Bharat Rakshak

menon s wrote:Shekhar Gupta; On Srilanka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcKi4KLdSmo

I personally dont belive most of the stuff he is saying here.

Seems like a free for all in the SL govt circles.

The outlines of a conspiracy for a regime change are emerging

Seems like The Modi govt dodged a bullet by immediately going public with the news that they had passed on actionable intel with multiple updates to the SL authorities starting weeks before the terror strike

It's a major security cockup




Sri Lankan top officials deliberately withheld intelligence information on Easter attacks, minister tells Parliament

Sri Lankan top officials deliberately withheld intelligence information on Easter attacks, minister tells Parliament

Apr 24, 2019

Senior officials deliberately withheld intelligence about possible attacks on Sri Lanka, where a rash of suicide bombings on Easter Sunday killed at least 359 people, the leader of parliament said on Wednesday.

Sri Lankan top officials deliberately withheld intelligence information on Easter attacks, minister tells Parliament. A series of bomb blasts rocked Sri Lanka on Sunday.

"Some top intelligence officials hid the intelligence information purposefully. Information was there, but the top brass security officials did not take appropriate actions," Lakshman Kiriella, who is also minister of public enterprise, told Parliament.

He said information on possible suicide attacks on churches, hotels and politicians were received from Indian intelligence on 4 April and a Security Council meeting was chaired by President Maithripala Sirisena on 7 April, but the information was not shared more widely.

"Somebody is controlling these top intelligence officials," the minister said. "The Security Council is doing politics. We need to investigate into this."

Separately, Sarath Fonseka, former army chief and minister of regional development, told parliament he believed the attacks "must have been planned for at least 7-8 years."

Earlier, Sirisena had also said he was not informed about the warnings intelligence officials had received regarding the apparent threat to churches before the deadly blasts.

Sirisena, who is also the defence and law and order minister of Sri Lanka, said on a national televised address that State intelligence agencies did not pass on the information they had received. "If they had done so, I would have taken immediate action. I have decided to take strict action against those who failed in their duty," he was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

Sri Lankan junior defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene, on Wednesday, acknowledged that intelligence inputs not being shared with the president was "a major lapse".

In the same nationwide address, the president said he will initiate a complete rejig of the security forces and the police under his control in the coming days, including key leadership changes in "24 hours". He vowed a major shake-up of the military's top brass in the wake of the deadly Easter suicide bombings, after the government admitted warnings were ignored.

CNN dimbulbs bleat that SL govt did not heed warnings from India.
Did the US of A heed the glaring warnings from the Paki hijacking of an Indian airliner in Dec. 1999? Exactly same MO as 9/11.

Again I keep thinking about the Bombs
1) They were rugged
2) They were compact
3) They were light- looking at the bombers walking it cant be more than 10kg including Bag weight
4) They were powerful- they had a very good blast radius
5) They were very reliable including the one that blew in the house 9/9

That means they were built at a pretty high end military factory, not some garage bomb, I dont these were even assembled in SL, almost like clay more mines. I don't believe this was a random ISIL attack, its more likely the suicide bombers have been cultivated for years were ready, their handlers had to just give them the target and for reasons best known to them at the last minute Sri Lankan Churches were decided. Since the bombs were ready and suicide bombers ready the handlers could not hold them back, they gave an easy target next door.

Just imagine a bomb goes in Church in India would anyone wait to see who is responsible especially during election season where PM was responsible for any theft in a Church in Delhi. The more you think about it the more likely these Thowheed Jamaat are just canon fodder who were willing to give up thier lives as per thier handlers wishes without thinking about bombing children.

I just hope the Deep states and intelligence agencies give up some of thier geopolitical games and go after thier handlers, as long as claymore mines or similar sophisticated bombs are available these guys are capable of giving up thier lives even if babies women and children are present, can't belive someone thinks they are doing a war / religious duty at hotels, religious places with unarmed people including young children.

look at the videos the guys are just walking they are going to massacre folks around them who have done nothing to them and include children, yes it has been done many times including many times in India. But is just mind boggling.

this is where it gets scary, this so called innocent fishermen doing smuggling supported by well known politicians in Tamil Nadu

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 024101.cms

All his videos have been uploaded from India. He uses boats of smugglers to travel back and forth from southern India," he said.

DailyMirror of Sri Lanka reports:
US denies warning Sri Lanka about terror attacks
http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news ... 108-165879

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz has told the CNN that the US did not provide Sri Lanka with advance intelligence regarding imminent attacks prior to Easter Sunday.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, the Ambassador said that they had no prior knowledge of the attacks.

“We had no prior knowledge of these attacks. The Sri Lankan Government has admitted lapses in their intelligence gathering and information sharing,” she said.

The CNN reports that this contradicts what the Sri Lankan Government has said as Minister Harsha de Silva earlier told CNN that advance intelligence had been provided by “both India and the US.”

When Amanpour asked the Ambassador about De Silva’s claim, she responded: “Well I can’t speak for others. I don’t know what other sources of information the Government of Sri Lanka might have had. I can just tell you that we had no prior knowledge,”

However, Minister Harsha De Silva told the Daily Mirror that it was not what he exactly said.
“What I said was that I understood that India and US gave us intelligence and that’s what I heard,” he said.

Politics!
DailyMirror of Sri Lanka has this opinion piece:
Carnage on Easter Sunday and a country in a state of denial
http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Carna ... 172-165769

The arrests and seizure of explosives raised serious concerns within intelligence circles of an active network of Islamist cells. Concerns centred on a minority of Muslim fanatics who were indoctrinated by Salafi preachers and plotting attacks on followers of other faiths. At least two Muslim political bigwigs were blamed on maintaining contacts with these extremist groups, probably unaware of the evil they had been courting. One had offered to the Police to facilitate the surrender of an extremist preacher who was in hiding in return for an assurance.
In a shocking revelation, Minister Kabir Hashim has now told a media conference that one or two persons who were arrested at Wanathawillu were released due to political pressure. One of the released suspects was now being identified as Easter Sunday suicide bomber, he said.

