The Islamic State news agency AMAQ claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday suicide attacks that claimed the lives of over 250 people.
In a statement released by the group’s AMAQ news agency, the Islamic state identified the suicide bombers by their noms de guerre, specifying which of them had gone to three of the attacked churches, reports the New York Times.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Sri Lanka’s prime minster Ranil Wickremesinghe said, that some the investigators believe that some attackers have travelled abroad to Syria and come back.
Wickremesinghe further added that people need not always go to Syria, “You can meet people in any part. You can meet them in London. You needn’t go to the region.”
Earlier in the day government officials also attributed the bombings to a local extremist group called the National Thowheeth Jama’th (NJT) The local Muslim community had faced attacks from the NJT as early as 2017, and held public protests against them
The complexity and efficiency of the suicide bombings on Easter Sunday are unprecedented, if they are to be attributed to the Islmaic State, they will be their most devastating international suicide attacks to date, comments New York Times correspondent, Rukmini Callimachi.
The New York Times correspondent, who has studied over 15,000 pages of ISIS records from Iraq and Syria, said the 2 delay in claiming the attack was unusual for the Islamic Sate, however didn’t rule out a cell in Sri Lanka deciding to attribute the attacks to ISIS.
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