Colombo - 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, in which 290 people were killed and nearly 500
wounded.
The emergency law, which gives police and the military
extensive powers to detain and interrogate suspects without
court orders, will go into effect at midnight on Monday, the
president's office said.
Colombo, the seaside capital of the Indian Ocean island, was
jittery on Monday. Police said 87 bomb detonators were found at
the city's main bus station, while an explosive went off near a
church where scores were killed on Sunday when bomb squad
officials were trying to defuse it.
A night curfew will go into effect at 8 p.m., the government
announced.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but
suspicion was focusing on Islamist militants in the
Buddhist-majority country.
Investigators said seven suicide bombers took part in the
attacks while a government spokesman said an international
network was involved.
Police had received a tip-off of a possible attack on
churches by a little-known domestic Islamist group some 10 days
ago, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The intelligence report, dated April 11 and seen by Reuters,
said a foreign intelligence agency had warned authorities of
possible attacks on churches by the leader of the group, the
National Thawheed Jama'ut. It was not immediately clear what
action, if any, was taken on the tip-off.
Police said 24 people had been arrested, all of whom were
Sri Lankan, but they gave no more details.
International anti-terrorism experts said even if a local
group had carried out the attacks, it was likely that al Qaeda
or Islamic State were involved, given the level of
sophistication.
Two of the suicide bombers blew themselves up at the luxury
Shangri-La Hotel on Colombo's seafront, said Ariyananda
Welianga, a senior official at the government's forensic
division. The others targeted three churches and two other
hotels.
A fourth hotel and a house in a suburb of the capital
Colombo were also hit, but it was not immediately clear how
those attacks were carried out.
"Still the investigations are going on," Welianga said.
Most of the attacks came during Easter services and when
hotel guests were sitting down for breakfast buffets.
"Guests who had come for breakfast were lying on the floor,
blood all over," an employee at Kingsbury Hotel told Reuters.
Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said an international
network was involved, but did not elaborate.
"We do not believe these attacks were carried out by a group
of people who were confined to this country," Senaratne said.
"There was an international network without which these attacks
could not have succeeded."
The president, Maithripala Sirisena, said in a statement the
government would seek foreign assistance to track the overseas
links.
Sri Lanka was at war for decades with ethnic minority Tamil
separatists, most of them Hindu, but violence had largely ended
since the government victory in the civil war, 10 years ago.
Sri Lanka's 22 million people include minority Christians,
Muslims and Hindus.
FOREIGN VICTIMS
Most of the dead and wounded were Sri Lankans although
government officials said 32 foreigners were killed, including
British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish,
Dutch and Portuguese nationals.
Denmark's richest man Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife lost
three of their four children in the attacks, a spokesman for his
fashion firm said.
A British mother and son at breakfast at the Shangri-La,
British media reported, while five Indian political workers were
killed at the same hotel, relatives told Indian media.
The hotel said several guests and three employees were
killed.
The U.S. State Department said in a travel advisory
"terrorist groups" were plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka
and targets could include tourist spots, transport hubs,
shopping malls, hotels, places of worship and airports.
There were fears the attacks could spark communal violence,
with police reporting late on Sunday there had been a petrol
bomb attack on a mosque in the northwest and arson attacks on
two shops owned by Muslims in the west.
BOMB FOUND NEAR AIRPORT
Traffic was uncharacteristically thin in normally bustling
Colombo after an island-wide curfew was lifted earlier Monday.
Soldiers with automatic weapons stood guard outside major
hotels and the World Trade Centre in the business district, a
Reuters witness said.
An Australian survivor, identified only as Sam, told
Australia's 3AW radio the hotel was a scene of "absolute
carnage".
He said he and a travel partner were having breakfast at the
Shangri-La when two blasts went off. He said he had seen two men
wearing backpacks seconds before the blasts.
"There were people screaming and dead bodies all around," he
said. "Kids crying, kids on the ground, I don't know if they
were dead or not, just crazy."
There were similar scenes of carnage at two churches in or
near Colombo, and a third church in the northeast town of
Batticaloa, where worshippers had gathered. Pictures showed
bodies on the ground and blood-spattered pews and statues.
Dozens were killed in a blast at the Gothic-style St
Sebastian church in Katuwapitiya, north of Colombo. Police said
they suspected it was a suicide attack.
Questions over why the intelligence report warning was not
acted upon could feed into a feud between Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe and the president.
Sirisena fired the premier last year and installed
opposition strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his stead. Weeks
later, he was forced to re-instate Wickremesinghe because of
pressure from the Supreme Court but their relationship is still
fraught as a presidential election nears.