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Bombers of Sri Lankan Easter massacre frequently visited South India, influenced local youth


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Sri Lanka Easter blasts: Suspected mastermind Zahran Hashim spent time in South India, says top military source

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Investigators identified Zahran Hashim as the leader of the National Thowheed Jamaath, which they said executed the highly coordinated blasts.

Zahran Hashim, believed to have masterminded the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, spent “substantial” time in “south India,” a top Sri Lankan military source said on Friday.

Investigators identified Hashim as the leader of the National Thowheed Jamaath, which they said executed the highly coordinated blasts on Sunday. Over 250 people, including 45 children and 40 foreign nationals, were killed in the deadly explosions. Two days later, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks and subsequently released an image of eight suspected bombers. The man seen standing at the centre is believed to be Hashim. The other jihadists had covered their faces with a scarf.

Sri Lankan investigators, however, have identified nine suicide bombers, including a woman. “We are looking into the IS angle. We also suspect that some of those radical youth were indoctrinated and trained in India, possibly Tamil Nadu,” the senior official said, on condition of anonymity.

Indian officials would not comment that Hashim travelled to India but pointed to evidence of virtual links he maintained with youth believed to be of Indian origin. More than 100 followers of Hashim’s Facebook page are being investigated, said an official, who asked not to be named. The first hints of Hashim’s doctrinal videos, to likely radicalise youth, emerged when Indian authorities interrogated seven members of a group whose leader, officials found, was a follower of Hashim. The men were IS sympathisers and arrested in September 2018 in Coimbatore, on suspicion that they were plotting the assassination of certain political and religious leaders in India, the official said.

 

‘Hashim, a Shangri-La bomber’

Sri Lankan authorities, who have so far not named any of the nine suicide bombers or suspects officially, on Friday confirmed Hashim was one of the two suicide bombers who carried out the explosions at hotel Shangri-La, on Colombo’s sea-facing Galle Road. He led the radical Islamist group in Kattankudy, in Batticaloa district of Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, and was known for espousing extremist religious ideas, often to the discomfort of many within the community.

Earlier this week, locals told The Hindu that Zahran had left the town two years ago after a fierce disagreement with the Moulavi (religious scholar) on the practice of Islam. He was absconding since then, community leaders said.

 

Heightened searches

Following Sunday’s brutal attacks, inarguably the biggest atrocity the island has seen in its post-civil war decade, police and the armed forces have arrested at least 75 persons for their alleged role in the bombings. A list of 139 youth has been drawn up and security forces are desperate to eliminate any persistent threat, official sources said. Police on Thursday released photographs of a few suspects -- including one wrong photograph for which they later regretted -- and sought the help of the public to nab them.

President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday vowed to “meet the challenge and defeat terrorism” in the country. Investigations into war-time rights abuse allegations had weakened the country’s security apparatus and made it vulnerable to terror attacks, he said, apparently referring to military officials facing trial for alleged abduction and murder.

Speaking to local editors and Colombo-based foreign journalists, Mr. Sirisena said a major search operation, including a door-to-door check, was underway. Acknowledging a “serious lapse” in intelligence sharing – despite “a friendly country” providing a “highly descriptive warning” on April 4. He squarely blamed the Defence Secretary and the Inspector General of Police for it. Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando resigned on Thursday, although he told Reuters “there had been no failure on his part”.

President Sirisena further said that the planned attack could have been a response to his campaign against illicit drugs. “There is a nexus between international terrorism and international drug trade,” he said.

 

Second identified bomber involved in Sri Lanka blasts visited India twice in 2017

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Indian investigators have found that Mohammad Mubarak Azaan, one of nine suicide attackers involved in the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, visited India twice in 2017, according to a top intelligence official who didn’t wish to be named.

 

Azaan is the second Sri Lankan attacker identified by security agencies who travelled to India. The other was Zahran Hashim, leader of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) and the alleged head of the attackers.

 

It is suspected Azaan blew himself up at one of three churches targeted on April 21. Sri Lankan authorities are yet to disclose the names of all the nine bombers. Indian authorities declined to share details about the purpose of Azaan’s visits to India, the people he was in touch with and the places he travelled to during the two trips.

 

Security officials of both countries have said Hashim visited India in 2017 and remained in the country for a few months, during which his activities attracted the attention of security agencies.

 

The April 21 attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels killed more than 250 people, including 11 Indian nationals, and injured 500. Fifteen people, including three suicide bombers, died during a raid by Sri Lankan security forces on Friday night and nearly 100 people have been detained in the island nation.

 

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombings and released a video that showed Hashim and seven other men pledging allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. An Indian official, who didn’t want to be named, said Hashim was also associated with the Tamil Nadu Towheed Jamaat (TNTJ). The TNTJ has not been found to be involved in any terror activities.

 

Hashim, a second official said, broke away from TNTJ to form the NTJ and started preaching a violent form of Islam in Sri Lanka. Investigators suspect this is when he might have come in contact with IS leaders.

 

The second official said Sri Lanka has traced the movement of at least three senior IS members who entered the island from West Asian countries in 2018.