Two months later in mid March, Mohamed Razak Taslim, the Coordinating secretary of Highways and Investment Promotions Minister Kabir Hashim was shot at a point blank range at his residence in Dhanagama Mawatha, Kandy by two assailants. Taslim (37) has helped the CID investigation to nab the Mawanella attackers to the fury of Islamic extremists. The attack was blamed on the Islamic extremists, but again, it was hushed up.

For many in the political circles and Muslim community leaders, the prospect of an armed and violent Islamic extremism was a bitter pill to swallow. Their immediate concerns led the threat being downplayed - worst still being ignored at the expense of lives of many hundreds of Sri Lankans. This tendency to soft peddle over monstrosity was alive as of yesterday as the government, and the police repeatedly refused to identify the perpetrators, despite mounting evidence.

This was the news about the shooting of Taslim, March 10, 2019:
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/190310/news/s ... 40075.html

Suspected extremists shoot at Hashim’s coordinating secretary

Suspected members of an extremist group shot and seriously wounded an official working for a cabinet minister in Mawanella yesterday, Police said.

Mohamed Razak Taslim (37) was asleep when two persons arrived at his home at Dhanagama Mawatha before dawn yesterday. One of them pulled out a pistol and fired at him at point blank range. Mr. Taslim is now lying at the Intensive Care Unit of the Kandy National Hospital.

Mr. Taslim is described as a Coordinating Secretary to Highways and Investment Promotion Minister Kabir Hashim. The minister was scheduled to provide development assistance to several Buddhist temples in a string of ceremonies yesterday.

Police said Mr. Taslim was known to have assisted Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detectives who had probed activities of an extremist group in Mawanella. This group had campaigned for attacks on religious statues, including Buddha statues and crosses.

The Police were yesterday reviewing surveillance video footage to identify the assailants.

President Maithripala Sirisena had telephoned Minister Hashim yesterday to ascertain what has happened. He had also advised him to exercise caution.

Singha wrote:COLOMBO: One of the nine bombers that detonated explosives in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday was a woman, deputy defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene told reporters on Wednesday.

The blasts at hotels and churches have so far killed at least 359 people, the deadliest such event in south Asia's history.

This is the key reason for burkha/facial covering ban.
Even if the SL Govt doesn't formally ban it will be de-facto ban as here is evidence of the danger.
Add to that the woman who blew herself up along with her children.

Not Islamophobia as CNN is trying to suggest.

Youtube, Facebook, social media in general, allow what would be isolated, relatively impotent and hence less dangerous Islamists to coalesce into decentralized national and transnational networks that greatly magnifies the threat that they pose. So even if only one in ten thousand turns into a fanatical Islamist, instead of that one being the village idiot shunned by the other 9999, the presence of just the one brings the whole transnational threat into play. This is a huge threat amplification effect. How within the legal/constitutional structure of rights, etc., we contain this threat requires some serious thinking.

Prem Kumar wrote:One huge advantage of terror attacks from the South (from an ISI viewpoint) is that India cannot readily do a Balakot. Geography is a factor. Pukistan will claim that an Islamic attack in South India could've been done only by locals. Indian media would play it up and ask Modi "not to punish Pakistan to cover up for his incompetence".

But all this is for later. Any terror attack during election season in India would be counter-productive for Congress+ISI. So, this Southern Route would be activated if there is a Modi 2nd term.

Per the suicide bomber's video, there are now plans for a Southern Caliphate (Kerala, TN, Sri Lanka, Maldives) similar to a Northern Caliphate (Pakistan, Kashmir, Bihar, UP, West Bengal, Bangladesh). Seems like ISI's own version of "string of pearls"

On the contrary I submit that the fear of Balakot redux was why this SL attack was triggered by TSP.
The bombs, the infrastructure all shows the target could have been SI.
All the key actors were already put in place and the pressure had to be let off.

One fact we are ignoring. The SL police raided Puttalam, after the Buddha statues defacement and found 100 kg C4 explosives and detonators. Yet they did not arrest nor monitor the NTJ guy who executed the Easter Sunday attack.
I think that was the mistake.
No amount of external intelligence will help when the political leaders do not empower their police to take action.
And this police raid was known to the leadership.

Anujan wrote:Sri Lanka probably has remnants of arms smuggling networks used by LTTE. These kind of things do not go out of business overnight. Plus they probably have LTTE ammo stashes that enterprising people sell in the black market.

Getting explosives might not have been a problem.

What is amazing is that all bums seem to have gone off with devastating effect. Recall the british idiots who tried to blow up stuff and all they did was blow up their own musharraf and bled to death. So probably experienced bomb maker, and not one of those idiots who overnight decided to join ISIS and display their solidarity with baghdadi.

Sooner or later, some connection to balakote school of international soosai bumming is likely to emerge.

1) Did LTTE do bombing with C4?
2) These Easter Sunday IEDs were C4 triggered by blasting caps. British bapakis were some hydrogen compounds made in their bathtubs.

C4 is military explosive. Trace its origin to unravel the conspiracy.

SL Police had the evidence since January raid in Puttalam.
Someone in SL knows where this C4 came from by now.
3) I think this is more hardcore than LeT/JeM dregs. Its direct ISI just like the RDX bombs in 1993 Mumbai blasts.

Handling military explosives need special skills.

A_Gupta wrote:DailyMirror of Sri Lanka reports:
US denies warning Sri Lanka about terror attacks
http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news ... 108-165879

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz has told the CNN that the US did not provide Sri Lanka with advance intelligence regarding imminent attacks prior to Easter Sunday.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, the Ambassador said that they had no prior knowledge of the attacks.

“We had no prior knowledge of these attacks. The Sri Lankan Government has admitted lapses in their intelligence gathering and information sharing,” she said.

The CNN reports that this contradicts what the Sri Lankan Government has said as Minister Harsha de Silva earlier told CNN that advance intelligence had been provided by “both India and the US.”

