Nearly 300 people have died in Sri Lanka after eight coordinated explosions ripped through luxury hotels and Catholic Churches on Sunday. Sri Lankan officials have said that the small radical Islamist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath carried out the attacks.
Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is not a stranger to horrific violence. Next month will mark the 10th anniversary of the ending of the Sri Lankan civil war. While these attacks may be reminiscent of the war, Charles Sennott, the head of The GroundTruth Project and a WGBH news analyst, told Boston Public Radio Monday this particular type of terror is new to the country.
"Sri Lanka ended a civil war 10 years ago, and that was mostly an inter ethnic civil war. It did not have to do with about a 7 percent Christian minority that's in that country or a similarity sized minority of Muslims," Sennott said. "This one was catching a lot of the terrorist experts by surprise."
Sennott joined BPR to talk these devastating attacks and more.
