Sri Lanka bombings Easter 2019 (catch all)

[Bill Moore]

From NOV 2016

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...-idUSKBN13D1EE

Thirty-two Sri Lankan Muslims from “well-educated and elite” families have joined Islamic State in Syria, the justice minister told parliament on Friday, promising that the government would clamp down on extremists.

Muslim leaders warned the government in 2014 of possible Islamic radicalization and Muslims turning to foreign Islamic groups for support, attributing this to attacks by Buddhist hardliners.

I spent a fair amount of time in Sri Lanka in mid 1990s and occasionally visited Muslim fishing villages. The Muslims in these villages lived separately from the Buddhists, but I didn't sense any tensions between the Buddhists and Muslims at that time. The Sri Lankan soldiers I worked with confirmed there we no problems with the Muslims. Of course, the civil war at that time was between the Tamils and Singhalese. The hatred between these two groups was so thick you could cut through it with a knife. Frankly, I'm both surprised and happy they have come so far since the civil war ended in 2009. Prior to that ethnic conflict, there was a bloody communist insurgency, so Sri Lanka is no stranger to violence.

I suspect that post 9/11/2001 horrific attacks and the subsequent depiction of all Muslims as evil murderers changed the perception of Muslims by the hard right in Sri Lanka, leading to anti-Muslim riots. We see the same in Burma, with one of the more radical Buddhist leaders stating they do not want Islamic terrorists in their country. None of this justifies the Easter attacks on innocent civilians, but I think it worth a study by real regional experts, not Western intelligence services, how pockets of this Muslim population became radicalized. It may present lessons that are transferable to other countries that will offer some credible pre-emptive action, or as Bob's World calls it, preventative COIN.

[Bill Moore]

August 2018, the signs were all there.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/...31-p5012l.html

Sri Lankan student charged with terror offences in Sydney

"At this stage it appears that this is an individual operating on his own. There is certainly some further investigation that is required but again it is a matter that is before the courts," said Acting Superintendent Sheehy.

He has returned to his native Sri Lanka and has travelled to a number of other overseas destinations, which police on Friday refused to detail.

From 2015

https://jamestown.org/program/islami...nkan-outreach/

Islamic State’s Sri Lankan Outreach

The government’s and ACJU’s stands against the Islamic State’s outreach activities notwithstanding, grassroots radicalization of some Muslim youths in Sri Lanka is potentially directly connected with many violent skirmishes between Sri Lankan Muslims and vigilante groups associated with the majority Buddhist population in recent years.

Not only are anti-Buddhist sentiments high among a section of Muslim populations in Sri Lanka, but alarmingly, the minority population is more vulnerable to increasing attempts by Salafist sectarian groups, such as Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamaat (SLTJ), which not only promotes sectarian discord within Islam, but also attempts to preach a rabid strain of Islam that largely despises the practices and existence of other Islamic sects like Shi’as and Ahmadiyas (New Indian Express, November 8). [7]

To add fuel to the fire, a skip and a hop over a few hundred miles west to the Maldives, a European tourist mecca, a number of locals have supported Al-Qadea and ISIS for years.

Saturday, April 27, 2019

https://www.satp.org/terrorism-updat...reign-ministry

Six Maldivians under Sri Lankan Police custody, says Foreign Ministry
Maldives' Ministry of Foreign Affairs on April 26 confirmed that there are six Maldivian individuals currently in the custody of Sri Lankan police, reports The Edition. According to local media Mihaaru, the Maldivians were detained over two different cases. While Mihaaru reported that some were taken in over possession of unlicensed air gun, the others were arrested after the police found a book related to the Islamic State (IS) inside their residence.

This may turn out to be nothing, but I went to the source and found this interesting.

http://www.adaderana.lk/news/54695/s...i-lanka-report

According to reports, one of the men was arrested after a library book on terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) was discovered in his home during a home search. Four out of the remaining men were arrested in the Negombo city area, and are all flight engineering students. It has been reported that a type of gun used for hunting was discovered in their home upon searching.

This could play out either way, but I'll focus on the paranoid potential. An air gun won't kill anyone, but it is a good way to train in marksmenship skills quietly and in the basement of a safehouse without attracting any attention. As for the flight engineer piece, it would potentially present some scary targeting opportunities. My more rational side suspects they'll be released.

https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/285260.pdf

Foreign terrorist groups continue to draw radicalized Maldivians as foreign terrorist fighters; Maldives has sent the highest per capita number of foreign terrorist fighters to Syria and Iraq in prior years, according to some measures. Some of these fighters are now returning to the islands, where there are few laws or structures to deal with the threat they may pose.

[davidbfpo]

Catching up I found this article by Scott Atran, sub-titled:

The atrocities in Sri Lanka are part of a spiral of violence that poses profound questions for liberal societies

Later:

The spread of this transnational terrorism, whether Islamist revivalism or resurgent ethno-nationalism, is fragmenting the social and political consensus globally. That is precisely its aim: to create the void that will usher in a new world, with no room for innocents on the other side, and no “grey zone” in between.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ight-sri-lanka

Then today Jason Burke asks:

Are there lessons we can learn from last week’s atrocities in Sri Lanka?

He has this key passage on being radicalised:

Crucially, someone vulnerable to radicalisation at one moment in their life may be much less so just months later. A key element in the explanations of former terrorists for their own actions – as well as in accounts given by Nazi mass killers and others – is that their acts are necessary to head off a catastrophic outcome for their community, that they are an obligation for any rational individual. Combine this with the total dehumanisation of the victims – another product of groupthink, separation and propaganda – and you are already a long way to mass murder, whether in a death camp, through an artificial famine, by a mob armed with knives and axes, or a multiple suicide bombing.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ombings-terror

Both have a global outlook, so will be copied to the general CT thread.

[davidbfpo]

Pointer to this article in West Point's latest edition of The Sentinel by Amarnath Amarasingam, who is a senior research fellow at the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Link:https://ctc.usma.edu/terrorism-teard...acks-sri-lanka

He asks some awkward questions and tries to give some answers.

[davidbfpo]

No, not an official, just an ordinary Muslim Sri Lankan. Stories like this give me hope we can stand together against evil.
Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48435902