Sri Lankan government accuses local Islamist group of being responsible for terrorist attacks

Senaratne, who is also a member of the government of President Maithripala Sirisena, said that to study the possible links of this organization with foreign groups, according to the agency AFP.

A note sent ten days ago to Sri Lankan police warned that NTJ has prepared attacks on churches and the Embbady of India in Colombo. The source of this information was a "foreign intelligence agency".

Police also said that the 24 people arrested as part of the wave of attacks belonged to an "extremist" group, without specifying which one.

For the moment, no group has attributed the attack.

On the other hand, little is known about the NTJ, until the dateit was considered a simple radical Islamist group vandalizing Buddhist statues in the island country. In addition, in 2016, his secretary, Abdul Razik, was arrested for inciting racism. New York Times.

Although quoted by the US newspaper, it appears from the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, that the NTJ intends to "Develop the global jihadist movement in Sri Lanka and create hatred, fear and division in society. "

"These attacks [del domingo] they resemble the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the manual of global jihadist militancy, fomenting religious hatred by attacking several churches during an important holiday ", said center director Anne Speckhard.

Sunday's attacks were focused on three Christian churches (two Catholics and one Protestant) and a series of luxury hotels in the city of Colomboalthough the situation of this minority has been relatively calm in recent years and Sri Lanka has not yet witnessed outbreaks of militant Islamist violence.

In fact the greatest tensions in the country were defined by ethnic conflict between Tamils ​​and Sinhala that led to a bloody civil war that ended in 2009, after leaving between 80,000 and 100,000 dead in 25 years, according to the UN.

In this context Catholics were seen as a unifying force, since they had supporters both among the members of the Tamil minority and among the Sinhalese, the majority ethnic group. Even among Tamils, religion is Hinduism, with Muslim and Christian minorities.

However, alarms from around the world were triggered after Many Islamist terrorist groups swear revenge for attacks in ChristchurchNew Zealand, March, whenor a white supremacist mbadacred 50 Muslim worshipers in two mosques animated by hate.