When Amanpour asked the Ambassador about De Silva’s claim, she responded: “Well I can’t speak for others. I don’t know what other sources of information the Government of Sri Lanka might have had. I can just tell you that we had no prior knowledge,”

However, Minister Harsha De Silva told the Daily Mirror that it was not what he exactly said.
“What I said was that I understood that India and US gave us intelligence and that’s what I heard,” he said.

Basically US wants to disassociate themselves with fore knowledge of NTJ attacks planned for Easter Sunday.
They are denying a SL cabinet minster in times of crisis.

Why?
Whom are they signalling?

I think only TSP will benefit, for the rope will lead to TSP.

January 19, 2019
http://island.lk/index.php?page_cat=art ... tle=198002
Police seize explosives from local Islamic radicals

(AFP) Sri Lanka’s police seized a haul of high explosives stashed near a wildlife sanctuary following the arrest of four men from a newly formed radical Muslim group, officials said Friday.

Elite police commandos and detectives stumbled on the explosives which included some 100 detonators from a make-shift warehouse near the Wilpattu national park, police said.

"Following information received by the CID (Criminal Investigations Department), they found 100 kilos (220 pounds) of high explosives and 100 detonators," police said in a statement.

Official sources said the discovery was made during investigations into recent hate attacks against Buddha statues elsewhere in the country in an apparent attempt to spark tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

"The information we have at the moment is that a radicalised local group of Muslims are behind the explosives seized on Thursday," an official said asking not to be named.

"We are trying to see if they had any links with extremists abroad."

With some pix: http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Four- ... 61223.html

A little more detail:
http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Recov ... 61287.html

This haul of explosives was recovered following investigations carried out on the telephone numbers found in a mobile phone of a suspect arrested over the incident where Buddha statutes were demolished in Mawanella recently.

A police team had raided a house at Lacktowatta in Wanathawilluwa on information received that the main suspect of the Mawanella incident and his brother were hiding there but they were not found in the house.

The main suspect of the Mawanella incident is reported to have conducted lectures on extremist ideologies to some youths in the said house.

Police are conducting investigations to arrest the main suspect of the incident where Buddha statutes were demolished in Mawanella and his brother.

Usually, this publication would be called Islamophobic. In this case it proved to be prophetic.
https://www.weeklyblitz.net/news/new-ne ... outh-asia/
January 27, 2019

New nexus of Islamic State formed under the leadership of Jamaat e Islami in South Asia

On January 17, 2019, an elite unit of Sri Lankan police commandos raided the remote compound near the Wilpattu National Park wildlife sanctuary, where the two suspects were known to be hiding when the shocking discovery was made at the makeshift compound operated by Islamic jihadis. The current explosives seizure has thwarted a significant Islamic terror attack in Sri Lanka. Authorities indicate the terrorists were planning to destroy sacred Buddhist shrines in the ancient city of Anuradhapura with C4 high explosives; many innocent people could have lost their lives. The amount of explosives that was seized, along with 100 detonators, would have destroyed an historical epicenter of Buddhism and Sri Lankan civilization in Anuradhapura. There is the possibility of more explosives being hidden in the area of the compound or throughout Sri Lanka.

According to Economy Next official sources said the discovery was made during investigations into recent hate attacks against Buddha statues elsewhere in the country in an apparent attempt to spark tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims.

The same group of Islamic jihadists in the house at the remote compound were inciting youths into vandalizing Buddha statues to stoke tensions with the Sinhalese Buddhist community, in order to purposefully provoke a reaction to manipulate some negative publicity against the Sinhalese. In other words, these jihadists were deliberately trying to create a larger public backlash from the Sinhalese against Muslims throughout Sri Lanka as part of an elaborate sinister scheme, akin to a false flag operation, by destroying the Buddha statues. The completion of their evil plans to destroy larger holy shrines of Buddhism using C4 in the ancient city of Anuradhapura may have triggered a widespread conflict inside Sri Lanka. Similar tactics of deception to manipulate publicity are commonly used by jihadists across the world, but in this particular case they have been exposed by Sri Lankan authorities with the intentions to create a climate of religious conflict.

Some more allegations of where this all is coming from, shades of Dawood Ibrahim.

“A recent rise of Islamic jihad activity in Sri Lanka has been paralleled by a rise in Islamic gangs who are controlling the drug trade. The historic heroin seizure in December, 2018 shows a direct link to networks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ruthless Islamic gangs are known to control the underworld in Sri Lanka, and have been connected to the recent assassination plot of the President, along with several other political leaders in late October 2018. Not much information is known about this new radical Islamic group which was caught with the explosives or their connections to the underworld in Sri Lanka, but the common purpose of these Islamic gangs and jihadist networks is to create conflict and political instability inside Sri Lanka. Many Sri Lankans, both Tamils and Sinhalese, believe they have become the target of Islamic jihadis over the last few years; growing evidence shows their fears are not unfounded, since there have been no previous historic problems with Islamic terror in Sri Lanka.”

I LOVE the logic

He also revealed there had been a failed attack against a fourth major hotel, and that the Indian embassy was also a possible target.

Motivation is "Revenge" for a fundoo Xtian white guy from Australia killing Muslims in New Zealand, but "INDIAN EMBASSY" is a target????

Do I smell pakistaniyat here or not? Esp. since the Great Satan is left out. I think US should file a Strong Protest with ISIS at this affront to H&D. Left out of the info loop, not even targeted! What is the world coming to, hain?

UlanBatori wrote:I LOVE the logic

He also revealed there had been a failed attack against a fourth major hotel, and that the Indian embassy was also a possible target.

Motivation is "Revenge" for a fundoo Xtian white guy from Australia killing Muslims in New Zealand, but "INDIAN EMBASSY" is a target????

Do I smell pakistaniyat here or not? Esp. since the Great Satan is left out. I think US should file a Strong Protest with ISIS at this affront to H&D. Left out of the info loop, not even targeted! What is the world coming to, hain?

