An Islamist terrorist, who had failed to get into the church itself is said to have walked among a group of children and blew himself up. Twelve children were killed. Many of their teachers were killed, too. Their crime was to be Christian.
Details like this demand an urgent and serious assessment of the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism. Police in Sri Lanka conducted a series of raids Friday on suspected jihadists, finding in one mosque in Colombo’s suburb of Slave Island a stockpile of 47 swords alongside counterfeit military uniforms, a suicide bomber jacket, and machetes.
Meanwhile, Fifteen people including six children have died during a raid on their home by Sri Lankan security forces in which three-cornered suicide bombers detonated their explosives and others traded gunfire with police.
Police and soldiers fought a gun battle with occupants of the house for more than an hour on Friday night, a military spokesman said, during which three explosions rocked the property near the eastern town of Kalmunai, about 230 miles (370km) from the capital, Colombo.
Russian state TV covers terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka. pic.twitter.com/Nu1hNM7Rz2— EU Mythbusters (@EUvsDisinfo) April 27, 2019
A search operation on Saturday morning found the bodies of three men, three women and six children inside the house, police said. “Three other men, also believed to be suicide bombers, were found dead outside the house,” police said, adding that they had been shot.
Footage of the aftermath circulated online on Saturday showed a house strewn with rubble and bodies being picked over by teams of police in khaki uniforms.