COLOMBO – Sri Lanka Army’s chief has said that some of the suicide bomberswho carried out the country’s worst terror attack on Easter Sunday visitedKashmir and Kerala for “some sorts of training” or to “make some morelinks” with other foreign outfits.
It is the first time that a top Sri Lankan security official has confirmedthe militants’ visit to India which had shared intelligence inputs withColombo ahead of the attack, PTI has reported.
Nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series ofdevastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotelson April 21, killing 253 people and injuring over 500 others.
In an interview to BBC, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake, Commander ofthe Army, divulged some details on the movements of the suspects in theregion and also international links. “They (the suspects) have gone toIndia, they’ve gone to Kashmir, Bangalore, they’ve travelled to Keralastate. Those are the information available with us,” he said.
Asked what activities they were doing in Kashmir and Kerala, the Army chiefsaid: “Not exactly, but definitely in some sorts of training or to makesome more links towards the other organisations outside the country”.
The Islamic State terror group claimed the attacks, but the governmentblamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ).Sri Lanka banned the NTJ and arrested over 100 people in connection withthe blasts.
About the possibility of an involvement of a foreign group, the Commandersaid that by looking at the pattern of operation and the places that thesuspects travelled, there has to be some outside involvement of someleadership or instructions.
Asked why the threats were not taken more seriously after receivinginformation from India, Senanayake said: “We had some information andintelligence-sharing, situations and military intelligence on a differentdirection and the others were different and there was a gap that everybodycould see today”.
He said that as the Chief of the Army, he believes that everybody who isresponsible for intelligence-gathering and the national security is to beblamed, including the political hierarchies.
Asked why Sri Lanka was targeted, the Commander said: “Too much of freedom,too much of peace for the last 10 years. People forget what happened for 30years. People are enjoying peace and they neglected security”. He wasreferring to the three-decade civil war with the Liberation Tigers of TamilEelam (LTTE) which ended in 2009 after claiming at least 100,000 lives.