Sri Lankan government invokes war-time powers
Amid mass funerals following Easter Sunday’s devastating suicide bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, attention has turned to an obscure group the island nation's government suspects had help from overseas.
Sri Lanka authorities blamed the little-known radical Islamist group, the National Thowfeek Jamaath (NTJ), for the coordinated blasts which hit churches and luxury hotels killed at least 321 people including two Australians.
Cabinet Minister Rajitha Senaratne suggested the group had assistance from international militants to stage the attacks.
"We do not believe these attacks were carried out by a group of people who were confined to this country," he said. "There was an international network without which these attacks could not have succeeded."
No one has yet claimed responsibility for carrying out Sunday's bombings.
A Syrian national is in custody and being questioned over the attacks, Reuters reported.
Police said 40 people are now being held following the worst violence in Sri Lanka since the end of the country’s three-decade civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan army, which ended in 2009.
The NTJ originated around a decade ago on Sri Lanka’s east coast and is understood to follow the conservative Salafist form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.
It has no previous history of large-scale terrorist attacks although it was last year blamed for defacing Buddhist statues.
The Wall Street Journal reported the group had gained traction with a small number of middle-class and wealthier Muslims in Sri Lanka and that some had left the country to join Islamic State.
Its purported leader, known as Mohammed Zahran or Zahran Hashmi, began posting videos online three years ago calling for non-Muslims to be "eliminated", faith leaders said on Tuesday.
He became known to Muslim leaders three years ago for his incendiary speeches online.
The attacks, described by one Sri Lankan minister as a "colossal failure on the part of the intelligence services" appear to have triggered rifts between key figures in the government.
Late on Sunday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe suggested authorities had received warnings but "not enough attention had been paid."
There are reports that both Indian and US intelligence had warned the country about a threat of attack in early April.
Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo was tense on Tuesday as the military took on emergency war-time powers, allowing them to conduct searches without a warrant and to detain suspects for up to two weeks before a court hearing.
These powers haven't been used since the end of Sri Lanka's civil war.
Wickremesinghe called for national unity as the country marked a day of mourning for victims.
"It is imperative that we remain unified as Sri Lankans in the face of this unspeakable tragedy," he said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Meanwhile, it was revealed a second extremist group known as Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen is under scrutiny. It's was not clear whether the group is associated with the Bangladeshi listed terror organisation of the same name.
A special session of the Sri Lankan Parliament was convened on Tuesday afternoon. State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene said investigators were probing links between the local jihadist group National Thowheed Jamath and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. He noted bombings could have been retaliation for the terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.
Earlier on Tuesday a mass funeral was held at St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, where more than 100 people died in one of Sunday’s several targeted blasts.
On Tuesday afternoon Sri Lankan police lifted the death toll from the attacks to 321 with around 500 injured.
With wires