‘Mother of Satan’ bombs show foreign hand in Sri Lanka bombings: investigators

The attacks killed more than 250 people. (File/AFP)
Updated 21 May 2019
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‘Mother of Satan’ bombs show foreign hand in Sri Lanka bombings: investigators

  • Detectives said the back-pack bombs used in the April 21 attacks on three churches and three hotels were manufactured by local militants with Daesh expertise
  • It was also used in the 2015 attacks in Paris, by a suicide bomber who hit the Manchester Arena in England in 2017 and attacks on churches in Indonesia one year ago

COLOMBO: One month after the Sri Lanka suicide attacks that killed more than 250 people, investigators have told AFP the bombers used “Mother of Satan” explosives favored by the Daesh group that are a new sign of foreign involvement.
Detectives said the back-pack bombs used in the April 21 attacks on three churches and three hotels were manufactured by local militants with Daesh expertise.
They named the explosive as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an unstable but easily made mixture favored by Daesh militants who call it “Mother of Satan.”
It was also used in the 2015 attacks in Paris, by a suicide bomber who hit the Manchester Arena in England in 2017 and attacks on churches in Indonesia one year ago.
Daesh has claimed the Sri Lankan bombers operated as part of its franchise. But Sri Lankan and international investigators are anxious to know just how much outside help went into the attacks that left 258 dead and 500 injured.
“The group had easy access to chemicals and fertilizer to get the raw materials to make TATP,” an official involved in the investigation told AFP.
Sri Lankan detectives say the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), local militants blamed for the attacks, must have had foreign help to assemble the bombs.

“They would have had a face-to-face meeting to transfer this technology. This is not something you can do by watching a YouTube video,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Investigators had initially believed that C4 explosives — a favored weapon of Tamil Tiger rebels — were used, but forensic tests found TATP which causes more burning than C4.
Police have also confirmed that 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosives found in January in the island’s northwest was TATP.
They are checking the travel records of the suicide bombers as well as foreign suspects to see when and where bomb-making lessons could have been staged.
“It looks like they used a cocktail of TATP and gelignite and some chemicals in the Easter attacks. They were short of the 100 kilos of raw TATP that were seized in January,” said the investigator.
Sri Lankan security forces have staged a series of raids since the bombings. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said Sunday that 89 suspects are in custody.
Army chief Mahesh Senanayake said last week that at least two suspects have been arrested in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, underscoring the international link.
On April 26, six militants, three widows of the suicide bombers and six of their children were killed at an NTJ safe house near the eastern coastal town of Kalmunai.
Police found large quantities of chemicals and fertilizer there that was probably meant to make bombs, authorities said.
The government has admitted that Indian warnings of the looming attacks in early April were ignored.
But President Maithripala Sirisena has said eight countries are helping the investigation. A US Federal Bureau of Investigation team is in Sri Lanka and Britain, Australia and India have provided forensic and technical support.
China offered a fleet of vehicles to bolster the mobility of the security forces tracking down militants.

The Sri Lankan who led the attacks, Zahran Hashim, was known to have traveled to India in the months before he became one of the suicide bombers.
Moderate Muslims had warned authorities about the radical cleric who first set off alarm bells in 2017 when he threatened non-Muslims.
He was one of two bombers who killed dozens of victims at Colombo’s Shangri-La hotel on April 21.
Army chief Senanayake said Hashim had traveled to Tamil Nadu state in southern India and been in contact with extremists there.
Hashim, one of seven bombers who staged the attacks, also appeared in an Daesh group video that claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Another bomber who was meant to have hit a fourth hotel, has been named as Abdul Latheef Jameel who studied aviation engineering in Britain and Australia.
Authorities in the two countries are investigating whether he was radicalized whilst abroad.
Jameel blew himself up when confronted at a hideout after the attacks.


Germany brushes off Musk calling Scholz a ‘fool’

Updated 5 sec ago
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Germany brushes off Musk calling Scholz a ‘fool’

Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann took a playful dig at the US tycoon, saying that “on X, you have Narrenfreiheit,” which translates to the freedom to act like a fool
A tight-lipped Scholz simply called it “not very friendly“

BERLIN: German officials on Friday brushed off tech billionaire Elon Musk labelling Olaf Scholz a “fool” on his social media platform X after the dramatic collapse of the chancellor’s coalition government.
In a comment Thursday above a post about the implosion of Scholz’s long-troubled coalition, the world’s richest man tweeted in German: “Olaf ist ein Narr” — “Olaf is a fool.”
Asked about Musk’s comment, government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann took a playful dig at the US tycoon, saying that “on X, you have Narrenfreiheit,” which translates to the freedom to act like a fool.
The word refers to revellers during Germany’s traditional carnival season, which starts next week, having the freedom to act without inhibitions.
Historically, the term echoes the notion of the “jester’s privilege” — the right of a court jester to mock those in power without being punished by the king.
Asked later about the comment, a tight-lipped Scholz simply called it “not very friendly,” adding that Internet companies are “not organs of state so I did not even pay it any attention.”
Musk strongly supported US election winner Donald Trump, and is now positioned to take up a role in his administration as a deputy tasked with restructuring government operations.
It is not the first time the Tesla boss has had run-ins with German officials online.
Last year he said Berlin-funded migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean could be seen as an “invasion” of Italy, sparking a terse response from the German foreign ministry.
He has also expressed sympathy for some of the positions of Germany’s far-right AfD party, which has notched up a string of recent electoral successes and is riding high in the opinion polls.

