High class and with studies abroad: identified the terrorists of Sri Lanka

COLOMBO (AP) .- Three days before
most bloody attacks of recent years
Sri Lanka, the authorities announced today two new announcements: the dead are already 359 and eight of the nine
the attackers have already been identified. All were born in the country, one student in the UK, three were from the same family and one woman.

The government confirmed that it has accurate information on eight suicide bombers who blew themselves up last Sunday in three luxury hotels and three Christian churches, injuring more than 500 people.

Although

Islamic State

attacks have been attributed, none are foreign. Many of them had gone on to higher education and belonged to upper and upper middle clbad families, Deputy Minister of Defense Ruwan Wijewardene said today, adding that they were dissidents from two extremist Muslim groups.

"His idea is that Islam may be the only religion in this country," Wijewardene told reporters. "These were pretty well educated people," he said, adding that at least one of them had a law degree and that others would have may have been studied in Britain and Australia. "Most of them were financially independent, they came from financially stable families, which is a worrying factor," he added, according to what was published by the newspaper.
The Guardian.

He also reported that one of the additional attackers was the wife of one of the suicide bombers. The woman, two children and three policemen died in an explosion when the police approached them Sunday night after the attacks. The ninth suspect was not identified, although two other suspected insurgents died later in another explosion near Colombo.

Details regarding the identity of the attackers were made public as Sri Lankan authorities pledged to examine the nation's security apparatus in South-East Asia after a series of intelligence failures.

The Sri Lankan authorities have acknowledged that some national security agencies were aware of possible attacks before Sunday's attacks, the worst violence in the country since the end of the civil war ten years ago. However, they did not share these warnings.

At present, about 60 people have been arrested. According to officials, the person responsible for the tragedy was a local extremist group, the national Towheed Jamaar, whose leaders, Mohammed Zahran and Zahran Hashmi, stormed Muslim leaders three years ago with his inflammatory speeches on Internet.

Low in government

According to what was published by
The country, Sri Lanka's president, Maithripala Sirisena, had already warned that he would renew the leadership of the country's security forces and that he would change the authorities to head security institutions.

Moreover, in a televised speech last night, the president warned that officials who had reason to believe that terrorists could commit attacks because of the warnings received will receive "harsh measures".