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Rajpal Abeynayake

Details regarding the suicide bombers involved in the attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday appear stranger by the minute.
The copper factory belonging to one of them, 33-year-old Illham Ibrahim, had received favourable treatment from the state, it has now been revealed.

When Sri Lanka Telecom wanted to dispose of copper cables, the tender was given to the suicide bomber’s operation, according to Ranjith Vithanage, president of the country’s Consumer Rights Protection Association.
The copper merchant has been pictured, alongside his spice tycoon father, receiving awards at a state-sponsored ceremony for entrepreneurs. Both Colombo merchants are reported to have been liaising closely with the alleged mastermind of the attack – Zaran Hashim, a known troublemaker from the country’s Eastern province.
He was a strange child, who broke away from the teachings of his original Islamic school to indoctrinate others, according to reports.
In Sri Lanka, rising Islamic militancy was the elephant in the room
People who knew him say he was charismatic, fluent in Arabic and self-radicalised.
One of his associates has described him and his ilk as having “the necessary mindset” to carry out the atrocities.




Some of the operatives in Colombo, for example, seemed to operate like automata. Jameel Mohamed, who studied engineering in Britain, hailed from a tea-trading family in the country’s hill region and by all accounts had been planning a holiday – a family excursion – out of the city with his relatives. There was no inkling that he was in fact planning a terror attack.
Others showed more emotion. Imsath Ibrahim, the son of a wealthy spice trader, left a recording apologising to his mother. In it, he said he had decided to give his life for his faith, and asked for his mother’s forgiveness.

Not all the bombers were so repentant, however. Hashim had been vocally at odds with the mosques in Colombo about matters such as the end of the Ramadan fast – preferring to follow diktats issued by other believers in places such as Indonesia.
This put him at odds with Sri Lanka’s Islamic mainstream in places like Kattankudy, in the Eastern province.
Sri Lanka says Easter bombings leader Zahran died in hotel attack
Hashim previously staged protests across the road from an orthodox mosque in Kattankudy and by all accounts was well prepared for retaliation.
Eventually, such protests led to skirmishes and even sword fights, which the police have on record.
Perhaps the strangest part in all this is that Hashim, and radical elements like him, actually helped the Sri Lankan government during the country’s civil war.




They set up roadblocks to check for suspicious vehicles and helped keep the peace in the face of attacks by Tamil separatists – even receiving money from the state at times for their work.
But in the years since, they have forged connections with radical elements, such as the wealthy spice-trading Ibrahim family.
Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim, patriarch of that family, is now in custody. He is believed to have been the driving force behind his radicalised sons.
A known operative of the left-leaning Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna movement, which led two armed insurrections against the government in the past, he ran for office in the last parliamentary elections – and lost.
Such are the strange antecedents of those extremists who wreaked havoc across Sri Lanka on that fateful Sunday, one week ago. ■


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The strange lives of Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday suicide bombers

A candlelight vigil for the victims of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka. Photo: AFP

In this Thursday, April 25, 2019 photo, sunlight steams in from gaping holes at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Nearly a week later, the smell of death is everywhere, though the bodies are long gone. Yet somehow, there’s a beauty to St. Sebastian’s, a neighborhood church in a Catholic enclave north of Sri Lanka’s capital, where a man calmly walked in during Easter services with a heavy backpack and blew himself up. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Members of a public sector organisation for peace hold signs in relation to the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat on April 26, 2019. - Authorities in Sri Lanka on April 25 lowered the death toll in a spate of Easter bombings by more than 100 to 253, admitting some of the badly mutilated bodies had been erroneously double-counted. (Photo by Madaree TOHLALA / AFP)

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Kumari Fernando, who lost her husband and two children, during a mass burial for victims. Photo: Reuters

A priest arranges flowers at the site of a mass burial in Negombo, Sri Lanka, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

Family members mourn for their mother, a victim of the suicide attacks on churches and luxury hotels, at the site of a mass burial in Negombo, Sri Lanka, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

Family members mourn at the funeral of eight-month-old Mathew and his grandmother Agnes Vnikpridha, 69, who died during a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, outside St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

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Sri Lankan soldiers inspect the damage following explosions at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo. Photo: Bloomberg

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shutterstock_100609324.jpg This shutterstock conception photo of tropical solitude - beach scene with boat. Sri lanka. Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK [07OCTOBER2017 CITY WEEKEND]

Sri Lanka blast death toll lowered by about 100 as some bodies were ‘double counted’

Sri Lankan soldiers stand guard in the rain at St Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Catholic priests return to St. Sebastian Church after blessing the body of a victim of Easter Sunday's bomb blast in Negombo, Sri Lanka Thursday, April 25, 2019. The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka warned Thursday that places of worship could be targeted for militant attacks over the coming weekend, as police searched for more suspects in the Islamic State-claimed Easter suicide bombings that killed over 350 people. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

A boy lights a candle after the funeral service of Dhami Brandy, 13, who was killed during Easter Sunday's bomb blast at St. Sebastian Church, in Negombo, Sri Lanka Thursday, April 25, 2019. The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka warned Thursday that places of worship could be targeted for militant attacks over the coming weekend, as police searched for more suspects in the Islamic State-claimed Easter suicide bombings that killed over 350 people. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

epa07527762 Sri Lankan security personnel check bags in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 25 April 2019. According to police, at least 359 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a coordinated series of blasts during the Easter Sunday service at churches and hotels on 21 April 2019. EPA-EFE/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA

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Some were from wealthy backgrounds, while others received favourable treatment and payments from the government for their business
But they all had one thing in common – according to associates, they had the ‘necessary mindset’ to carry out the deadly atrocities


Some were from wealthy backgrounds, while others received favourable treatment and payments from the government for their business. But all had one thing in common – the ‘necessary mindset’ to carry out the atrocities.


Sri Lanka bombings

Terrorism

Islamic militancy