Erik Ohlsson: IS taking on the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka – but many questions remain concerning the attack

members of the Government and the security services in Sri Lanka have linked the easter bloody terrorist attacks to the jihadist extremist forces to the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) and Jamiyyathul Millatu Ibrahim. At the same time has terrorsekten IS taken on the attacks.

According to Ruwan Wijewardene, the minister of defense and senior representative of the högerliberala the United national party (UNP), is Sunday's six terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka a revenge for the 50 people who were killed in the masskjutningarna in two mosques in the city of Christchurch in New Zealand on 15 march.

Over 40 people have been arrested and interrogated by reason of Sri Lanka-incidents, including a syrian national, reports Reuters.

to be involved and the sri lankan authorities have arrested a number of suspects are still many circumstances surrounding the incidents is unclear.

Now try the inhabitants of Sri Lanka and a shaken world to get answers to several questions: what is included in the National Thowheeth Jamaath and Jamiyyathul Millatu Ibrahim? If it really is these marginal local groups behind the attacks, how has the planning and co-ordination with the ICE looked like?

Before easter acts of terrorism were the National Thowheeth Jamaath best known for its leader, Mohammed Zaharan (also known as Zahran Hashmi) tried to disseminate sunniextremistisk preaching through the hatpredikningar online. ”Thowheeth” or ”tawhid” is a central concept within the IS the ideology and aims of the unit, to do things to a. There is only one divine creator and ruler, says the man. All national borders, all the political ideologies, nationalism is a violation of the divine device.

in the sri lankan news reports a few times. Among other things, at the end of last year, when police arrested nine men suspected to be behind the vandalism of buddha statues in Mawanelladistriktet in central Sri Lanka. During the investigation found the police, large quantities of chemicals used for bomb-making, including 75 kilograms of pure amoniumnitrat. The findings have been linked to NTJ-sympathizers.

The other group who have been singled out Jamiyyathul Millatu Ibrahim, has so far not had any known connection at all to Sri Lanka. It is a extremislamistiskt network with close ties to the ICE that has been active mainly in Europe, including in Germany and in Denmark, but banned.

the Question is if the peripheral groups like the National Thowheeth Jamaath and Jamiyyathul Millatu Ibrahim even have enough supporters to contribute to the easter attacks, which of course requires a lot of planning, coordination, material resources and knowledge of the intelligence.

the Question is if the peripheral groups like the National Thowheeth Jamaath and Jamiyyathul Millatu Ibrahim even have enough supporters to contribute to the easter attacks, which of course requires a lot of planning, coordination, material resources and knowledge of the intelligence.

through its propagandakanal Amaq that they are located behind the easter terror. It happened in a brief message that did not contain any details. IS-the terrorists have long had, as a rule, to take on the world, with jihadistisk tinge, regardless of whether they are involved or not. All in order to achieve its overall goal: to create a polarised society, and at the same time increasing the etniskreligiösa tensions.

To identify the jihadi terrorist activity in South asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) gives partly contradictory results. According to a recent report by the New York-based security firm The Soufan Center is holding the terror network al-Qaeda to strengthen its position in the Sri Lanka vicinity.

the Study describes how al-Qaeda's latest spin-offs, al-Qaida in the indian subcontinent (Aqis), among other things, download the nutrition of the persecution of the muslim rohingyerna in Burma and of the indian hindunationalisternas discrimination of muslims.

after all not been in the focus of these contradictions. And it has not been proven that terrorist organisations like IS and al-Qaeda has a direct presence on the island. The attractiveness from the jihadists has so far not been big within the muslim minority in Sri Lanka (about 10 per cent of the country's 22.5 million inhabitants are muslims).

A large study of the foreign volunteers in the IS ”caliphate”, made by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, shows that of nearly 42.000 foreign the IS-terrorists in the ”caliphate” came to just over 30 from Sri Lanka, under the sri lankan government's information. As a comparison, about 300 ICE-voluntary swedes travelled to Iraq/Syria between 2013 and 2018.

there are since decades a pattern of terrorist attacks directed against the christian minority in Sydasienregionen. On christmas eve in 2000, al-Qaeda, a series of suicide attacks on various places in Indonesia, where the target was christians. The attacks were made in co-operation with the local jihadistgruppen Jemaah Islamiyah. 18 people were killed.

On easter Sunday two years ago killed at least 75 people and over 300 injured when the sunniextremistiska pakistani member Jamaat-ul-Ahrar attacked påskfirare in a large park in the city of Lahore.

a month ago Baghuz in eastern Syria was conquered from the IS-terrorists, the last strip of land that were included in the ICE självutropade ”caliphate”. In recent years, intensive attack against ICE's heartland in Iraq and Syria has without doubt hampered the movement's ability to in the western world, to plan and implement the more coordinated attacks like we have seen in the last few years: in Paris in november 2015 (137 dead, over 400 injured) and Brussels in march 2016 (35 dead, over 340 injured).

But ICE is far from calculated, if someone now thought it. It appears both in Syria, where gerillaenheter from the ICE the past few days killed 35 syrian soldiers in the vicinity of Aleppo, according to the tv channel Deutsche Welle.

And now in Sri Lanka, where the degree of ICE involvement in the terrorist attacks while it is unclear, however, where nothing contradicts that terrorsekten really played an operative role.

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