Cartalucci said: “The US went as far as creating ISIS in the first place in a desperate bid to rescue its failed regime change campaign in Syria. It and its partners in Riyadh are now the prime suspects behind ISIS’ coincidental arrival on the shores of a newly established and major OBOR partner.” (‘Sri Lanka: How Saudi-backed terror targeted China’s allies’ – mintpressnews.com)

Cartalucci went on to argue “It is admitted that the US and its partners sought the creation of ISIS – its sudden appearance everywhere China is attempting to do business fits the now documented and admitted pattern of Washington’s use of extremism to fight and coerce wherever its standing armies cannot afford to intervene and a degree of “plausible deniability” is desired.”

Hidden actor

In order to assess the likelihood of a hidden actor in Sri Lanka’s case, it is useful to look at the trajectory of events since the April 21 attacks. Two months after, while the government has been at pains to show that ‘everything is back to normal,’ for most citizens, a sense of unease still hangs in the air, and many aspects of this horror story remain open-ended and unexplained. Targeting Catholic churches and 5-star tourist hotels, the bombings came like a bolt from the blue. They devastated the peace and relative stability that prevailed in the island in the preceding ten years, paralysed government, battered the economy, stoked flames of sectarianism, left painful scars in the affected communities and a sense of insecurity in the wider citizenry. In other words, the country was brought to its knees.

In the face of it all there was remarkable resilience too. In a highly volatile situation where a religious minority had been targeted by extremists of another religious minority, inestimable service was rendered by religious leaders of all faiths, led by Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, head of the Catholic church. Though their best efforts could not prevent a short-lived spell of politically-instigated violence in the North Western Province and Gampaha district, communal harmony at the community level was by and large maintained. The Sri Lanka police and military too won public confidence, tracking down the remaining terror suspects in a very short time, and recovering massive quantities of weapons, explosives and other suspicious items.

Though arrests of suspects and weapons-detections continue to be reported from all parts of the country, the government has said that emergency regulations, under which these operations are being carried out, will be lifted at the end of this month. This announcement was made on 27th May at a meeting with Western diplomats by President Maithripala Sirisena, who had requested the envoys to lift the travel advisories issued by their respective countries, which badly affected tourism. It remains unclear whether the easing of travel advisories was implicitly conditional on a pledge to lift the emergency – a decision that would normally be made strictly on the basis of assessments by security and law enforcement personnel.

Western intelligence agencies

If the decision to lift the emergency had an air of having been ‘rushed,’ it is not the only one. In the immediate aftermath of these tragic events, Western intelligence agencies rushed in ostensibly to assist in the investigations. They came reportedly at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka. No details have been revealed, to date, on the work carried out by the foreign agencies (said to be ‘technical’ assistance) or on how these inputs assisted the CID in its probe. An unnamed US embassy official on Wednesday reportedly told a group of journalists that the FBI assisted in analyzing the suicide bombers’ phone data.

There is reason to believe however that the FBI in fact REMOVED the suicide bombers phones and other devices at an early stage, pre-empting the retrieval of vital evidence by local investigators. “All the bombers are dead. Their electronic devices have been taken away by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which is helping the Lankans in the probe,” an Indian Home Ministry official told the Indian Express. “Unless the data from these devices is made available, little will be known of the bombers’ India links” he said. If the unnamed official’s information is correct it would mean that Sri Lankan investigators too (nor the rest of the world for that matter) would get to know what was recorded in those devices, that might have given a clue as to who the suicide bombers’ immediate handlers were. The question then arises as to whether the Americans in fact sabotaged the investigation, under the pretext of assisting with forensic analysis of the phones and devices, calling it ‘technical assistance.’

Asked whether the FBI had ‘taken away’ the bombers’ phones, Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera neither confirmed nor denied that this was the case, saying he was ‘unable to give that information.’ Asked if the Sri Lankan investigators had the opportunity to analyse the devices before they were handed over to the FBI, and whether they had been returned, he said “All the foreign agencies worked along with the CID. They did so on our request.”

Indian investigation

India’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has for some years been probing two ISIS ‘modules’ as they are called, in Kerala (Kasargode) and Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore). They are suspected to have had connections in Sri Lanka. Ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 9th June visit to Colombo the NIA sent a two-man team to gather information relating to contacts the Indian suspects may have had with the Easter Sunday bombers and their ringleader Zahran Hashim. The Indian Home Ministry official’s remarks were made following the NIA’s meetings with Sri Lankan authorities. The visiting NIA team had shared some phone numbers of Sri Lankans who had been in touch with Indian IS suspects. After the Easter Sunday debacle NIA made two arrests, one in Kerala (Muhammed Azharudeen) and the most recent on Saturday, in Coimbatore (Sheik Hidayathullah).

