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Sri Lanka bombings

May 2019

Lounge chairs on a deserted beach in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was the Lonely Planet guide’s top travel destination for 2019, but since the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and luxury hotels, foreign tourists have fled.

Tourists desert Lonely Planet's top destination after blasts

Hotel occupancy across Sri Lanka has plummeted by 85 per cent to 90 per cent since last month's carnage. The tropical beaches, restaurants and shops are empty.

  • Updated
  • Bharatha Mallawarachi
Sri Lankan policemen check the identity card of a person carrying a back-pack, in Colombo on Monday.

Latest Sri Lanka arrest throws spotlight on Wahhabism in Asia

Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings.

  • Alexandra Ulmer
Fatima Bhutto is delivering the closing address at the Sydney Writers Festival.

Fatima Bhutto on Sri Lanka, radical Islam, and Frank Ocean

The estranged daughter of Pakistan's most powerful political family says her country's experience with terrorism has revealed to her its political nature.

  • Bo Seo

April 2019

Sri Lankan Catholics pray on a road during a brief holly Mass held outside the exploded St Anthony's Church.

With churches shut after bombs, Sri Lankans watch Mass on TV

Sri Lanka's Catholics on Sunday awoke to celebrate Mass in their homes by a televised broadcast as churches across the island nation shut over fears of militant attacks.

  • Jon Gambrell and Krishan Francis
A soldier attends to a toddler after she was found at the site of the explosion.

A Sri Lankan town grew suspicious of the newcomers. Then came mayhem.

Chaos still reigns in Sr Lanka. At least 15 people, including six children, were killed in bomb blasts and gunfire as security forces closed in on a house on the east coast.

  • Joanna Slater
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President Maithripala Sirisena said defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks.

Sri Lankans urged to avoid mosques, churches as more attacks feared

Nearly 10,000 soldiers were being deployed across Sri Lanka and police were looking for 140 people believed to have links with Islamic State.

  • Sanjeev Miglani and Michael Perry
Scott Morrison has injected national security into the election campaign.

PM slams Shorten for stalling on terror laws

Scott Morrison has injected national security into the election campaign, questioning Bill Shorten's claim to offer bipartisanship on terror laws.

  • Andrew Tillett and Tom McIlroy
Footwear and personal belongs of victims kept close to the scene of a suicide bombing.

The lessons from the Sri Lanka bombings

The question is not just what went wrong in Sri Lanka but what do the attacks say about the intentions of IS in this post-caliphate phase, says Professor Greg Barton.

  • Greg Barton
A Sri Lankan police officer patrols outside a mosque in Colombo on Wednesday.

Bomb scare, suspicious vehicle rattle nervous Sri Lanka amid probe

More people, including foreigners, were swept up for questioning overnight as domestic and international authorities probed deeper into the bombings.

  • Sanjeev Miglani
The devastating attacks on Sri Lanka, and its connection to Australia, pose difficult questions about radicalisation.

Sri Lanka bomber's Australian link puts scrutiny on radicalisation

The Sri Lanka bombings and the Christchurch shootings show the gap between hateful extremism and violent extremism is shrinking, experts believe.

  • Bo Seo
Sri Lanka suicide bomber was Australian

Sri Lanka bomber had studied in Australia

One of the suicide bombers involved in the Sri Lanka attacks studied in Australia, officials have confirmed.

  • Updated
  • Sanjeev Miglani
Prime Minister Ranil Wickeremesinghe says foreign perpetrators may have had a role in the killings.

Islamic State takes responsibility for Sri Lanka bombings

"I must be truthful and admit that there were lapses on the part of defence officials," Sri Lanka's president says of the Easter Sunday bombings.

  • NYT Reporters
Sri Lankan Army soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony Shrine after a blast in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, April 21, 2019. More than hundred were killed and hundreds more hospitalized with injuries from eight blasts that rocked churches and hotels in and just outside of Sri Lanka's capital on Easter Sunday, officials said, the worst violence to hit the South Asian country since its civil war ended a decade ago. (AP Photo/Chamila Karunarathne)

Sri Lanka blasts were 'revenge' for NZ killings

The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings as a Sri Lankan minister said they were retaliation for the Christchurch mosque killings.

  • Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez
A Sri Lankan soldier stands guard at the entrance to the World trade Center in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Monday, April 22, 2019. Sri Lanka has blamed local jihadist group National Thowheed Jamath for one of Asia’s deadliest terrorist attacks in years, admitting there had been several warnings from foreign intelligence agencies about the impending violence.

Sri Lanka's bomb carnage casts pall over tourism revival

Sri Lanka is filled with fear, horror and grief and tourists who have been flocking to the Indian Ocean island could cancel in droves.

  • Updated
  • Alasdair Pal
People help a woman who fainted as she was praying.

Sri Lanka detains Syrian in blast probe, as toll rises to 321

Sri Lankan police detained a Syrian among 40 people being questioned about the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels.

  • Sanjeev Miglani
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Under closer examination, the attacks in Sri Lanka diverge from the pattern in significant ways.

Very little of the Sri Lanka terror attacks fits past patterns

For now, the government's claim that this was a Sri Lankan operation, with some outside help, is hard to take at face value.

  • Bobby Ghosh
207 dead in Sri Lanka bombings

Sri Lankans see hand of global jihadis in Easter Sunday atrocity

Sunday's attacks bear the hallmark of seasoned extremists rather than island’s Muslim minority, say analysts.

  • Updated
  • Amy Kazmin
Manik Suriaaratchi (right) and her 10-year-old daughter, Alexendria, both perished in the Easter Sunday terror attacks in Sri Lanka.

Australian mum and daughter killed in Sri Lanka bombings

"That's the end of the story of my daughter, my wife," says an Australian who lost his loved ones in the Sri Lanka bomb blast.

  • Bo Seo
Bestseller CEO and Asos billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen with his wife Anne Holch Povlsen.

3 children of Asos clothing billionaire among dead in terror attack

Sri Lankan news outlet Hiru News reported that celebrity chef Shantha Mayadunne and her daughter were also killed in the explosions.

  • Katie Mettler
People read a newspaper the day after multiple blasts killed hundreds in Colombo, Sri Lanka,.

Tourists flee as terror batters economic highlight

Tourists are scrambling to leave Sri Lanka and hotels are bracing for cancellations after the deadly terrorist attack that killed 290 people targeted foreigners and churchgoers.

  • Asantha Sirimanne and Michelle Jamrisko

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/sri-lanka-bombings-1mye