By Maheesha Mudugamuwa
Two weeks after the Easter Sunday terror attacks, law enforcement authorities continue extensive search operations across the country in search of terrorists, hideouts, explosives, weapons, and other items.
The recent attacks hit the country nearly 10 years after the military defeated the LTTE, killing over 200 people and injuring more than 500.
Elaborating on the progress of the ongoing investigations, sources in the authorities told The Sunday Morning that combing operations carried out so far to track down suspects had helped law enforcement authorities identify terrorist links, and 12 key activists connected to the Easter Sunday terror attacks had already been taken into custody.
ISIS links confirmed
“We have identified the links and arrested suspects but that doesn’t mean the threat is over yet. So far, the situation is under control but there could be more to investigate, similar to how the LTTE was not ruled out even after they were defeated in 2009,” he said.
However, local investigators confirmed links between Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the local extremist group National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), allegedly led by Zahran Hashim, one of the suicide bombers who targeted Shangri-La Hotel at Galle Face. They also confirmed that the local leader of the terrorist organisation affiliated with the ISIS was killed in the Easter Sunday attack even though some politicians claimed otherwise.
A few days after the attack, the ISIS claimed responsibility and last week, ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi broke years of silence to praise the attacks in Sri Lanka by releasing a video of him in discussion with a few of his followers. The video had been heavily edited and dubbed after it was filmed. Prior to the release of the video, Al-Baghdadi had been reported many times as being killed.
Search operations
Military Spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu told The Sunday Morning that over 10,000 army personnel were on the ground conducting search operations on the information received by intelligence services of the country.
“Considering the social activities in the coming weeks, raids are conducted and accordingly, security will be further beefed up,” he said. Special security arrangements have been made to provide security to schools, religious establishments, tourist hotels, etc.
Special operations were conducted by the Army in Vavuniya, Puttalam, Kurunegala District in the North Western Province, Akurana, Katugastota, Peradeniya, Gampola, and Navalapitiya in the Central Province, Ragama, Aluthgama, Kalutara, and Moratuwa in the Western Province, Weligama, Galle, Matara, and Hambantota in the Southern Province, and Monaragala. During those operations, 120 suspects were arrested and certain amounts of detonators, explosives, warlike items, ammunition, etc. were taken into custody, Brig. Atapattu said.
On Friday evening, Brig. Atapattu said: “During the last 48 hours, law enforcement authorities arrested 120 suspects and handed them over to the Police and all those arrests were made on suspicion under emergency regulations.
“Search operations were mainly targeting Western, Eastern, Central, and Southern Provinces,” he said.
Meanwhile, a senior official of the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) told The Sunday Morning that they had already handed over 20 suspects to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Commenting on the swords found during the search operations, one of the key investigators revealed that local laws did not permit the possession of swords inside Mosques or elsewhere and a separate investigation was being conducted to identify who had provided the approval to bring these down and how they were given customs clearance.
DNA tests
According to Police Media Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara, the nine terror suspects who carried out the eight terror attacks across the country had been identified. “However, further DNA tests will be conducted to ensure proper identification of the suicide bombers and those involved in the shootout in Kalmunai on Friday (26),” the Police Spokesman said.
Accordingly, the suicide bomber who carried out the attack on St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, Kotahena had been identified as Alawdeen Ahmed Muath, a resident of Central Road in Mattakkuliya. The suicide bomber at St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya, Negombo was identified as Achchi Muhammadu Muhammadu Hasthun, a resident of Walachchenei.
The person who blew himself up at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo had been identified as Mohamed Azam Mohamed Mubarak, a resident of York Street, Colombo 2 and Bandaranaike Mawatha, Colombo 12. The two persons who blew themselves up at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo were identified as Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Zahran, a resident of Mohideen Church Road in Kattankudy and Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Ilham Ahmed, a resident of Mahawila Gardens, Baseline Road in Dematagoda. Muhammad Nazar Mohammad Azad, a resident of Cemetery Road, New Kattankudy, had detonated the bomb at the Zion Church in Batticaloa.
Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Insaf Ahmed, a resident of Mahawila Gardens, Baseline Road Dematagoda, blew himself up at the Cinnamon Grand in Colombo.
