Authorities continued imposing curfews Wednesday night in Sri Lanka after a wave of largely Sinhalese Buddhist led vandalism on Muslim businesses and mosques prompted a nationwide law enforcement effort to protect the nation’s Muslim minority.
Sri Lankan police struggled to keep up this weekend with a series of mob attacks on mosques, the latest occurring Monday, in retaliation for a series of suicide bombings on Easter that killed over 350 people. The assailants are believed to belong to the country’s Buddhist majority.
Sri Lankan immigration authorities revealed this week that nearly 50 foreigners without valid visas are among the hundreds deported by the South Asian island nation in the wake of the Islamic State (ISIS)-linked attack that primarily attacked Christians on Easter Sunday.
Evangelical Christians from Sri Lanka’s Zion Church, which was bombed by jihadists on Easter, gathered for worship Sunday, chanting folr Jesus to “save us from the Satans who are trying to destroy our nation.”
The recent terrorist attacks at hotels and churches in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday were a stark reminder terrorists don’t necessarily have to strike on our soil to harm us.
Sri Lanka’s Home Affairs Minister Vajira Abeywardena revealed Sunday that the country had deported 200 Islamic clerics in the wake of the Easter Sunday jihadist attacks against Christians over concerns they had the potential to radicalize locals.
The archbishop of Colombo announced on Thursday that Sunday Mass will be canceled in his district this weekend due to ongoing security concerns. Catholic schools will also remain closed until further notice, while public schools in Sri Lanka will reopen on Monday with armed security.
“Violence and terrorism against people of all faiths must end and it must end now,” Trump said, as the audience applauded.
Radical imam and Sri Lanka bombing mastermind Mohamed Zahran Hashim wrote a series of Facebook posts before launching the Easter Sunday attacks that killed hundreds of people, in which he called for the murder of non-Muslims including women and children. The Facebook posts reportedly remained online as of Tuesday night despite numerous complaints from moderate Muslims.
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, long rumored to have been killed during the collapse of his “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, released a new video on Monday in which he praised the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka as well as jihadis in Burkina Faso and Mali. It was the first confirmed video appearance by Baghdadi since the summer of 2014.
Sri Lankan security forces continued a massive operation during the weekend, focusing on perpetrators of the Easter Sunday church bombings and seizing large caches of explosives and equipment that could have been used in further suicide attacks.
The Sri Lankan opposition newspaper Colombo Telegraph accused President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday of having direct knowledge of an Islamist plot to kill Christians on Easter, lying about it, and firing the nation’s defense chief to cover for the head of national intelligence, a personal friend.
Sri Lankan authorities banned National Thawheed Ja’amath (NTJ), the Islamist group believed to have orchestrated the Easter Sunday jihadist attacks against Christians this month and arrested its leader a week after the bombings.
The government of Sri Lanka has banned full face coverings, including but not limited to the Islamic burqa and niqab, as an emergency measure following the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks targeting Christians and tourists.
Sri Lanka deployed thousands of security forces on Friday to protect mosques and other worshipping centers across the island nation against potential retaliatory violence in the wake of the jihadi suicide bombings against Christians on Easter Sunday.
Some good news emerged from Sri Lanka for the grimmest of reasons on Friday, as the government revised the official death toll down from 359 to 253. Officials explained the precise number of dead is difficult to ascertain because the bodies of victims were mangled so horribly by the explosions.
Police in Sri Lanka conducted a series of raids Friday on suspected jihadists, finding in one mosque in Colombo’s suburb of Slave Island a stockpile of 47 swords alongside counterfeit military uniforms, a suicide bomber jacket, and machetes.
Sri Lankan authorities this week reportedly identified two sons and a daughter-in-law of a local millionaire spice trader as some of the jihadis involved in the wave of suicide bombings that targeted Christians on Easter Sunday, killing and injuring hundreds.
Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror newspaper published a bombshell report Thursday revealing that the suspected Easter jihad mastermind preached in a neighborhood hosting at least 11 mosques known to practice some form of Wahhabism or fundamentalist Islam.
The Daily Mirror of Sri Lanka produced a deep dive into the background of suspected Easter Sunday bombing mastermind Mohamed Zaharan Hashim that includes assertions by the Islamist group National Towheeth Jamaath (NTJ) that Hashim was long ago expelled for preaching hatred and violent extremism.
Contents: Sri Lanka bombing said to be worst since 9/11; ISIS claims credit for Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombing; Chaos in the Sri Lanka government; Sri Lankans fear a return to the civil war; Sri Lanka’s Generational Recover Era
Most of the jihadis who targeted Christians in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday with a wave of suicide bombings that left hundreds dead and wounded at churches and high-end hotels are “well-educated people” from affluent families, the South Asian island nation’s deputy defense minister revealed on Wednesday.
2020 Democrat presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI) said Wednesday that the Trump White House is attempting to “hide the truth” about terrorism “inspired by extremist Saudi ideology” from Christian voters.
Officials from other nations are disputing, or at least declining to support, Sri Lankan Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene’s contention that the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings in his country, which killed 359 people as of the latest count, were intended as retaliation for the shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.
Sri Lanka’s Christians began mass burials this week for the victims of jihadist suicide bombings on Sunday as the government announced a spike in the death toll from 290 to 359.
Sri Lankan officials say at least one of the suspected radical Islamic terrorists who targeted Christians and tourists on Easter Sunday studied in Britain and Australia.
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena announced Tuesday he would fire the heads of all security, police, and defense agencies in the country following the devastating jihadist attack on Easter Sunday that has now killed 359 people, mostly Christians.
Deadly Easter suicide bombings targeting Christians in Sri Lanka were an attack on people of “all faiths”, according to EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherini.
China’s Global Times on Monday said the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka should inspire Asian countries to “strengthen coordination” on terrorism and offered China’s leadership on the issue, citing China’s history as a “victim of terrorism.”
Facebook is now blaming multiple languages on the platform for the company’s failure to effectively monitor content.
