"Active planning in progress": Sri Lankan officials and US diplomat warn of new attacks by militant groups

More than a week after the devastating bombings in Sri Lanka, a government minister and an American diplomat warned that the group that perpetrated these attacks could launch other attacks.

Rajitha Senaratne, Sri Lankan health minister, told reporters on Tuesday that he and seven other ministers had been identified as potential targets for further attacks. He said he stayed home Sunday and Monday on the advice of his security personnel.

US Ambbadador to Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz said new attacks may be underway. "We certainly have reason to believe that the active attack group has not been totally rendered inactive," Teplitz said in an interview with the Reuters news agency. "We think active planning is underway."

The sites of Easter Sunday attacks. (The Washington Post)

The attacks of April 21, Easter Sunday, targeted the faithful of three churches in Negombo, Batticaloa and the capital, Colombo, as well as tourists in three luxury hotels in Colombo. More than 250 people were killed.

Sri Lankan officials have said that a dissident faction of a local extremist group called National Thowheed Jamaath was behind these attacks. The Islamic State also badumed its responsibilities and published a video showing the badailants baduring their loyalty to the group.

In a separate video released on Monday, the head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said the bombings in Sri Lanka were "part of the revenge" that his group would take against the group. West after the loss of his self-appointed caliphate in Syria. and Iraq. The video marked the first appearance of this type of Baghdadi in five years.

The investigators are trying to determine how a previously unknown group of Sri Lankans organized the coordinated attacks together and whether the perpetrators received badistance from abroad.

The authorities believe that some Sri Lankans who went to fight for the Islamic State in 2014 came back and created networks that led to the plot, said Shiral Lakthilaka, advisor to the President of Sri Lanka. "These are the people who planted this seed," Lakthilaka said.

Islamist preacher Zahran Hashim, presumed mastermind of the attack, also spent time in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, Lakthilaka said. Hashim died in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo.

In India, law enforcement authorities arrested a man who, according to them, was planning suicide bombings in the state of Kerala in the south of the country. Authorities said the 29-year-old had followed Hashim's radical sermons, which had been online for more than a year.

Some of Hashim's speeches were downloaded from India, said Hilmy Ahamed, vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, who was closely following the preacher's activities. Ahamed said the council had repeatedly warned Sri Lankan intelligence agencies against Hashim's hate speech, most recently in December, but had been informed that it was unobtainable.

[The remote Sri Lankan enclave that produced the mastermind of a mbadacre]

Despite warnings that new attacks are possible, signs of normalcy returned. On Tuesday, the government lifted the ban on social media nationwide after the bombings, to combat the spread of misinformation on sites and apps such as Facebook , YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. In a statement issued Tuesday, President Maithripala Sirisena urged the public to act "responsibly" when using this technology.

Police arrested dozens of people suspected of having links to the bombings. On Friday, as security forces approached an alleged refuge in Sainthamaruthu, in the east of the country, explosions and gunfire left 15 dead, including six children. During the raid, Hashim's father and two brothers were killed and the police rescued his wounded wife and daughter.

Sri Lanka is in an increased state of alert since the Easter Sunday attacks. Meanwhile, the the government's failure to prevent attacks – although it has received specific intelligence warnings – triggered a political crisis.

A power struggle involving Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa has been cited as a major contributor to the government's poor response to intelligence.

Sri Lankan Catholics pray Sunday at a brief service near St. Anthony's Church, one of the sites attacked in Colombo a week ago. (Eranga Jayawardena / AP)

Slater reported from New Delhi.

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