COLOMBO – The scale and sophistication of the Easter Sunday attacks onchurches and hotels in Sri Lanka suggested the involvement of an externalgroup such as Islamic State, the U.S. ambassador said on Wednesday, as thedeath toll from the bombings rose to 359.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the coordinatedattacks on three churches and four hotels, and details have begun to emergeof a band of nine, well-educated suicide bombers, including a woman, fromwell-to-do families.
Sri Lankan officials have blamed two domestic Islamist groups withsuspected ties to Islamic State.
“If you look at the scale of the attacks, the level of coordination, thesophistication of them, it’s not implausible to think there are foreignlinkages,” the U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka, Alaina Teplitz, told reportersin Colombo.
“Exploring potential linkages is going to be part of (investigations),” shesaid.
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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and military were supporting theinvestigation, she said. Britain was also sending a team to help, Sri Lankasaid.
Teplitz’s comments came as Sri Lanka’s junior defense minister, RuwanWijewardene, conceded that there had been a significant intelligencefailure before the attacks, with reports of warnings of strikes not actedon and feuds at the highest levels of government.
