Sri Lanka blocks social media platforms after attacks on mosques and Muslim-owned shops
Sri Lanka is temporarily blocking some social media networks and messaging apps, including Facebook and WhatsApp, it said Monday following attacks on mosques and Muslim-owned businesses in the worst unrest since Easter bombings by Islamist militants. Several dozen people threw stones at mosques and Muslim-owned ...
'Save us from the Satans': Survivors of Sri Lanka church attack pray under tight security
A dozen rifle-toting soldiers guarded a small community hall as day broke in the eastern Sri Lankan town of Batticaloa on Sunday morning. Around 9 a.m. local time — roughly the same time a suicide bomber killed 29 of their fellow parishioners at the evangelical ...
Sri Lanka raids headquarters of hard-line Islamist group suspected in Easter bombings
Sri Lankan police raided the headquarters of a hard-line Islamist group founded by the suspected ringleader behind the Easter suicide bombings of churches and hotels, a Reuters witness said, as Sunday mass was canceled due to fears of further attacks. Armed police in the town ...
How 'laid back' Sri Lanka became a soft target for Islamist strike
A week ago, Sri Lankan tourist guide Ricky Costa was preparing for a typically easy Sunday ferrying backpackers between Colombo's tea shops and beach bars in his canary-yellow rickshaw. Then the blasts began. The coordinated suicide bombings by Islamist militants at hotels and churches killed ...
Sri Lankan ex-defense chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa says he will run for president, tackle radical Islam
Sri Lanka's former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens. Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger ...
Body of Japanese victim of Sri Lanka Easter terror attack arrives at Narita
The body of a Japanese woman who was killed in a series of deadly bombings that hit Sri Lanka over the weekend arrived in Japan on Thursday accompanied by her injured husband and their two children. Kaori Takahashi, 39, was caught in one of eight ...
Foreigners swept up as Sri Lanka searches for clues to Easter Sunday bombings
Sri Lankan authorities swept up more people, including foreigners, for questioning on Thursday as they probed deeper into the Easter Sunday bombings, which killed 359 people in potentially the deadliest operation claimed by Islamic State. Police said an Egyptian and several Pakistanis were among those ...
Blood brothers: The family that played a key role in Sri Lanka's Easter attacks
Sri Lankan housewife Fathima Fazla thought of her neighbors in the grand three-story home across the street as the wealthy celebrities of her humble Colombo suburb. She had no idea how infamous they would become. Two brothers who lived at the white house on Mahawela ...
Foreign groups likely behind Sri Lanka attacks, U.S. ambassador says
The scale and sophistication of the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka suggested the involvement of an external group such as Islamic State, the U.S. ambassador said on Wednesday as the death toll jumped to 359. The Islamic State militant group ...
Sri Lanka imposes emergency and links international network to terror attacks that killed 290
Sri Lanka said on Monday it was invoking emergency powers in the aftermath of devastating bomb attacks on hotels and churches, blamed on militants with foreign links, which killed 290 people and wounded nearly 500. The emergency law, which gives police and the military extensive ...
Sri Lanka's bomb carnage casts pall over tourism revival after island is named top destination
With its capital under curfew following devastating Easter Sunday bomb attacks on churches and upmarket hotels, Sri Lanka is filled with fear, horror and grief and tourists who have been flocking to the Indian Ocean island could cancel in droves. A tweet posted on the ...
Rift with president kept Sri Lanka PM in dark about intel of looming Easter attack, says minister
A rift between Sri Lanka's president and prime minister that sparked a crisis last year came under scrutiny on Monday a day after a series of deadly bomb blasts, with questions over how the government handled a recent warning of an attack. The prime minister ...
