Sri Lanka, the small island nation of South Asia, faces a new form of terrorism. With an aim to establish relevance, Islamists have chosen the country, which witnessed ethnic terrorism a decade back. The government in Colombo has taken strong measures to counter the terror …
While the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, the real story is a bit more complicated than that. To millions of Sri Lankans the Easter Sunday tragedy must have seemed a nightmare come true, a frightening déjà vu of the rampant violence this island nation has …
No significant anti-Muslim incidents have taken place since April 21, when two local Islamic State (IS) affiliates, the National Tawheed Jamaath (NRJ) and the Jamaathei Millathu Ibraheemi (JMI), carried out nine suicide attacks killing over 250 people, mostly local Christians and foreigners. Life has returned …
Sri Lanka’s battle against Islamic extremism would involve two integral parts: (a) an intelligence driven kinetic approach to flush out, arrest or neutralize violent extremists; and (b) a State facilitated …
Dr. Ameer Ali, a prominent Islamic scholar and a former adviser of Muslim Affairs of Australian Prime Minister, John Howard’s Government, said Muslims in Sri Lanka are self-alienating themselves from …
Sri Lanka has been a primarily Buddhist land since King Ashoka’s son Mahinda preached there in the third century BCE. At present 70% of the population is Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim and 7% Christian. (Surely there are secular people, atheists, Marxists, etc. but these …
The Easter Sunday carnage in which more than 250, mostly Christians, were killed is the most violent terrorist act in Sri Lanka since the end of the Eelam war in …
Every few metres in Batticaloa a white poster with the words ‘Kanneer Anjali’ (tribute with tears) appears, tied to trunks of trees, walls of churches, or gates of mosques. Right below the bold letters is an image of a pair of eyes, weeping. Near town, …
Under the nose of a state that took peace for granted, members of two lesser-known radical organizations and sons of a millionaire spice trader conspired to carry out a mass …
The funerals are over, the investigation continues and the blame game begins and media attention shifts away. This time the victims were Catholic worshippers and patrons of luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. A month ago they were Muslim worshippers in New Zealand, shot by a …