TEHRAN, Apr 27 - A gun battle between troops and suspected Islamist militants on Sri Lanka’s east coast left 15 dead, including six children, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people on the island.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -The shootout at a safe house erupted on Friday in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara district, to the south of the Sri Lankan town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts which have been claimed by Islamic State.
The government has said that the attacks on three churches and four hotels, most of which were in the capital Colombo, were carried out by nine well-educated Sri Lankans, eight of whom have been identified.
A police spokesman said three suspected suicide bombers were among the dead following Friday’s gun battle.
Authorities have warned there could be more attacks against religious centers following the bombings, which shattered the relative calm in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since a conflict with mostly-Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended a decade ago.
President Maithripala Sirisena and the government headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have faced criticism over the attacks about which there were repeated warnings from India.
Both have said intelligence was not shared with them, exposing rifts at the top of the government and raising questions about its ability to deal with the security crisis.
Two sources told Reuters on Saturday that Sri Lanka’s police chief had refused to accept Sirisena’s request to step down, in a further embarrassment for the president.
The U.S. State Department, warning that terrorist groups were continuing to plot attacks, urged citizens to reconsider travel to Sri Lanka and ordered the departure of all school-age family members of U.S. government employees. It also authorized non-emergency employees to leave.
Britain has also warned its nationals to avoid traveling to Sri Lanka unless absolutely necessary.
ISLAMIC STATE BANNERS
The east coast battle broke out when troops heading toward a suspected militant safe house were repulsed by three explosions and gunfire, military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said.
“Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored,” he said in a statement, adding that the militants were suspected members of the domestic Islamist group National Towheed Jama’at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday’s attacks.
Source: Reuters
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