In this region, AF, PK, NP, SL and BD, the Indian embassy is always a default target.

their wet dreams of ghazwa e Hind are incomplete without it.

ramana wrote:

A_Gupta wrote:DailyMirror of Sri Lanka reports:
US denies warning Sri Lanka about terror attacks
http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news ... 108-165879

Basically US wants to disassociate themselves with fore knowledge of NTJ attacks planned for Easter Sunday.
They are denying a SL cabinet minster in times of crisis.

Why?
Whom are they signalling?

I think only TSP will benefit, for the rope will lead to TSP.

Interesting.

The US has recently been trying very hard to coax the Taliban and the Afghan Govt to negotiate.

Khalilzad is working the Taliban angle:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afgh ... SKCN1S018Y

The U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, who has held several rounds of direct talks with Taliban officials in Qatar, will attend the meeting in Moscow. US is so desperate to bring the Taliban to the table they're actually trying (uncharacteristically for this GOTUS) a multi-lateral approach. They are meeting with Russian and Chinese officials in Moscow to seek assistance in the process. You can guess why Chinese officials are involved (whom they are being requested to bring pressure on).

“On this trip, I am working to build on international support for Afghan peace process and push Afghan parties forward on dialogue and negotiations. A bump in the road isn’t reason to slow down,” Khalilzad said on Twitter this week.

Khalilzad has made some progress in his talks with the Taliban, in particular in two main areas: a Taliban demand for the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces and a U.S. demand the Taliban guarantee that Afghanistan will not be used as a base for militant attacks.

Two other main issues in the process are a ceasefire and talks between the rival Afghan sides, or inter-Afghan talks.

The Taliban have long refused to talk to the U.S. backed-Afghan government, denouncing it as foreign “puppet”, and fighting has seen no let-up. The Taliban announced the launch of their annual spring offensive this month.

Meanwhile Pompeo is working the Afghan Govt angle:

https://www.rferl.org/a/pompeo-tells-af ... 96306.html

Pompeo Tells Afghan President Qatar Talks With Taliban Best Chance For Peace

The US has a one-point agenda in "South Asia": rescue the Qatar talks/Afghan peace-process by any means so that US can get the hell out of there in time for the 2020 elections. They will pull out all the stops to bring the Taliban (who have recently been acting pricey, announcing a "spring offensive") to the table. They calculate Pakistan will be invaluable in this.

So of course Pakistan cannot be "embarrassed" on the international stage with revelations about its involvement in the Sri Lanka attacks. That is what the US Amb to SL was signaling IMO.

Her verbiage was interesting as in "WE didn't know". Who is "WE"? Of course Fog-e-Bottom was 404, so was she, but is she including SeeEyeAh and EphBeeEye and EnnEssAy?

chetak, Please focus onteh subject at hand and not golbal stuff.
Every situation can be looked at thru strategic/global factors or tactical/local factors.
The biggest mistake is to misread them.

A NTJ attack on Easter Sunday on hotels and churches in SL included Indian High Commission as a target.

Only Pakistan has sights on such target.

UB she represents the whole GOTUS.

Basically she is signalling the planners the US didn't provide the intelligence and giving a head nod towards India.
What more do goat herders need to read the signals?
Entrails?

A few interesting perspectives. Both are from articles in The Atlantic (Wilsonian Globalist mouthpiece in America) but TIFWIW

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ch/587836/

The Islamic State is not gone. We knew that already; even President Donald Trump, after the Islamic State’s territorial defeat, noted that “on occasion these cowards will resurface.” What we know now is that the Islamic State’s “prestige and power,” which Trump said had also been destroyed, lives on too, and can still motivate massacres from followers in heretofore unlikely places. Amaq, the Islamic State’s propaganda wing, framed the Sri Lanka attack as an attack on a “Christian” and “Crusader” coalition.


Also of interest is what the Islamic State declined to say, but that the Sri Lankan government asserted. Ruwan Wijewardene, the state minister for defense, told Parliament today that the attack was retribution—not for Syria and blows against the caliphate, but for the mass murder of Muslims by a white-supremacist gunman in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15. He did not provide evidence for this claim, and there is reason to doubt it.

The Easter terrorists did not refer to Christchurch at all—an omission that might strike some as strange: What better proof of the Islamic State’s core claim, that Muslims cannot live full and virtuous lives in non-Muslim lands, and that the caliphate is their only protection and salvation? Here we see that hyper-sectarianism has its costs.

The Islamic State, in its form for the past five years, sought to attract followers with reinforcement both positive and negative. The positive reinforcement came from the promise of a terrestrial paradise in Mesopotamia, where one might bask in God’s favor. The negative came from unremitting abuse directed at Muslims who chose to live in the West; they were cast as the absolute scum of the earth. Those who resisted the call to immigrate to the caliphate, and remained in places such as Christchurch as taxpaying, loyal citizens of infidel lands, were selling their soul to the enemies of Islam and would burn for eternity while the caliphate’s elect few watched with delight from the gardens of paradise. The Islamic State would be mixing its messages if it were to claim that it attacked Sri Lanka to avenge the souls of those it considered worthy of hellfire anyway.

The propaganda value of Christchurch for a group such as ISIS is, then, inestimable, yet difficult to exploit. One sometimes sees supporters of ISIS comment on attacks on Muslims in the West with a pitying shrug: You sold your souls to the infidel—and for this? (Notice the similarities between ISIS and radical separatists through the ages, including certain strains of the Nation of Islam.)

Even if the retribution argument were consistent with prior ISIS doctrine, the timing suggests it’s not correct. The bombings in Sri Lanka were among the more spectacular in the history of terrorism, and they almost certainly took more planning than would have been possible in the past five weeks. As we have observed here as well.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... es/587884/

ISIS’s Newest Recruiting Tool: Regional Languages

When ISIS claimed responsibility for the coordinated bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 350 people, it did so, as one would expect, in Arabic and English. But it also issued statements in other languages—including Tamil.

