How Sri Lankan jihadists’ connections to Syria may hold key to understanding terror attack 

Intelligence agencies are now scrambling to understand why Sri Lanka, which had been relatively unscathed by Islamic State’s radicalism, was targeted in Sunday’s attacks.  

But for those who understand how the group works, it is perfectly obvious.

After the group lost all the territory it once held across Iraq and Syria last month it has been keen to remind the world that it was always more than a physical presence, rather an ideology.

No one had expected Sri Lanka, which had just begun to attract tourists again after its brutal decades-long civil war. It sends the terrifying message – nowhere is safe.  

The path from Sri Lanka to Syria is not a well-trodden one.

Sri Lankans have not often featured in Isil propaganda over the years, nor have they been particularly active proponents of the jihadist cause on social media.

Perhaps this is what made it so easy for the small South Asian island’s authorities to ignore the problem.

The government issued a specific warned in 2016 that 32 Muslims from “well-educated and elite” families had gone to Syria, though there are now thought to have been scores more to have joined them.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, told reporters that "they think one or two of them (the bombers) have been to Syria, some of them have been out there, not all."

It raises the possibility that the Easter Sunday bombers could have either been Isil returnees or at least were directed by the group’s leaders.

Two of the hotel bombers were reported to have been the sons of a “wealthy” Colombo spice trader.

The pair were key members of the Islamist National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), which the government has previously blamed for defacing Buddhist statues.

Sri Lankan intelligence agencies are now investigating the link between NTJ and Isil after the brothers were shown pledging allegiance to the latter’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The jihadist group published a picture of them on Tuesday, naming them by the nom de guerres Abou Obaida and Abou Baraa.  

The local Muslim community had been complaining to authorities about NTJ and its leaders, but it appears now their warnings were not taken seriously.

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