Gun battle as police intensify raids – Ghanacrusader

Sri Lankan police said they exchanged fire with an armed group in the east of the country while they were looking for people linked to the bomb attacks last Sunday. An army spokesman said that an explosion had also occurred while the police were raiding the town of Ampara Sainthamaruthu near Batticaloa.

In a separate raid nearby, police said explosives and IS uniforms were seized. Earlier, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister said that warnings about the attacks had not been transmitted. Ranil Wickremesinghe told the BBC that he was "out of the loop" and that vital information warnings had not been sent to him.

The coordinated suicide bombings that followed in three luxury hotels and three churches on Easter Sunday killed at least 250 people. Sri Lanka has deployed nearly 10,000 security guards across the country to track down all those responsible for the attacks and ensure security at religious sites.

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The authorities accused a local Islamist extremist group, the national Tawheed Jamath, of these attacks, although EI also claimed that it was behind them. Security was strengthened around mosques for Friday prayers, with some Muslims staying away from fear of revenge attacks.

What is the last?

In Ampara Sainthamaruthu on Friday, police said agents acting on a report had launched a raid and that an armed group had unleashed an explosion. A shootout ensues. The details were incomplete, but the Sri Lankan media reported that one civilian and several suspected activists had died.

In another raid in the same city, police found ISIS uniforms, 150 sticks of gelignite, 100,000 metal balls and a camera for drones, said a spokesman for the police. army. According to police quoted by the local media, 10 arrests were made Friday in the country, bringing to 80 the number of people arrested since last Sunday.

President Maithripala Sirisena told reporters that the intelligence services thought that there were about 130 ISIS suspects in the country and that the police were pursuing 70 who were still at large.

What are the political consequences?

The chief of police and senior official of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defense both resigned after the bombings. But Mr Wickremesinghe argued that, having no knowledge of the warnings, he did not need to withdraw from his post.

"If we had a little idea and we had not taken action, I would have immediately resigned," he said, adding: "But what do you do when you do not use it more? "

The breakdown in communication has refocused attention on the internal conflicts between the two most powerful men in the country – Mr Wickremesinghe and President Sirisena.

Relations between the two have deteriorated so badly that last October, Mr Sirisena dismissed Mr Wickremesinghe. He was reinstated in December following decisions by the highest courts in Sri Lanka.

Who were the attackers?

Nine people are believed to have perpetrated these attacks. President Sirisena confirmed that the alleged leader of the gang, Zahran Hashim, a radical preacher, had died during the attack perpetrated at the Shangri-La hotel, in the capital, Colombo.

Two of the suicide bombers are the sons of spice trader Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim, one of Sri Lanka's richest men. Mr. Ibrahim was arrested and interrogated after the attacks.

One of his sons would have been the second suicide bomber of the Shangri-La hotel alongside Zahran Hashim. The other son reportedly targeted the restaurant at the Cinnamon Grand, an upscale hotel located nearby.

A woman who allegedly was the wife of one of Mr. Ibrahim's sons blew up explosives during a police raid Sunday at the family's villa. Several people, including children and three police officers, were reportedly killed in the blast. According to the Sri Lankan government, most of the attackers were "well educated" and came from "middle clbad or upper middle clbad" families.

Another of the so-called bombers has been studying in the UK, a senior Whitehall official told the BBC. Abdul Latif Jamil Mohammed studied aerospace engineering at the University of Kingston in 2006-2007, but did not obtain his full degree.