Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bomb attacks were retaliation for a recent attack on mosques in New Zealand, a Sri Lankan official said on Tuesday, adding that two domestic Islamist groups were believed to be responsible.
“The initial investigation has revealed that this was in retaliation for the New Zealand mosque attack,” junior minister for defence Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament.
“It was done by National Thawheed Jama’ut along with JMI,” he said, referring to another local group, Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.
Fifty people were killed in shooting attacks on two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on March 15.
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