Asia/South Asia
5 years ago

Militant group claims responsibility for Sri Lanka bomb attacks

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The Jamaat al-Tawhid al-Watania group has claimed responsibility for the series of bomb attacks carried out in Sri Lanka on Sunday.

A Russian news agency, Tass, gave the information quoting the Al-Arabiya TV channel on Monday without providing any details about the group.

On Sunday, a series of terrorist attacks, unprecedented in the country’s history, took place in Sri Lanka.

A total of eight explosions occurred in high-end hotels and churches in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa during Easter services.

According to recent data, the attacks claimed 290 lives, including more than 30 foreign nationals.

A Reuters report said, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena will declare a nationwide emergency from midnight on Monday following the Easter Sunday suicide bomb blasts at churches and luxury hotels.

"The government has decided to gazette the clauses related to prevention of terrorism to emergency regulation and gazette it by midnight," the president's media unit said in a statement.

It said the measure would be confined to dealing with terrorism and would not impinge on freedom of expression.

Another report says, seven suicide bombers took part in the attacks on churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, an investigator said on Monday, while a government spokesman said an international network was involved.

Sri Lanka's Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said, “We do not believe these attacks were carried out by a group of people who were confined to this country.”

“There was an international network without which these attacks could not have succeeded,” Rajitha Senaratne.

 

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