The several Indian intelligence alerts issued ahead of the Easter bombings, catastrophically ignored by Sri Lankan authorities, were based on a video found on the phone of an IS recruit in Coimbatore, in which Zahran spoke of the impending attacks. Considering this fact, and given the intense (almost paranoid) focus of Indian agencies on Muslim extremism and their close tracking of potential threats including IS-related activity, Sri Lanka’s lukewarm attitude towards getting Indian assistance remains a bit of a mystery. Indian media repeatedly cited Indian officials saying ‘Sri Lanka has shared no information.’ However Western intelligence personnel from much further afield rushed in, as if to ‘take ownership’ of the IS issue. In view of the FBI’s alleged removal of the terrorists’ phones and devices, questions might now be asked as to whether in fact there was pressure to hold off the Indians at the initial stage.

This line of investigation becomes more sinister in the light of a leaked ‘top secret’ letter, purportedly sent by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister to the Saudi ambassador in Colombo five days ahead of the Easter atrocity, ordering him to “delete all documents, computer data and latest correspondence with domestic and foreign members and groups, in addition to imposing a curfew for the embassy personnel unless it is necessary.” The Lebanese Al-Ahed News that first published a photo of the purported letter, reportedly said it further instructed the embassy to warn Saudi nationals to avoid crowded, public places on the ‘Christian Easter Day,’ and to report to the ministry regularly on Sri Lankan authorities and their viewpoints. The Saudi embassy has strongly denied the allegations calling them ‘baseless.’

Saudi Arabia, a major Middle East ally of the US, is widely believed to ‘export’ and fund the spread of Wahabbism, the puritanical teaching that fuels Muslim extremism of the type preached by ISIS. It was in Jeddah that another NTJ leader Ahmad Milhan, believed to have masterminded the April 21 attacks, and to have been planning a second strike, was arrested, with the help of Interpol which issued a Red Notice on him. He was finally extradited to Sri Lanka along with four others on Friday. Since the beginning of May the CID had been trying without success to get the Saudi authorities to hand over this arrested suspect, according to a Daily News report of 20.05.19.

Upcoming visits

It is against this backdrop that Sri Lanka is readying for visits by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Special Advisor Dr Hiroto Izumi (June 20-22) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (around June 27), coming on the heels of Indian PM Narendra Modi visit of June 9.

In the ‘great game’ of geopolitics being played out in the Indian Ocean, Japan is aligned with the US and its allies, and is on board to promote the American mantra of a ‘free and open Indo Pacific,’ which is code for US strategy to contain China. The true purpose of this strategy was laid bare in US-INDOPACOM chief Adm. Philip Davidson’s statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee in February. In it he identified the rapid development of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army of China) as ‘the most important security development in the Indo Pacific,’ and went on to spell out his strategy for what he calls ‘combat-ready deterrence’ which is, “to win before fighting and, if necessary, be ready to fight and win.” While the rhetoric surrounding the ‘free and open Indo Pacific’ and ‘rules base order’ etc. projects an illusion of a peaceful goal, the INDOPACOM chief’s strategy document in fact reads like a blueprint for war, where the identified threat is China. Sri Lanka is described here as “a significant strategic opportunity in the Indian Ocean.”

The purpose of Pompeo’s visit, a State Department spokesperson said, was to “broaden and deepen America’s partnership with key countries to advance their shared goal of a free and open Indo-Pacific.” However it becomes clear from all of the recent diplomatic and other activity that the purpose of US Secretary of State’s visit (book-ended between visits to New Delhi and Osaka, Japan) will be to pressure Sri Lanka into signing up on the utterly one-sided Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that will pave the way for the entry of US military into Sri Lanka – no matter that it is dubbed as ‘temporary.’ The GSP+ trade facility, which a visiting US delegation is expected to discuss with Sri Lankan officials (presumably ahead of Pompeo’s visit) will no doubt be used in this carrot-and-stick game, to get Sri Lanka to comply. From the little that is known about the SOFA, its terms will reduce the host state to the level of a neo-colony.

Counter terrorism strategy

Modi and Japan’s State Foreign Affairs Minister Toshiko Abe who already met with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, have kept the focus of talks on ‘counter terrorism strategy.’ With the Indian PM, Wickemesinghe is reported to have discussed a ‘proposed counter-terrorism plan to be jointly implemented by India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.’ If there is a sense of urgency in all of these meetings taking place in short order, it would seem to be related to the Western alliance’s need to conclude their negotiations with a US-friendly prime minister whose term in power is in the balance, in view of upcoming elections.

The IS-attributed Easter Sunday terror attacks set the stage for this barrage of diplomatic discussions aimed at locking Sri Lanka within the Western sphere of influence, if necessary through defence pacts, to counter China.

There was also a visit by the UN Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director of the Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) Michèle Coninsx from 7-8 June 2019. Coninsx discussed “Tangible measures to collaborate with UN mechanisms in keeping with international norms and practices” on countering terrorism and violent extremism, a Foreign Ministry statement said. The UN’s Counter Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) was set up as recently as 2011. It may come as a surprise (or does it?) that the UNCCT’s main source of funding is Saudi Arabia.

“UNCCT was established through a USD 10 million contribution from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the UN, following the recommendation included in the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (Pillar II, para 9). On 13 August 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated an additional USD 100 million to help finance the work of the UNCCT. Other donors of the Centre include the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Germany amongst others” according to the website of the UN Office of Counter Terrorism.