Mohammed Latif Jameel Mohammed, a resident of Welamboda, Gampola and Lansiyawatta, Wellampitiya triggered the explosion at the Tropical Inn in Dehiwala.
Fathima Ilhaam, a resident of Mahawila Gardens, Baseline Road, Dematagoda, detonated the bomb in the Mahawila Housing Scheme in Dematagoda.
Religious leaders concerned
Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith urged the Government to conduct a fair and independent investigation into the terror attacks.
Rejecting a bulletproof car given to him by the Government, Cardinal Ranjith urged the Government to assure public security as soon as possible and take action against those who were directly involved in the attacks.
Just hours after Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam assured the security of the schools, set to re-open tomorrow (6), Cardinal Ranjith issued a statement requesting the heads of all Catholic schools in Colombo to refrain from opening until further notice. However, the rest of the schools are scheduled to re-open tomorrow, and Kariyawasam said that at least one police officer would be assigned to each school for security.
Meanwhile, the groups alleged to be linked with the Easter Sunday terror attack were yet to be banned. Issuing a statement last Saturday, the President’s Media Division said steps would be taken to ban the two organisations named NTJ and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI). However as at Friday (3), the Government had not issued the respective gazette notification banning the two organisations.
According to Military Spokesman Brig. Atapattu, the President had already signed the relevant documents and handed them over to the Secretary, but the process was still on hold as the Intelligence Service wanted to ban a few other organisations together with these two. He said the President’s Office had informed them that the necessary steps would be taken within next week to issue the gazette notification banning those organisations. Last week, the President enacted regulations banning the burqa and niqab under emergency regulations.
Cutting off cash flow
Police investigations uncovered that NTJ Leader Zahran Hashim had reportedly given his sister, Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Niyas Madaniya, a sum of Rs.2 million when he met her on 12 April in Colombo prior to the suicide bombings on Easter Sunday.
Madaniya, who is presently being questioned by investigators at police headquarters in Batticaloa, had revealed this fact. She had initially denied any connection to Hashim but later admitted that he was her brother.
She had said that Zahran had asked her to meet him in Colombo, stating that she had arrived from Batticaloa in a van just before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and had met him at a luxury hotel in Mount Lavinia where he had handed over Rs.2 million to her, which she was told was to be used for activities of the NTJ in Batticaloa. The female suspect is now the only surviving family member of the main bomber and NTJ Leader. She is to be questioned further by authorities about NTJ activities in the island.
Meanwhile, a 40-year-old man, who is alleged to have been in charge of the finances of the NTJ organisation in the Central Province, was arrested by Police in the early hours of Friday in Gampola.
Police also found bank slips of transactions carried out on behalf of the NTJ since 2017. There had been more than 200 transactions involving various persons providing financial assistance to the organisation. There were also receipts of bank deposits made to the credit of others.
The Police Media Spokesman said the assets of the terrorists involved in the eight terror attacks across the country had been identified and the CID was working on measures to freeze their assets in line with the Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that ISIS allegedly funded the deadly Easter bombings with Bitcoin donations.
A news report carried in “Globes”, an Israeli business website, on 2 May quoted an Israeli blockchain intelligence company called “Whitestream” which stated that an investigation conducted by Whitestream had found that on the day prior to the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, there were exceptionally large transfers to Bitcoin wallets that ISIS use to raise funds.
The news report was confirmed to The Sunday Morning by Whitestream Co-founder Itsik Levy. Whitestream had stated that it found that on the day before the bombings, there was a sharp rise in hundreds of percent in the Bitcoin balance held by CoinPayments, a company through which donations to ISIS are converted into Bitcoin from regular currency.
On 20 April, the day before the Easter attacks, the balance in the main CoinPayments wallet rose from just $ 500,000 to $ 4.5 million.
The following day – the day of the attacks – the wallet's balance dropped once again to $ 500,000, at the average daily monthly balance it was at during the previous nine months. CoinPayments is a commercial company registered in the Cayman Islands operating out of Canada, which allows its customers to receive cryptocurrency payments and convert them into dollars, Whitestream further stated.
