Finished In Iraq, Syria, Lanka

Blasts Show Landless ISIS Still Big

Threat
ISIS influence has also spread to places where it hasn't traditionally held sway.
Last week, through its Amaq News Agency, the group asserted responsibility for
an attack in Congo for the first time.
World | (c) 2019 The Washington Post | Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, Souad Mekhennet and Joanna Slater, The
Washington Post | Updated: April 24, 2019 07:18 IST

SHARE

EMAIL

PRINT

COMMENTS

COLOMBO:

The forces of the ISIS may no longer control a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria,
but the coordinated attacks in Sri Lanka demonstrated that the resilient group can still
sow carnage beyond the borders of its former caliphate.

Even a landless ISIS is influential, as a facilitator of attacks and an inspiration for its
followers, including the ones who blew themselves up in churches and hotels on Easter
morning, killing at least 321 people, terrorism experts said.
On Tuesday, video emerged of the suspected ringleader of the attacks and seven
followers, their faces obscured by scarves, swearing allegiance to the ISIS and its
leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The ISIS also issued a formal communique
claiming responsibility for the attacks, which it said targeted Christians and "coalition
countries."
The statement embraced the suicide bombers as "brothers," identifying them by their
presumed aliases and naming the churches and hotels each of them struck.

Sri Lankan officials are attributing the attacks to National Thowheed Jamaath, a local
Islamist organisation, but the group has no history of significant terrorist attacks and
was effectively unknown to US intelligence agencies, current and former US officials
said.

Its most notable activity before Sunday was vandalising Buddhist temples, said Rita
Katz, co-founder of SITE, a terrorism analysis organisation.

"However, ISIS generally has built its global network by recruiting from existing
extremist groups around the world," she said.

US President Donald Trump has, on different occasions, declared the caliphate

defeated and destroyed. US-backed forces took the last territory controlled by the ISIS -
the Syrian village of Baghouz - in March. But even as the militants eyed the impending
doom of the caliphate, they regrouped in the form of an insurgency and have
maintained an active presence on social media, which has long been the ISIS' most
productive recruitment ground.

US intelligence agencies have been tracking its recruitment efforts and how they might
encompass Sri Lanka, current and former officials said. Of particular concern are the Sri
Lankan men, about 40, who left their country to fight with the ISIS in Iraq and Syria,
where they may have been exposed to the group's methods for bomb-making and
coordinating attacks.

A Sri Lankan official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not
authorised to speak publicly, said as early as 2017, the United States had warned Sri
Lankan officials that the ISIS was recruiting across Southeast Asia and that Sri Lanka
could become a "hub" for the group's activities.

There was no indication that the United States had advance warning about the Easter
attacks, US officials said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an
ongoing investigation. Had the United States obtained information about an imminent
strike, it would have been immediately shared with the Sri Lankans, current and former
officials said.

Speaking to CNN, the US ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives, Alaina Teplitz,
confirmed that the United States "had no prior knowledge of these attacks."

The ambassador noted that "the Sri Lankan government has admitted lapses in their
intelligence gathering and information sharing."
Investigators are still trying to determine how the Sri Lankan attackers may have
connected with the ISIS and what role the group could have played.

When local groups pledge fealty to the ISIS, it usually opens the door to an array of new
resources and capabilities, Katz said. This would explain how individuals from a
relatively amateur group like Thowheed Jamaath could contribute to an attack as
devastating as that in Sri Lanka, she said.

Katz said she believes the ISIS was involved in planning the attack, but that its exact
role is unclear.

"The Sri Lanka blasts were both sophisticated and well-coordinated, making it very likely
that the attackers received some sort of training and assistance from ISIS - possibly
from one of the group's bases in the Philippines or elsewhere in the region," she said.

"It is too early to tell the degree of involvement from ISIS - beyond inspiration and even
embedding the jihadi DNA in local extremist groups," said Juan Zarate, the chairman of
Financial Integrity Network, a consulting firm, and a former deputy national security
adviser for counterterrorism in the George W. Bush administration.

"That said, we should not be too dismissive of ISIS claims or capabilities," he added. "I
do think it is possible that ISIS has communicated directly or embedded with these local
groups and found a way of helping plot, amplify and supercharge their capabilities and
operational effectiveness on the ground. The ISIS diaspora and expertise is real, and
ISIS has global designs - in South Asia and elsewhere."