With an Opposition that seems to have lost the plot, there would seem to be little chance of Sri Lanka escaping from being pressured into undesirable, ill-considered commitments that threaten sovereignty and place national security in jeopardy, unless intense public pressure is brought to bear on the all factions of the divided Sri Lankan government.

-Asian Tribune -

[TonyGosling]

Or because Modi is part of the gang that carried out the bombings perhaps?

Modi's visit to island is proof that the country is safe: Sri Lanka Tourism Minister
ANI
Published Jun 26, 2019, 8:59 am ISTUpdated Jun 26, 2019, 8:59 am IST
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/world/neighbours/260619/modis-visit-to -island-is-proof-that-the-country-is-safe-sri-lanka-to.html

Modi paid a stopover visit to the island nation earlier this month on his way back to India from the Maldives.
'Prime Minister Modi came to Sri Lanka and it is the proof that Sri Lanka is safe. He visited churches there. He was cordial and comfortable and what is a better proof of safety than that,' Amaratunga told ANI. (Photo: ANI)
'Prime Minister Modi came to Sri Lanka and it is the proof that Sri Lanka is safe. He visited churches there. He was cordial and comfortable and what is a better proof of safety than that,' Amaratunga told ANI. (Photo: ANI)
Sri Lanka/New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Sri Lanka is a proof that the country is safe, said the island nation Tourism Minister John Amaratunga.

"Prime Minister Modi came to Sri Lanka and it is the proof that Sri Lanka is safe. He visited churches there. He was cordial and comfortable and what is a better proof of safety than that," Amaratunga told ANI.



Modi paid a stopover visit to the island nation earlier this month on his way back to India from the Maldives.

Amaratunga's statement came after over two months of deadly Easter Sunday attack which targeted eight locations, including three churches, killing more than 250 people.

Talking about the impact of the terror attack which took place on April 21 in Sri Lanka, he said, "Sri Lanka is the same as was before the blast. However, our intelligence was quick enough within 10 days to apprehend who supported ISIS criminals who destroyed churches and hotel in Sri Lanka."

Negating the impact of ongoing emergency in Sri Lanka, the minister said the reason the total removal of travel advisory by countries is because of an emergency.

"Emergency has no danger to tourism. We needed to investigate the people behind the attacks. In 2-3 days emergency will be removed. The movement in the city is normal as it was before 21 April," he added.

The minister also discussed tourism incentives for Indians by releasing a package including tickets and hotels at a heavy discount rate of almost 50-60 per cent.

Amartunga assured that Sri Lanka is safe and secure. He stated that 4500 Indians in 2018 amounted to 19 to 20 per cent of the arrivals to the country and said India is number 1 in terms of tourist arrivals.

Expressing optimism, he said, "I see tourism is bouncing back. Indians, Chinese and Europe have come."

[TonyGosling]

Ah. When considering whether or not to carry out a Western intelligence led massacre, designed to fuel inter-religious tension and war, one can be confident of a cover up when the president is part of the plot!

Sri Lanka’s president vows to block Easter attacks probe
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/06/08/Sri-Lanka-s-pres ident-vows-to-block-Easter-attacks-probe.html

Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena. (AFP)
AFP, ColomboSaturday, 8 June 2019 Text size A A A
Sri Lanka’s president has told his cabinet that he will not cooperate with a parliamentary investigation into security lapses leading to the Easter suicide bombings, official sources said Saturday.

Maithripala Sirisena summoned an emergency meeting of his cabinet on Friday night to oppose the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) probing the April 21 attacks that killed 258 people and wounded nearly 500.

A ministerial source told AFP Sirisena has refused to allow any police, military or intelligence personnel to testify before the committee.

“The cabinet meeting ended inconclusively,” the source said on condition of anonymity. “The government did not agree to suspend the PSC either.”

Sirisena’s office did not comment on the outcome of the heated cabinet meeting, but said the president had told senior police officers on Friday that he will not allow any serving officer to testify before the PSC.

Last week, Sirisena’s intelligence chief Sisira Mendis told the committee that the president had failed to hold regular security review meetings to assess the potential threat from Islamic radicals.

Halfway through his testimony, the live telecast of the proceedings were stopped on Sirisena’s orders, official sources said.

Sirisena’s defense secretary and police chief have suggested that the president, who is also the minister of Defense and Law and Order, did not follow proper protocols in dealing with intelligence reports, including advance warnings about the April 21 bombings.
Sirisena has repeatedly denied he was aware of an impending threat.

A local extremist organization and ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks against three churches and three luxury hotels.

Sirisena said last week that he had met with the national police chief and his top brass 13 days before the Easter Sunday attacks but no officer had raised the warnings which had been relayed by India.

Official sources said New Delhi had provided details of planned attacks based on information from an extremist in Indian custody.

The government has admitted there were intelligence failures before the attacks, in which 45 foreign nationals died.

Sirisena subsequently suspended police chief Pujith Jayasundara and dismissed his top defense official Hemasiri Fernando.

Sri Lanka has been under a state of emergency since the attacks.

Last Update: Saturday, 8 June 2019 KSA 08:06 - GMT 05:06

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