There is yet no independent verification of the terrorist group’s claim, but the pronouncement in a language spoken by about 70 million people, overwhelmingly in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, as well as in Malayalam, spoken by about 35 million people mostly in the southern Indian state of Kerala, suggests the organization has recruits fluent in what are essentially regional languages with relatively few speakers.

...

On the face of it, ISIS’s influence in South Asia is limited. About 180 Indians are said to have joined the group out of a population of 170 million Indian Muslims, according to the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a think tank in New Delhi. (Muslims are the largest religious minority in the nation of 1.2 billion.) But the majority of those who did are from the south. Sri Lanka’s case is similar: About 32 Sri Lankan Muslims have fought with ISIS in Syria, ORF says. (Muslims make up about 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 21 million.)
More Stories

“Overall, they haven’t been successful,” Kabir Taneja, who studies terrorism in South Asia at ORF, told me. “The number of cases compared to the population, especially compared to the Muslim population, is really, really low.”

ISIS’s real success in recruitment has come in the places one would expect: the Arab world, Central Asia, and western Europe.

...

It has been able to do this mainly through its tremendous success on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, as well as its declaration of a caliphate, which it trumpeted aggressively in its propaganda and media operations.

...

He said ISIS specifically targeted, as a headhunting firm would, people with a background in graphic design and production and with media degrees. That would make southern Indian states and Sri Lanka, with their high literacy rates, fertile ground for recruitment. (The notorious ISIS Twitter troll Shami Witness was unmasked in 2014 as a corporate executive in one of India’s largest conglomerates.)

There is other expected BS about "rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in South Asia", "increasing violence against Muslims in India and Sri Lanka" etc. which is an almost uniform feature of Western media coverage regarding the SL attacks.

So from the Western response to the SL attacks we can glean two data points:

1) A recurring theme in media to the effect that Hindus (in India) and Buddhists (in SL, Myanmar, elsewhere) are ultimately to blame for both violence committed against Christians, and also for violence committed by Muslims. This public narrative positions Hindus and Buddhists as unworthy of sympathy when they become the targets of Islamist terror (those Christian-persecuting heathens, why would we go over there to help 'em?)

2) US officials deliberately distancing themselves from any hint that they were a source of intel warning SL about an Islamic attack (with a head-nod towards India, as the true source of the evidence, thrown in).

I think these are important contours in the emerging big picture of Unkil's strategy towards Islamism in the Indian Subcontinent, as well as around the world.

Unkil's strategists want to change the "We Are The World" approach to Islamic terrorism heralded by GW Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. Global War On (Islamic) Terror and all that. They want to go back to the days where Nigeria's Islamists are Nigeria's problem, Philippines Islamists are the Philippines' problem, and of course Subcontinental Islamists are India's problem.

This helps Unkil in two ways.

One, they successfully distance themselves from any obligation to reciprocally act against Islamist terrorism directed at any country that isn't Western or a specific West Asian ally (KSA, UAE, Israel). All those countries in the world that said "We are all Americans today" following 9/11 are now being told that they're on their own against Islamist terrorism. This is probably seen by Unkil's strategic community as an important posture in order to avoid being drawn into all kinds of conflicts, from Iraq/Afghanistan style full-scale wars, to Libya/Syria type interventions, to brush-fire SF operations as in East Africa and the Maghreb.

Two, it brings back the tantalizing possibility of using Islamist groups as proxies to contain other countries. This was the order of the day in the Robin Raphel era; it somewhat fell by the wayside during the post-9/11 era (the obvious hypocrisy of embracing some "good terrorists" would have been too much, and this is what we leveraged during Op Parakram).

But Unkil wants his good terrorists back now. And Robin Raphel herself has clambered out of the crypt to help.

Remember that the Culinary Institute in the late 1990s (if only by omission) acquiesced to the transfer of OBL from Sudan to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan (with Pakistani help). Their hope, along with the ISI, was that OBL would re-target his jihadi designs towards India, specifically Cashmere. It didn't work with OBL, who continued targeting the West, but that's a different story. It's not as if Unkil learns readily from his mistakes.

Who is the target now? I think principally China... and China has seen this coming (hence their pre-emptive measures against Uighurs in Xinjiang). I think there is probably a plan to embroil China via CPEC (and possibly other OBOR-targeted areas in Central Asia) in a jihad unlike any it has ever imagined.

India too, though. India has had it far too good lately, from DupliCity's point of view. The world's fastest growing economy. Strategically bolder than ever before. An unchallenged nuclear power with ASAT capability. Close to Iran and Russia. Only half-willing to join the "Quad" as the front-line ally. Progressively less constrained by Pakistan as Pakistan itself unravels (and even less than that, after Uri and Balakot exploded the nuclear-flashpoint myth). Burdened with relatively few headaches compared to Europe (Arab refugees), East Asia (North Korea), Russia (Ukraine), KSA/Iran (each other)... there are, at this point in history, fewer points of DupliCity leverage against India than almost any other country, at least any other country of such significance.

This cannot be allowed to go on. Unkil needs an Islamist proxy that, if not a "freedom-fightin' friend" (as in the Reagan and Clinton days), is at the very least NOT Unkil's enemy. Unkil needs these Islamists to know that Unkil will not stop them from extending their violent influence in parts of the world that are not directly beholden to Unkil as allies. Exactly as they hoped to accomplish with OBL through an ISI-managed strategy... the plan is now to wash their hands off anything ISIS might partake of in a similar ISI-managed strategy.

Of course this will be difficult to manage public-perception wise, and lots of platitudes about "standing united with our allies against terrorism" will continue to be heard.

And of course this is a school of thought in Unkilian strategic circles that was never QUITE dead, even during the decade after 9/11. Remember David Coleman Headley.

