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Sri Lanka troops launch major hunt for Islamists linked to suicide attacks

Sri Lankan security personnel walk by a damaged shop after a mob attack in Minuwangoda on May 14, 2019. – A Sri Lankan province north of the capital was under indefinite curfew on May 14 after the first death in anti-Muslim riots in the wake of the Easter terror attacks, police said. (Photo by LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/Getty Images)

By: LakshmiPS

Sri Lanka’s military launched a major hunt Saturday for remnants of an Islamist group which carried out the Easter suicide bombings that killed 258 people, officials said.

Several Colombo suburbs were targeted by troops using emergency powers on arrests and detentions adopted after the April 21 attacks.

“Special cordon-and-search operations are underway in three areas just outside Colombo,” a military official told reporters.

Similar operations were also carried out in the country’s north-west, where anti-Muslim riots this month left one man dead and hundreds of Muslim-owned shops, homes and mosques destroyed.

Security forces have arrested scores of suspects in connection with the bombings and over what appeared to be organised violence against the island’s Muslim minority.

While authorities say the immediate jihadist threat has been blunted, President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday extended for one month the 30-day state of emergency imposed after the suicide bombings.

Sirisena said the move was to maintain “public security”, with the country still on edge after the attacks on three hotels and three churches that were blamed on a local jihadi group, the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ).

The Islamic State group has also claimed a role in the attacks.

Christians make up 7.6 percent and Muslims 10 percent of mainly Buddhist Sri Lanka.

(AFP)

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