 

Indian investigators have found Hashim visited Malappuram in Kerala and Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Tirunelveli, Vellore and Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. He is also suspected to have been involved in a smuggling racket between Ramanathapuram on India’s eastern coast and Kalpitiya on the north-western coast of Sri Lanka. “The probe is at an initial stage but we have found the travel records of Azaan and Hashim which confirm they travelled from Sri Lanka to India,” said an officer. Agencies are in touch with Sri Lanka to get more details on Azaan.

 

As first reported by HT, Hashim was instrumental in radicalising seven alleged IS activists in a Coimbatore module, according to the findings of a probe by the NIA. The agency found several videos featuring Hashim in the electronic devices of the suspects in Coimbatore, who were arrested last September. An analysis of these video led investigators to believe Hashim was planning “something big” in Sri Lanka. On the basis of this information from NIA, Indian authorities alerted their Sri Lankan counterparts about possible attacks on April 4.

 

Officials said several Sri Lanka IS operatives were also in touch with Indian suspects in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

HT

 
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According to Hilmy Ahamed, vice-president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, Hashim shifted base to southern India.

 

“All his videos have been uploaded from India. He uses boats of smugglers to travel back and forth from southern India,” he told AFP.

 

Hashim uploaded dozens of hate-filled sermons to YouTube, calling for all “non-Muslims to be eliminated.” Though complains were made about his videos, YouTube declined to remove them on breach of policy grounds until after the attacks, according to Britain’s Sky News. The video sharing platform told Sky on Thursday it was deleting all of Hashim’s sermons, and other videos mentioning him other than news reports.

 

India has warned Sri Lanka that suicide attacks were possible weeks before Hashim and the other bombers walked into three churches and three hotels on Easter Sunday.

India’s warning was based on videos and other Islamic State-influenced material seized from raids in southern Tamil Nadu state in 2018.

LINK

 

Other links:

 

Lanka blast mastermind had links with IS module in India

 

Sri Lanka bomb blasts: NIA detains 3 youths from Kerala over suspected links with key conspirator, ISIS

 

Alerts sent to Sri Lanka after probe in Coimbatore ISIS case by NIA

 

Image result for ticking bomb

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Who is Zahran Hashim? Sri Lankan bombings' mastermind is a college dropout who once studied in India

 

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Zahran Hashim was a local Islamic cleric who hailed from east-coast Sri Lankan town Kattankundy, a mostly Muslim dominated region. Described as an indifferent and fierce preacher who even involved himself in fights at the local mosque, Hashim had even gone to study in India where he is reported to have triggered student clashes.

 

Hashim dropped out of college and took to learning radical ISIS-influenced Islamic ideology and had subsequently developed stronger international links. Hashim also uploaded many of his sermons and lectures on social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook from India, which had virtually gone unnoticed by Sri Lankan police authorities.

 

The objectionable, hate-filled sermons of Hashim called for establishing Islamic rule in Southern parts of India as well as Sri Lanka. During the last three years, the hate preacher amassed thousands of followers online who were taught to eliminate non-Muslims in typical ISIS propaganda style.

 

Surprisingly, ISIS's own media channel Al-Ghuraba was easily available to thousands of youth in Sri Lanka, which also featured Hashim's hate-filled videos where he openly advocated establishing Muslim rule.

 

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Whilst Bengalis justifiably deserve blame for letting the state slide and threatening India's national security the southern states esp TN, Kerala are no better. Some ICFers take offence when potshots are take at political inclination/choices of Mallus and hardcore Dravidians & Lemurians but proof is visible to all of us, open your eyes instead of getting offended. 

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1 hour ago, Gollum said:

How do you think libtards will respond? 

 

A. Default mode of silence

B. 2002, Modi

C. Cow lynchings, RSS, XYZ Sena...

D. Hinduism is the most violent religion in the world, Islam is a religion of peace

 

I wonder why Proud Liberandus and Sickulars never contribute to such threads 

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On 4/29/2019 at 5:54 AM, Gollum said:

How do you think libtards will respond? 

 

A. Default mode of silence

B. 2002, Modi

C. Cow lynchings, RSS, XYZ Sena...

D. Hinduism is the most violent religion in the world, Islam is a religion of peace

 

Somebody  has already  started this in another thread equating heinous crime done by peace lovers  to hindutav :dance::aha:

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13 minutes ago, Laaloo said:

There are secular Pandits on this site who are stilll indifferent to it even after what happened in the 1980s. Aur kitna samjaoge?

Bhaiwood is a whole different world I guess, surely rots the brain and turns people against their motherland. No wonder David Headley was fraternizing with their kind during his recce trips, earlier the Dawood, Pakistan & '93 blasts links. Hope Modi goes on rampage against the filthy industry in his 2nd term, people may think film industry is small fish...economically yes but a powerful propaganda tool in the hands of the enemy. Contrast our handling of the situation with US govt's hold on Hollywood during cold war era or Beijing today, film industry has to abide by national interests. Ours has been given too much freedom over many decades and is severely compromised today, with so many enemies we need to be ruthless. 

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