Wasantha Rupasinghe
29 May 2019
One month has passed since the April 21 terrorist bombings on three Christian churches and three luxury hotels in Sri Lanka killed over 250 innocent men, women and children, and injured many more.
The government and defence establishment received prior warning from foreign intelligence sources but took no action to prevent the attacks. No plausible official explanation has been given as to why no preventative measures were taken.
In the aftermath, however, all factions of the political establishment have backed the imposition of a state of emergency and draconian police state measures and are whipping up anti-Muslim communalism and violence. The real target of this new “war on terror” is the rising struggles of the working class against the government’s austerity measures.
The evidence made public to date indicates that the atrocity was carried out by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in conjunction with a local Islamist extremist group, National Thowheeth Jamma’ath (NTJ), but there remain many unanswered questions.
On April 23, ISIS claimed responsibility for attacks via its AMAQ news agency, releasing a photograph of the group of eight suicide bombers including Zahran Hashim, the leader of the NTJ. The caption read: “The executors of the attack that targeted citizens of coalition states and Christians in Sri Lanka two days ago were with the group.”
Six days later, ISIS leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi appearing on a video, praising the suicide bombers who “struck homes of Crusaders in their Easter, in vengeance for their brothers in Baghouz.” Baghouz, a village in eastern Syria, was the last ISIS stronghold in Syria. After its fall to US-backed forces, the Trump administration boasted in March that ISIS had been eliminated.
Neither statement mentioned the NTJ by name. However, an Indian intelligence agency sent a pecific warning to its Sri Lankan counterparts on April 4 based on information obtained from the interrogation of an ISIS suspect. It stated that the attack involved suicide bombings, was being organized by NTJ operative Zahran and was targeted at churches.
TJ was formed by Zahran in 2016 after breaking away from the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jamma’ath (SLTJ) which had been founded in 2012. The SLTJ leaders, who declare themselves moderates, allege that Zahran advocated violence and a more fundamentalist Islamist line.
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------ Post added on Sep 9, 2023 at 1:27 AM
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/29/isis-m29.html
------ Post added on Sep 9, 2023 at 1:28 AM
29 May 2019
One month has passed since the April 21 terrorist bombings on three Christian churches and three luxury hotels in Sri Lanka killed over 250 innocent men, women and children, and injured many more.
The government and defence establishment received prior warning from foreign intelligence sources but took no action to prevent the attacks. No plausible official explanation has been given as to why no preventative measures were taken.
In the aftermath, however, all factions of the political establishment have backed the imposition of a state of emergency and draconian police state measures and are whipping up anti-Muslim communalism and violence. The real target of this new “war on terror” is the rising struggles of the working class against the government’s austerity measures.
The evidence made public to date indicates that the atrocity was carried out by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in conjunction with a local Islamist extremist group, National Thowheeth Jamma’ath (NTJ), but there remain many unanswered questions.
On April 23, ISIS claimed responsibility for attacks via its AMAQ news agency, releasing a photograph of the group of eight suicide bombers including Zahran Hashim, the leader of the NTJ. The caption read: “The executors of the attack that targeted citizens of coalition states and Christians in Sri Lanka two days ago were with the group.”
Six days later, ISIS leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi appearing on a video, praising the suicide bombers who “struck homes of Crusaders in their Easter, in vengeance for their brothers in Baghouz.” Baghouz, a village in eastern Syria, was the last ISIS stronghold in Syria. After its fall to US-backed forces, the Trump administration boasted in March that ISIS had been eliminated.
Neither statement mentioned the NTJ by name. However, an Indian intelligence agency sent a pecific warning to its Sri Lankan counterparts on April 4 based on information obtained from the interrogation of an ISIS suspect. It stated that the attack involved suicide bombings, was being organized by NTJ operative Zahran and was targeted at churches.
TJ was formed by Zahran in 2016 after breaking away from the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jamma’ath (SLTJ) which had been founded in 2012. The SLTJ leaders, who declare themselves moderates, allege that Zahran advocated violence and a more fundamentalist Islamist line.
***
------ Post added on Sep 9, 2023 at 1:27 AM
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/29/isis-m29.html
------ Post added on Sep 9, 2023 at 1:28 AM
Sri Lankan workers need a socialist program to defeat Colombo’s police-state preparations