But now it's reasserting itself very strongly. George W Bush, the Baptist Crusader, would have sent Tomahawks flying at any number of targets in response to something as audaciously jihadist as killing 300+ Christians during Easter Service. It is the very diffident silence of DupliCity in response to the recent SL attacks that speaks volumes.

UB she represents the whole GOTUS.

er... if u were US intel, would YOU tell the local amby that you were passing on info that a terror strike has been blown? The diplos and their staff and offices leak like a sieve. She would know nothing. So I think that was "plausible deniability". Of course may be true that US didn't have any intel because I doubt if Raa would pass on any more warnings to US, given bitter experience.
OTOH, the code in her message (US didn't know, but India knew) is clear pointer that it was Paki-origin.

RDji, a head-spinning analysis, but UBCN's problem with these is that they pre-suppose that there IS any "thinking" in Dupli City. I think they are all embroiled in such deep problems as whether Page 3 Line 14 has been redacted in Mueller's report, describing who was peeing in whose pakistan.

Afghanistan I simply don't understand, and I take it as proof that the foreign policy machine in US is lying in pieces, emphasis on "lying". How are they going to explain the Victory when the Taliban again sets up their hand-chopping basket in Kabul?

As for your last point, few if any Americans were killed. Not like Kenya/Tanzania attacks on US embassy. So the curious aspect is Why Did The Dog Not Bark? As in, Indian Embassy was on Desired Targets list, but not US/UQ. How come? Then again, if it was indeed "ISIS" why was Russian embassy not there?

So this was very clearly, Pakistan trying to impress the ISIS.

Footnote. And it IS relevant.

As Modi enters a second term, the world sees India returning to another Indira era. That is, an era of strong unitary leadership that has no constitutionally-imposed term limits and is likely to continue indefinitely. This has not been the case from 1989-2014. Modi's first term was wait-and-watch. His re-election will prompt the powerful countries of the world to abandon the policies they pursued towards India over the past 30 years, and return to something much more like they espoused in the 1965-1989 period.

No more OT from me on this.

UlanBatori wrote:
As for your last point, few if any Americans were killed. Not like Kenya/Tanzania attacks on US embassy. So the curious aspect is Why Did The Dog Not Bark? As in, Indian Embassy was on Desired Targets list, but not US/UQ. How come? Then again, if it was indeed "ISIS" why was Russian embassy not there?

So this was very clearly, Pakistan trying to impress the ISIS.

If we think about it, none of those observations contradict my theory... many actually affirm it Takes two to tango, so it made no sense for "ISIS" (or should we say ISI) to kill Yanquis as OBL did in the African Embassy attacks. "ISIS" also wants the detente with Unkil if it means they can have a free hand outside of Unkil's sphere of influence. Dog did not bark as expected because they're extending a super-secret olive branch as well.

And the Indian Embassy?

To explore that, we should first answer the Q: WHAT is "ISIS"?

A: "ISIS" like Al-Qaeda has three ingredients.

1) Bunch of Wahhabi Arabs with unimaginable sums of money.

2) "X"

3) Scads of yahoos in pickups, VBIEDs, etc. doing the stuff in the Youtube videos. Or in SL and elsewhere.

So what then is "X"?

"X" is whatever entity translates the money held by "1" to the training, C4, fake-documents, fuel, ammunition, everything else deployed with "3". Has to be ideologically simpatico. Has to be professionally motivated, with plenty of expertise in logistics and operational planning. Almost absolutely has to be a state entity with access to land, labor, and at least some working capital as well as institutions for procurement and cash transfer.

ISI is probably at the top of the list of resumes for "X" today, lying on the desks of "1". That is, if they haven't got the job already.

What's in it for "X" (or ISI, if they're already hired?)
-Money
-Increased influence in their home state and near abroad
-Fringe benefits (e.g. Indian Embassy) in ISIS ops further abroad

I think that's all there is to it.

More grist for the mill.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sri-lanka- ... 019-04-24/

A U.S. official familiar with the intelligence on Sri Lanka has confirmed to CBS News that the government of India did share specific information with Sri Lanka in the days before the attack. The official said the bombings are believed at this time to be ISIS inspired, but officials continue to look for clear links. Evidence was still being gathered and analyzed, with help from FBI agents on the ground.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/te ... d=62593041

While the investigation is ongoing, one thing is clear: The Sri Lankan attacks could be the precursor to more and larger attacks. The size, scope and coordination of the attacks indicate a greater logistical capability and structure. The spectacular nature of the attacks sends a clear message: someone is vying for the terrorism spotlight.

CCTV footage of a bomber in Shangri-La hotel:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 84306.html

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8927467/s ... ide-bombs/
Sri Lanka bombings – Inside ISIS death factory where ‘chilling Mother of Satan suicide bombs were built for jihadi terror cell’
(The Sun, so dunno how reliable it is)

The copper business, in Wellampitiya, Colombo, belonged to mass murderer Inshaf Ahamad who blew himself up at the Cinnamon Grand hotel killing dozens including Brit tourists.

His factory was raided last night by cops who arrested nine suspects including the manager and supervisor, reports the Mail Online.

Detectives believe the warehouse was used to build the suicide vests using explosive triacetone triperoxide branded the ‘Mother of Satan' by terror group Al Qaeda.

The substance was used in the horrific bomb attacks in Paris in 2015 and in the Manchester Arena massacre in 2017.

Inshaf is the son of millionaire spice tycoon who has been arrested after the family’s apartment blew up during the massacre killing three police officers.

His brother Ilham Ibrahim, 36, is understood to have set off the first bomb at the Shangri-La hotel.

But according to workers at the factory, who hail from India and Bangladesh and are paid $150 a month, they are innocent and knew nothing of their boss’ extremism, reports The Mail.

1977 to 2014. 1977-1989 was not at all pretty w.r.t. stability or growth in India.

True, it was a broad stroke. IG in her last term was on the defensive (fighting the Khalistan movement, shattered by the sudden death of Sanjay, cowed by Reagan into declining Israeli help to take out Kahuta, etc.) Only a shadow of her former self. Even so, it was determined that she had to be taken out before she had any chance of regaining her former steel.

