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SL attacks retaliation for Christchurch terrorist shootings

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Published: 10:41, 23 April 2019   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
SL attacks retaliation for Christchurch terrorist shootings

Desk Report: The Easter Sunday suicide bombings in Sri Lanka were intended as retaliation for last month's attack against Muslims in Christchurch, according to initial investigations by the Sri Lankan government.

"We believe [the massacre] was carried out by an extreme Islamist group as a reprisal to the Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand," Sri Lanka's state minister for defence Ruwan Wijewardene said in a statement to parliament.

But prime minister Jacinda Ardern's office said New Zealand "has not yet seen any intelligence upon which such an assessment might be based".

At least 321 people were killed in eight separate attacks on Sunday. The explosions took place during busy Easter services at Christian churches in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo and in five-star hotels in the capital. On March 15, a suspected white supremacist gunman opened fire on worshippers in two mosques in Christchurch, killing 50 people in what was New Zealand's worst-ever mass shooting. _Agencies

risingbd/Dhaka/April 23, 2019/AKA
 

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