Two weeks after the Easter Sunday terror attacks, law enforcement authorities continue extensive search operations across the country in search of terrorists, hideouts, explosives, weapons, and other items.
The recent attacks hit the country nearly 10 years after the military defeated the LTTE, killing over 200 people and injuring more than 500.
Elaborating on the progress of the ongoing investigations, sources in the authorities told The Sunday Morning that combing operations carried out so far to track down suspects had helped law enforcement authorities identify terrorist links, and 12 key activists connected to the Easter Sunday terror attacks had already been taken into custody.
ISIS links confirmed
“We have identified the links and arrested suspects but that doesn’t mean the threat is over yet. So far, the situation is under control but there could be more to investigate, similar to how the LTTE was not ruled out even after they were defeated in 2009,” he said.
However, local investigators confirmed links between Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the local extremist group National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), allegedly led by Zahran Hashim, one of the suicide bombers who targeted Shangri-La Hotel at Galle Face. They also confirmed that the local leader of the terrorist organisation affiliated with the ISIS was killed in the Easter Sunday attack even though some politicians claimed otherwise.
A few days after the attack, the ISIS claimed responsibility and last week, ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi broke years of silence to praise the attacks in Sri Lanka by releasing a video of him in discussion with a few of his followers. The video had been heavily edited and dubbed after it was filmed. Prior to the release of the video, Al-Baghdadi had been reported many times as being killed.
Search operations
Military Spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu told The Sunday Morning that over 10,000 army personnel were on the ground conducting search operations on the information received by intelligence services of the country.
“Considering the social activities in the coming weeks, raids are conducted and accordingly, security will be further beefed up,” he said. Special security arrangements have been made to provide security to schools, religious establishments, tourist hotels, etc.
Special operations were conducted by the Army in Vavuniya, Puttalam, Kurunegala District in the North Western Province, Akurana, Katugastota, Peradeniya, Gampola, and Navalapitiya in the Central Province, Ragama, Aluthgama, Kalutara, and Moratuwa in the Western Province, Weligama, Galle, Matara, and Hambantota in the Southern Province, and Monaragala. During those operations, 120 suspects were arrested and certain amounts of detonators, explosives, warlike items, ammunition, etc. were taken into custody, Brig. Atapattu said.
On Friday evening, Brig. Atapattu said: “During the last 48 hours, law enforcement authorities arrested 120 suspects and handed them over to the Police and all those arrests were made on suspicion under emergency regulations.
“Search operations were mainly targeting Western, Eastern, Central, and Southern Provinces,” he said.
Meanwhile, a senior official of the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) told The Sunday Morning that they had already handed over 20 suspects to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Commenting on the swords found during the search operations, one of the key investigators revealed that local laws did not permit the possession of swords inside Mosques or elsewhere and a separate investigation was being conducted to identify who had provided the approval to bring these down and how they were given customs clearance.
DNA tests
According to Police Media Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara, the nine terror suspects who carried out the eight terror attacks across the country had been identified. “However, further DNA tests will be conducted to ensure proper identification of the suicide bombers and those involved in the shootout in Kalmunai on Friday (26),” the Police Spokesman said.
Accordingly, the suicide bomber who carried out the attack on St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, Kotahena had been identified as Alawdeen Ahmed Muath, a resident of Central Road in Mattakkuliya. The suicide bomber at St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya, Negombo was identified as Achchi Muhammadu Muhammadu Hasthun, a resident of Walachchenei.
The person who blew himself up at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo had been identified as Mohamed Azam Mohamed Mubarak, a resident of York Street, Colombo 2 and Bandaranaike Mawatha, Colombo 12. The two persons who blew themselves up at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo were identified as Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Zahran, a resident of Mohideen Church Road in Kattankudy and Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Ilham Ahmed, a resident of Mahawila Gardens, Baseline Road in Dematagoda. Muhammad Nazar Mohammad Azad, a resident of Cemetery Road, New Kattankudy, had detonated the bomb at the Zion Church in Batticaloa.
Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed Insaf Ahmed, a resident of Mahawila Gardens, Baseline Road Dematagoda, blew himself up at the Cinnamon Grand in Colombo.
