Sri Lanka Was Warned of Possible Attacks. Why Didn’t It Stop Them? (Published 2019) - The New York Times

By Jeffrey Gettleman Mujib Mashal and Dharisha Bastians

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The confidential security memo laid it all out: names, addresses, phone numbers, even the times in the middle of the night that one suspect would visit his wife.

In the days leading up to Easter Sunday’s devastating suicide bombings that killed at least 321 people in Sri Lanka , the country’s security agencies had been closely watching a secretive cell of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath , a little-known radical Islamist organization that security officials in Sri Lanka now say carried out the attacks and may have received help from abroad.

[ Here is a translation of the cover letter and summary of the advisory. ]

They knew the group was dangerous. They had collected intelligence on the whereabouts of its leaders in the April 11 security memo, which warned of Catholic church bombings. They had been warned even earlier by India that the group, also known by the spelling National Thowheed Jama’ath, was plotting church attacks. They knew as far back as January that radical Islamists possibly tied to the group had stockpiled weapons and detonators.

[ Follow our live updates on the Sri Lanka bombings.]

And within hours of when three churches and three hotels were bombed, Sri Lankan security services swooped down on at least 24 suspects — by Tuesday the number had grown to 40 — suggesting that officials also knew exactly where the group had been operating.

Why the security agencies failed to act aggressively on the information before the bombings is now an enormous question. It has been further complicated by a feud between the president and prime minister, which left the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, ignorant of the information the security agencies possessed — leading to bitter recriminations that have created a new government crisis.

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