SRI LANKA’S government has acknowledged “major” lapses over its failure to prevent the horrific attacks on Easter Sunday that killed more than 350 people, despite prior intelligence warnings.
Recriminations have flown since Islamist suicide bombers blew themselves up in packed churches and luxury hotels on Sunday, in attacks claimed by the Islamic State group. Overnight, security forces using newly granted powers under the country’s State of Emergency arrested 60 suspects including a Syrian in connection with the attack, as the toll rose to 359. But the government faces anger over revelations that specific warnings about an attack went ignored.
Sri Lanka’s police chief issued a warning on April 11 that suicide bombings against “prominent churches” by local Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath were possible and alerts had been given by a foreign intelligence agency. CNN reported that Indian intelligence services had passed on “unusually specific” information in the weeks before the attacks, some of it from an IS suspect in their custody. But that information was not shared with the Prime Minister or other top Ministers.
President Maithripala Sirisena, who is also Defence and Law and Order Minister, pledged Tuesday to make “major changes in the leadership of the security forces in the next 24 hours”. He asked the Police Chief and Defence Secretary to quit.
Experts say the bombings bear many of the hallmarks of IS attacks, and the government has suggested local militants could not have acted alone. What’s significant is that, the attacks bear some resemblance to the attacks on the Holey Artisan Bakery where young men from well-off families were converted to a perverted ideology to cleanse the world of non-Muslims.
It is unfortunate that IS ideology still has the ability to inspire otherwise normal individuals to act like monsters without any shred of conscience for the gruesome acts which they commit. The fact that its perverted ideology still has power over individuals attests to the fact of its appeal. Sri Lanka must co-ordinate its intelligence agencies with the rest of the world to ensure that there is no repeat of such an action ever again.
