An ISIS suspect arrested in India named Islamist extremist Zahran Hashim as leading a plot to attack targets in Sri Lanka.
In a statement published by the ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq, the group said the attackers were “fighters of the Islamic State.”
The involvement of a foreign organization would explain how a previously marginal domestic extremist group blamed for the attacks, National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), could have pulled off one of the worst terrorist atrocities since 9/11.
The number of casualties could have been even higher. Authorities said Tuesday that a fourth hotel was among the original targets, but the attack at that location failed. Officials previously said they found an unexploded pipe bomb near Colombo’s international airport.
Missed warnings
As investigators scrambled to track down the bombers’ associates, there was growing anger in Sri Lanka at the failure to heed the warnings of India’s intelligence service.
The first warning came more than two weeks before the attacks. Sri Lankan officials were told on April 4 of a potential plot to launch suicide attacks against Christian churches and tourist spots, government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne told reporters on Monday. The warnings were repeated two days and two hours before the attacks, Senaratne said.
Delhi’s information came from the interrogation of an ISIS suspect, the Indian source told CNN. “While we were investigating ISIS cases, during the interrogation of an accused, he disclosed the name of a man, Zahran Hashim, who is one of the suicide bombers and is associated with NTJ,” said the intelligence source in India. “The suspect said that he played a role in his (Hashim’s) radicalization.”
The Indian intelligence source did not specify when the arrest was made. “Indian intelligence agencies shared their information with their counterparts in Sri Lanka,” the source said.
Hashim’s name appears on a memo dated April 11 and signed by Sri Lanka’s Deputy Inspector General of Police.