First flight with Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam lands in Tel Aviv

Updated 08 November 2024
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First flight with Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam lands in Tel Aviv

  • The plane that arrived in Tel Aviv had passengers evacuated from Amsterdam

TEL AVIV: The first flight carrying Israelis evacuated from Amsterdam after violent clashes following a football match there landed on Friday at Ben Gurion International Airport, the Israel Airports Authority said.
“The plane that arrived in Tel Aviv now has passengers evacuated from Amsterdam,” Liza Dvir, spokeswoman for the airport authority told AFP.


India’s Modi rejects calls to restore Kashmir’s partial autonomy

Updated 08 November 2024
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India’s Modi rejects calls to restore Kashmir’s partial autonomy

  • Modi revoked partial autonomy in 2019 and split the state into the two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh 
  • Jammu and Kashmir held its first local election in a decade this year, newly-elected lawmakers passed resolution this week seeking restoration

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly backed his government’s contentious 2019 decision to revoke the partial autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, days after the territory’s newly elected lawmakers sought its restoration.
“Only the constitution of Babasaheb Ambedkar will operate in Kashmir... No power in the world can restore Article 370 (partial autonomy) in Kashmir,” Modi said, referring to one of the founding fathers of the Indian constitution.
Modi was speaking at a state election rally in the western state of Maharashtra, where Ambedkar was from.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government revoked partial autonomy in 2019 and split the state into the two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh — a move that was opposed by many political groups in the Himalayan region.
Jammu and Kashmir held its first local election in a decade in September and October and the newly-elected lawmakers passed a resolution this week seeking the restoration.
Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party had promised in its election manifesto that it would restore the partial autonomy, although the power to do so lies with Modi’s federal government.
Jammu and Kashmir’s new lawmakers can legislate on local issues like other Indian states, except matters regarding public order and policing. They will also need the approval of the federally-appointed administrator on all policy decisions that have financial implications.
Under the system of partial autonomy, Kashmir had its own constitution and the freedom to make laws on all issues except foreign affairs, defense and communications.
The troubled region, where separatist militants have fought security forces since 1989, is India’s only Muslim-majority territory.
It has been at the center of a territorial dispute with Pakistan since the neighbors gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars over the region.


Kyiv says Russia has returned bodies of 563 soldiers

Updated 08 November 2024
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Kyiv says Russia has returned bodies of 563 soldiers

  • The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation
  • The announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of killed Ukrainian servicemen

KYIV: Ukraine said on Friday it had received the bodies of 563 soldiers from Russian authorities, mainly troops that had died in combat in the eastern Donetsk region.
The exchange of prisoners and bodies of killed military personnel remains one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia invaded in 2022.
“The bodies of 563 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on social media.
The announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of killed Ukrainian servicemen since the beginning of the war.
The statement said that 320 of the remains were returned from the Donetsk region and that 89 of the soldiers had been killed near Bakhmut, a town captured by Russia in May last year after a costly battle.
Another 154 of the bodies were returned from morgues inside Russia, the statement added.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine publicly disclose how many military personnel have been killed fighting.


Russia sentences soldiers who massacred Ukraine family to life in prison

Updated 08 November 2024
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Russia sentences soldiers who massacred Ukraine family to life in prison

  • The court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred“
  • The incident triggered uproar in Ukraine

MOSCOW: A Russian court sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine people in their home in occupied Ukraine, state media reported on Friday.
Russian prosecutors said in October 2023, the two Russian soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the home of the Kapkanets family in the city of Volnovakha with guns equipped with silencers.
They then shot all nine family members who lived there, including two children aged five and nine.
The southern district military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred,” the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement source.
The incident triggered uproar in Ukraine.
Kyiv alleged at the time that the Russian soldiers had murdered the family in their sleep after they refused to move out of their home to allow Russian soldiers to live there.
“The occupiers killed the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and refused to give up their home,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the murder.
Russian forces seized the city of Volnovakha in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region at the start of their full-scale military offensive.
It was virtually destroyed by Russian artillery strikes.
Russian soldiers have been accused of multiple instances of killing civilians in Ukrainian towns and cities they have occupied since February 2022.
Moscow has always denied targeting civilians and tried to claim reports of atrocities at places like Bucha were fake, despite widespread evidence from multiple independent sources.
The arrest and sentencing in this case is a rare example of Russia admitting to a crime committed by its troops in Ukraine.
State media did not say what prosecutors determined the reason for the attack was.
TASS suggested it could have been a “domestic dispute,” while both the independent Radio Free Europe and Kommersant business outlets said it could have been linked to a dispute over obtaining vodka.
The trial was held in secret.
The independent Radio Free Europe outlet reported the Rau, 28, and Sopov, 21 were mercenaries for the Wagner paramilitary before joining Russia’s official army.
They had both received state awards a few months before the mass murder, it said.