Mohammed Latif Jameel Mohammed, a resident of Welamboda, Gampola and Lansiyawatta, Wellampitiya triggered the explosion at the Tropical Inn in Dehiwala.
Fathima Ilhaam, a resident of Mahawila Gardens, Baseline Road, Dematagoda, detonated the bomb in the Mahawila Housing Scheme in Dematagoda.
Religious leaders concerned
Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith urged the Government to conduct a fair and independent investigation into the terror attacks.
Rejecting a bulletproof car given to him by the Government, Cardinal Ranjith urged the Government to assure public security as soon as possible and take action against those who were directly involved in the attacks.
Just hours after Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam assured the security of the schools, set to re-open tomorrow (6), Cardinal Ranjith issued a statement requesting the heads of all Catholic schools in Colombo to refrain from opening until further notice. However, the rest of the schools are scheduled to re-open tomorrow, and Kariyawasam said that at least one police officer would be assigned to each school for security.
Meanwhile, the groups alleged to be linked with the Easter Sunday terror attack were yet to be banned. Issuing a statement last Saturday, the President’s Media Division said steps would be taken to ban the two organisations named NTJ and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI). However as at Friday (3), the Government had not issued the respective gazette notification banning the two organisations.
According to Military Spokesman Brig. Atapattu, the President had already signed the relevant documents and handed them over to the Secretary, but the process was still on hold as the Intelligence Service wanted to ban a few other organisations together with these two. He said the President’s Office had informed them that the necessary steps would be taken within next week to issue the gazette notification banning those organisations. Last week, the President enacted regulations banning the burqa and niqab under emergency regulations.
Cutting off cash flow
Police investigations uncovered that NTJ Leader Zahran Hashim had reportedly given his sister, Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Niyas Madaniya, a sum of Rs.2 million when he met her on 12 April in Colombo prior to the suicide bombings on Easter Sunday.
Madaniya, who is presently being questioned by investigators at police headquarters in Batticaloa, had revealed this fact. She had initially denied any connection to Hashim but later admitted that he was her brother.
She had said that Zahran had asked her to meet him in Colombo, stating that she had arrived from Batticaloa in a van just before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and had met him at a luxury hotel in Mount Lavinia where he had handed over Rs.2 million to her, which she was told was to be used for activities of the NTJ in Batticaloa. The female suspect is now the only surviving family member of the main bomber and NTJ Leader. She is to be questioned further by authorities about NTJ activities in the island.
Meanwhile, a 40-year-old man, who is alleged to have been in charge of the finances of the NTJ organisation in the Central Province, was arrested by Police in the early hours of Friday in Gampola.
Police also found bank slips of transactions carried out on behalf of the NTJ since 2017. There had been more than 200 transactions involving various persons providing financial assistance to the organisation. There were also receipts of bank deposits made to the credit of others.
The Police Media Spokesman said the assets of the terrorists involved in the eight terror attacks across the country had been identified and the CID was working on measures to freeze their assets in line with the Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that ISIS allegedly funded the deadly Easter bombings with Bitcoin donations.
A news report carried in “Globes”, an Israeli business website, on 2 May quoted an Israeli blockchain intelligence company called “Whitestream” which stated that an investigation conducted by Whitestream had found that on the day prior to the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, there were exceptionally large transfers to Bitcoin wallets that ISIS use to raise funds.
The news report was confirmed to The Sunday Morning by Whitestream Co-founder Itsik Levy. Whitestream had stated that it found that on the day before the bombings, there was a sharp rise in hundreds of percent in the Bitcoin balance held by CoinPayments, a company through which donations to ISIS are converted into Bitcoin from regular currency.
On 20 April, the day before the Easter attacks, the balance in the main CoinPayments wallet rose from just $ 500,000 to $ 4.5 million.
The following day – the day of the attacks – the wallet's balance dropped once again to $ 500,000, at the average daily monthly balance it was at during the previous nine months. CoinPayments is a commercial company registered in the Cayman Islands operating out of Canada, which allows its customers to receive cryptocurrency payments and convert them into dollars, Whitestream further stated.