Sri Lanka’s state minister of defence said on Tuesday that the Easter Sunday bombings were in retaliation for the New Zealand terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch.
Ruwan Wijewardene said that Islamist extremist group National Thowfeeth Jamath was responsible for the attacks in Sri Lanka.
“This attack has been identified as a retaliation to the attack that happened in Christchurch,” Mr Wijewardene said at a special session in parliament in the capital Colombo.
He said that there had been a “weakness in security structure” ahead of the bombings on churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka that have killed 321 people.
Mr Wijewardene said that he, along with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, had been sidelined by President Maithripala Sirisena and left out of national security council meetings since Sri Lanka’s political crisis in October.
The government earlier blamed domestic Islamist terrorist groups for the synchronised blasts in churches and luxury hotels, adding that it suspected they had international links.
