2019 SRI LANKA BOMBING FULL FORCE OF

Sri Lanka has filed 23,270 charges against 25 people in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks on churches and hotels that killed 269 people, the president’s office. What we know about the investigationBahrain ended a de facto seven-year moratorium in January 2017 when it executed three Shia men for a bomb attack that resulted in the deaths of three police.FILE- In this Sunday April 21, 2019, file photo, Sri Lankan police officers inspect the site of an explosion at the Shangri-la hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Information continues to emerge, while some basic questions remain unanswered. The investigation into the bombings on Sunday in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people entered a fourth day on Wednesday. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjit of Colombo said that 25 people charged last week in connection with the April 21 bomb attacks that killed 269. A prominent Catholic Church leader of Sri Lanka on Friday expressed the Church’s disappointment with the government probe into the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks on churches and hotels in the country.

2019 Sri Lanka Bombing Full Force Of

The officials said nine bombers blew themselves up — eight men and one woman — including the man described as the leader of the homegrown, militant Islamist group said to have carried out the attack. Some had been educated overseas, including one who was an undergraduate at a university in Britain and went to graduate school in Australia. The suicide bombers who struck churches and hotels were all well-educated, middle-class Sri Lankans, officials said on Wednesday. Rajapakse said that Hemasiri Fernando, the defense secretary, and Pujith Jayasundara, the inspector general of police, “hid these facts from you and the prime minister,” and urged the president to “arrest them and bring the full force of the law to bear against them.” As anger mounted over the intelligence failures, one lawmaker, Wijedasa Rajapakse, called on Wednesday for the arrest and prosecution of two top security officials, and President Maithripala Sirisena asked the two officials to resign. It was the last in a series of unheeded alerts, including an April 4 warning and an April 11 intelligence memo that warned of attacks on churches and named the plotters.Sri Lanka’s Christian community has hoisted black flags at churches and homes to express anger over the government’s investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks By The Associated.

On Tuesday, the Islamic State claimed its “fighters” were responsible. The government has blamed the group National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the attacks and said it received foreign assistance. The American ambassador said investigators believed there were “ongoing terrorist plots,” and Sri Lankan officials have said they are still searching for people believed to be linked to the attacks.

Unicef, the United Nations children agency, said at least 45 of those killed were children. At least 250 people were killed. On Wednesday, a government minister and former army chief said planning may have been underway for several years.What we know about who was killed and where Sri Lankan officials said on Tuesday that the bombings may have been in retaliation for attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. The victims came from more than a dozen countries, and included people worshiping at Easter services. More than 250 people were killed, including at least 45 children, and about 500 were wounded.

The deadliest explosion was at St. Three officers searching for the attackers were killed in that blast. Two more explosions happened in the afternoon in and around Colombo, one at a small guesthouse and the other at what was the suspects’ apparent safe house.

Michael barbaroFrom The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. Top officials had been repeatedly warned of the threat. The three hotels attacked, all in Colombo, were the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury.Transcript Listen to ‘The Daily’: The Terrorist Attacks in Sri Lanka Hosted by Michael Barbaro produced by Rachel Quester, Eric Krupke and Alexandra Leigh Young, with help from Annie Brown and edited by Lisa Tobin Suicide bombings across the country killed hundreds of people. Witnesses described “a river of blood” there. Anthony’s Shrine, a Roman Catholic church in Colombo, was also attacked, with an unknown number of dead. At least 28 people were killed at the Zion Church in Batticaloa, on the other side of the island on its eastern coast.

Sri Lanka is a developing country, somewhat isolated. What was going on in the government there? jeffrey gettlemanThe Sri Lankan government was in complete meltdown. How did a small, obscure and underfinanced local group carry out one of the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11?Jeffrey Gettleman, take me back to a year ago in Sri Lanka.

And the government is a symptom of all these problems. So we are now witnessing the rebirth of this country after decades of bloodshed and dysfunction and confusion and chaos. And for years, it’s struggled with a very brutal civil war that ended about 10 years ago.

The Sri Lankan government doesn’t really take it seriously. And ever since then, he had been traveling back and forth between India and Sri Lanka, spreading these very hateful messages that Muslims are the only ones who deserve to be on Earth, that Muslims have the right to kill anybody who’s not Muslim, and that anybody who’s concerned about these issues should really take action and strike out against infidels. He was said to be a traveling preacher who had been run out of his own village because his views were too radical and hateful, and he had been told to leave. They didn’t know much about this guy. Michael barbaroAnd throughout this turmoil that you’re describing over the past year, what is happening simultaneously in Sri Lanka? jeffrey gettlemanWell, around the same time in December last year, when this political meltdown was still a big issue here, and the government was dysfunctional, police officials in a small town in central Sri Lanka learned about a mysterious preacher who had been indoctrinating young Muslim students and encouraging them to attack Buddhists and Buddhist statues.

And this memo was dated April 11, and it says, foreign intelligence agencies have given us information that Mohammed Zaharan is planning suicide attacks against Catholic churches in Sri Lanka. And the Sri Lankans then process the information and put together a security memo that they circulate among only a few assistant police chiefs. The Indians give the Sri Lankans very detailed information — the whereabouts of these people, their cell phone numbers, social media information, addresses, names, aliases. And then, in early April, India reaches out to Sri Lanka and says they have specific information: Mohammed Zaharan and his followers are planning suicide attacks across Sri Lanka at churches.

Archived recordingThe story we’re following — state media in Sri Lanka report three explosions were at hotels. Easter Sunday, bombs explode at several churches and hotels across Sri Lanka. No security is added at churches, and life goes on, until April 21.At about 8:45 a.m. The suspects who are named in the memo are not arrested.

Jeffrey gettlemanBy the time I bought my plane tickets and was en route to Sri Lanka, the death toll was nearly 200 people. Archived recordingThe information is still coming through, but the information that we have points to a devastating series of what looks like a series of coordinated attacks. Over the next couple hours, we find out that dozens of people have been killed. And keep this in mind — jeffrey gettlemanI was actually in New Delhi, and I got a message that a few explosions had been heard and several people were injured.

Jeffrey gettlemanAnd the people who were killed were worshippers, many children, several dozen foreign tourists. Archived recordingThis is the worst violence in Sri Lanka in more than 10 years, since the end of the civil war there.