Very bland opinion in Xinhua:
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/asiapa ... 001854.htm

A fight against terror knows no national boundaries. No one is safe from the threat. A united global community can eliminate the threat of terrorism. Countries of various political and social persuasions must enhance trust, promote security cooperation and improve counter-terrorism coordination.

It is worth noting that behind the epidemic of terror were political, social and cultural causes. To root out terrorist attacks, international cooperation must run deep. History argues that hegemonism nourishes terrorism. Only with multilateralism and collaboration can extremism be eradicated.

The fight against terrorism will be a long one. It requires a treatment of the symptoms as well as the root causes. For individuals abhorring violence, it is time to join hands and face up to it.

WHY would ppl who own a factory, or have a millionaire Poppa, inflate themselves?

POV from the Jerusalem Post:
https://www.jpost.com/International/Isl ... ugh-587778

That an Islamist extremist studied in the UK is not surprising, given the numerous ISIS members who had UK-university backgrounds. For instance, an April 1 report at BBC noted that seven students from the University of Westminster had joined ISIS in 2014. The UK has a troubled history of extremist networks exploiting the country. One of the perpetrators also did post-graduate work in Australia.

We now know that two of the bombers were brothers. They came from a “wealthy Colombo spice trader” family. In the ISIS-released image of the alleged perpetrators, the men are seen holding knives. One is left-handed, as Josie Ensor of The Telegraph pointed out online. Another man that AFP has identified as linked to the attack is Zahran Hashim, a “firebrand cleric.” The Telegraph also named Inshaf Ahmad Ibrahim as the "alleged mastermind of the atrocity."

The fact that the attackers were middle class is not surprising. This fits the model of the ISIS-inspired 2016 terror attack on an artisan bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The perpetrators were also mostly wealthy and well connected and well educated. This is particularly true of extremists in South Asia. Radicals tend to be educated and it is access to education that leads them to extremism via friends or online. Many travel abroad, where they receive more deepening instruction and return even more hateful of other religious groups.

Overall, the connection between the National Thawheed Jamaat, which has been blamed for attacks on Buddhist sites in the past, and the ISIS claim, is unclear. Is there a local ISIS-affiliate, or did ISIS inspire the attack? To what degree was foreign know-how involved, such as constructing the bombs and planning the simultaneous attacks of three churches and three hotels in the same morning? The size and complexity appear to outpace the capabilities of a local group that had never done this before. It is not clear why a woman was involved in the attacks, but it is not the first time women have carried out such attacks.

Foreign intelligence agencies may have known about the threats. But there wasn’t enough chatter to alert the US. US officials say they had no prior knowledge, Reuters reports. While Sri Lanka says the attackers had foreign links, the intelligence about them may have primarily come from India and an ISIS suspect detained there.

A little bit more on the US Ambassador's statements.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri- ... SKCN1S00KG

“We had no prior knowledge of these attacks,” Ambassador Alaina Teplitz told reporters in Colombo. “We believe there are ongoing terrorist plots. Terrorists can strike without warning. Typical venues are large gatherings, public spaces.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-new ... t-14572245

Inshaf and Ilham Ibrahim strolled into the Shangri-La and Cinnamon Grand hotels and blew themselves up as guests were eating breakfast.

The wealthy brothers' attacks killed 41 people who were staying at the hotels, many of whom were enjoying breakfast in the dining rooms at the time.

As police raided their mansion in an exclusive and wealthy part of Colombo hours later, Ilham's pregnant wife Fatima also detonated a bomb, killing herself, her three children and three officers.

A_Gupta wrote:A little bit more on the US Ambassador's statements.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri- ... SKCN1S00KG

“We had no prior knowledge of these attacks,” Ambassador Alaina Teplitz told reporters in Colombo. “We believe there are ongoing terrorist plots. Terrorists can strike without warning. Typical venues are large gatherings, public spaces.”

It's quite unlikely that the Americans did not know about it. I don't believe it. The above statement looks like the standard dish out when the CIA is involved. Latin America comes to mind.

UlanBatori wrote:WHY would ppl who own a factory, or have a millionaire Poppa, inflate themselves?

Very good question. Affluence and exposure to West makes these perpetrators renew their faith and raza (raid) and jihad are visible commitments to that renewal.

Narender Luther (IAS) historian of Hyderabad remarks how London educated suit boot Muslim nawabs would turn very jihadi soon after returning to Hyderabad.
Recall that UK bomber's who had a medic as a brother and upon his arrest MMS cried for his welfare?
That guy was studying in a very famous uty in London.
most of 9/11 hijackers were educated.
Atta was aeronautical engineer in Germany.

So answering my question on explosives.

The two Ibrahim brothers used TATP to blow up the two hotels.
These are bakpaki type bombs. But built in their factory.
These are very fragile and finicky.
So who did they set them off and where did they practice the craft?
We need to know about the rest.
What about the C-4 stuff?

How to inspire these Faithfools to go and inflate, say, Shanghai or Macao? Lots of kuffar in Macao, from what I hear. Perhaps one could send them the tourist brochures of the haraam practices there, such as eating breakfast with pork sausages (dogmeat maybe in Macao). Pity the Spice Bros can't undertake a Trade Delegation there any more. Anyway, until the clear LeT/JeM link is identified and followed up with a nice Spicy jhapad in LaHore/Karachi, time to roam elsewhere. (Yawn!!!)

When people are poor and struggling to live, or to make a better life for their children, their spirit is invested in that struggle and they cannot help but be karmayogis to some extent. Whether they know/acknowledge it or not. This leaves little mind-share available for ideas like blowing themselves up.

When people rise out of that to some degree of middle-class economic comfort, they have more of a choice as to where to reside ideologically and spiritually. At that point, continuing to develop as a karmayogi has to be a conscious decision. Some ideologies make that conscious decision a very difficult one to take, and steer their followers in another direction entirely.

