ISIS suspect gave advance warning of Sri Lanka bombings, source says
Colombo, Sri Lanka (CNN)Early warnings from India's intelligence services to Sri Lankan officials ahead of the Easter Sunday bombings were based on information gleaned from an ISIS suspect, CNN has learned.
Delhi passed on unusually specific intelligence in the weeks and days leading up to the attacks, Sri Lankan officials have said, and at least some of it was gleaned from material obtained during interrogations of an ISIS suspect arrested in India, an Indian official told CNN.
The revelation comes as ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed 321 people and injured more than 500. 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.
Dehli's information came from the interrogation of an ISIS suspect, the Indian source told CNN. After being interrogated, the suspect gave investigators the name of a man he trained in Sri Lanka, who is associated with the local extremist group, the NTJ, the source said.
"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."..
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/asia/sri-lanka-investigation-ntj-intl/index.html
