The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
On April 23, 2019, shortly before the Islamic State (ISIS) 'Amaq news agency published the ISIS claim of responsibility for the coordinated attacks in Sri Lanka two days earlier, an ISIS media activist on Telegram published photographs of three armed Sri Lankan men posing in front of a banner used by ISIS. He claimed that they were three of the bombers who carried out the attacks in Sri Lanka on April 21, 2019.[1] The accompanying caption indicates that all three are dead.
One of the images shows a man who appears to be Zahran Hashim, a well-known preacher from the radical Islamic group in Sri Lanka known as the "National Tawheed Group",[2] who has expressed ISIS sympathies in the past. Several unconfirmed media reports have identified Hashim as one of the suicide bombers. The ISIS claim of responsibility lends credence to the veracity of the assertion that the men depicted in the photographs were indeed among the perpetrators. Even before the 'Amaq statement was published, ISIS supporters had been celebrating the attacks on social media.[3]
The following are the pictures shared by an ISIS supporter with the caption: "Pictures of some of the brothers who carried out the attacks in Sri Lanka, may Allah accept them."
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Abu 'Ubaida Al-Saylani a.k.a Zahran Hashim
Abu Al-Mukhtar Al-Saylani
Abu Al-Bara' Al-Saylani
[1] Source: Telegram, Kheir Al-Din Barbarosa, @barbarossa4, April 23, 2019.
[2] Sometimes written: Sri Lanka’s National Thowheed Jamaat
[3] See MEMRI JTTM report, ISIS Supporters Celebrate Easter Sunday Bombings In Sri Lanka, April 21, 2019.
