Ten days before the terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, on 11 April 2019, a top Sri Lankan police official sent out a confidential security memo. Captioned with the headline – “INFORMATION OF AN ALLEGED PLAN ATTACK” – it warned of an impending suicide attack on Catholic churches by a little known radical Islamist group, the National Towheeth Jama’ath:
Foreign intelligence has informed that Mohammed Cassim Mohamed Zaharan alias Zaharan Hashmi the leader of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath and his followers are planning suicide attacks in this country. The reports noted that these attacks could target Catholic churches and the Indian High Commission in Colombo. Information received is at Appendix A.
The Appendix gave details of the names, addresses, phone numbers – even the times in the middle of the night that one suspect, Rilwan, would visit his wife and children.
In January, months before the attack, Indian intelligence agencies, who had been monitoring the activities of the National Towheeth Jama’ath and its leader Mohammed Zaharan, had warned the Sri Lankan intelligence agencies that the group was stockpiling weapons and detonators to attack churches. Going by this information, the Sri Lankan intelligence agencies kept a watch on the activities of the members of the group, particularly Zaharan, its leader, and his brother Rilwan.
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