At the most elite end of the spectrum, particularly in the context of colonialism, the pill becomes MUCH harsher to swallow. On the one hand, all the comforts of the world are there; suit, boot, car, scotch, kabab, servants, AC. On the other hand there is the constant, gnawing realization that NONE of this came from Islam or Islamic social/political/financial structures. All of it came from some combination of British Raj patronage and post-independence India's economic opportunity.

Elite Muslims of India were humiliated beyond belief by the aftermath of 1857. Many who considered themselves Ghazis and dreamed of re-establishing Islamic rule in Al-Hind were crushed completely by the British, their wealth reduced to nothing, their bloodlines stamped out. At the end of that episode the only choice for Elite Muslims was to become collaborators of the Syed Ahmed Khan/Jinnah variety. Suited-booted and speaking in Oxbridge accents, every sign of their prestige and power granted as charity by the magnanimous and victorious British. Compared to Elite Hindus, Elite Muslims of the early 20th century had no scope at all to rise within the parameters of an even remotely traditional framework. They had to become pucca Brown Britishers (at least on the outside) otherwise they would be beggars. What Gandhi was trying (foolishly) to do during the Khilafat movement was give Elite Muslims a third option of exercising power and agency in the full light of their Islamic identity. That failed (see story of the scorpion and the frog).

The resentment of elite and middle-class Muslims at this state of affairs was kept alive by the Mullahs. But just like the man who gets roughed-up by police and then goes home to beat his wife/child... just like the Islamists who respond to the Christchurch shooting by celebrating the bombings in Sri Lanka... that resentment was funneled completely towards kafir Indians. Hence the Mopla riots, the Partition, the Razakar movement... each and every one of these things an expression of Islamist frustration at their own wretchedness, but redirected away from the oppressor and towards relatively helpless innocents in the most cowardly fashion.

The same can be said about much of the Islamic world that experienced Western colonization, to one extent or the other.

So that is why we see what we see. Peacefuls who have plenty of money and opportunity harbour an ancestral memory, transmitted over six-plus generations, of the dhimmitude they had to accept in order to access that money and opportunity (all their ancestors who continued shouting AoA in 1858 were promptly executed... only the "Mohammed Anglo Oriental" Wogs appealing humbly to the British to keep ruling India as fellow "people of the Book" managed to survive and get rich). Islamic institutions ensure that this memory and resentment never go away, and in fact become successively more embittered with every generation. At some level they actually hate the money and privilege they have because it is un-Islamic in origin; they hate themselves for enjoying these un-Islamic things; and they hate everybody else for being unbelievers and un-conflicted on their journey to success through hard work.

None of this can be solved by providing more money and opportunity. We saw this in 1947 and we see it from Kashmir to Colombo today. Ultimately the only cure is what worked in 1858.

Sri Lanka's president sacks defence secretary, police chief - TNN & Agencies

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's president on Wednesday asked for the resignations of the defence secretary and national police chief for their failure to prevent the Sunday Easter bombings, even as the death toll rose to 359.

President Maithripala Sirisena asked defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando and Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara to quit after it emerged that security forces shrugged off intelligence alerts of an impending terror strike. In an address to the nation on Tuesday, Sirisena had admitted security lapses and said he would restructure the police and security forces.

The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which ripped through three churches and three luxury hotels. Nine suicide bombers from mostly middle-class backgrounds carried out the attacks, said police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara.

One of the bombers was the wife of another bomber, he added. The woman, two children and three policemen died in an explosion as authorities closed in on her late Sunday.

Sri Lanka’s junior defense minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, said the attackers appeared to be mostly middle-class. “They’re quite well educated people. We believe one of them studied in the UK and then later on did his post-graduation in Australia before coming back to settle in Sri Lanka.”

The bombers were all Sri Lankan. But authorities are investigating whether IS provided more than symbolic support, such as by training the attackers or building the bombs. Two of the bombers were reportedly brothers and the sons of a wealthy Colombo spice trader. They detonated their explosives at the ShangriLa and the Cinnamon Grand hotels.

Gunasekara said 60 people have been arrested so far. A team of FBI agents and US military officials were helping in the investigation, US ambassador Alaina Teplitz said. Describing the breakdown in communication that led to the Lankan government not acting on intelligence tip-offs as "incredibly tragic, " she added that there were believed to be “ongoing terrorist plots”.

On Tuesday, in an address to Parliament, Wijewardene said "weakness'' within Sri Lanka's security system had led to the failure to prevent the bombings.

"By now it has been established that the intelligence units were aware of this attack and a group of responsible people were informed about the impending attack, '' Wijewardene said. "However, this information has been circulated among only a few officials.''

In a live address to the nation late on Tuesday, President Sirisena said he also was kept in the dark on the intelligence about the planned attacks and vowed to "take stern action'' against officials who failed to share the information. He also pledged "a complete restructuring'' of the security forces.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Wijewardene also edged away from Tuesday comments that the bombings were retaliation for the March 15 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 50 people. He told reporters Wednesday that the mosque attack may have been a motivation for the bombings, but that there was no direct evidence of that.

Wijewardene said the leader of the attacks was believed to have been among the suicide bombers.
He did not name any of the bombers, and he did not specify whether the leader among them was Mohammed Zaharan, head of an obscure Islamist extremist group that authorities have said was behind the attacks.

Cheers

I will argue that it is in fact only the Elite who will take this kind of a step.

The commoner is concerned about bettering his/her life, and doesn't have the time to think about jihad or the afterlife.

The elite, on the other hand, have everything. Yet they have nothing. This is especially true of second generation elite who get to enjoy the benefits of their parents hard work without understanding what it takes to get there. There could be a feeling of guilt, or a complex that they are not worthy of their parents legacy, so many issues which in the rest of the world would be resolved by a shrink or a baba. This void in their lives is quickly filled by extreme religiosity, and it is then their way of showing off how much better muslims they are than the rest of their peer group.