Ten civilians – including six children – are dead along with six suspected terrorists after a shootout between police and alleged militants late Friday in eastern Sri Lanka, authorities said.
At least two suspected terrorists are on the run following an explosion that witnesses told CNN turned a house in Sainthamaruthu “into fire.”
At daybreak, a gruesome scene was revealed at the raided house in the town on the country’s eastern coast – charred bodies and a roof blown off during three explosions.
Among the dead was a woman who was passing in a rickshaw at the time of the raid. Police are investigating the civilians’ possible relationship to the suspected terrorists.
Earlier Friday, authorities had seized a large cache of explosives, 100,000 ball bearings and ISIS uniforms and flags from a garage a few miles from the shootout.
The raids come on the back of a major hunt for the perpetrators of the coordinated Easter Sunday attacks that killed 253 people, including worshippers attending Easter Mass.
National Tawheed Jamath, a local extremist group, has been blamed for those bombings but has not claimed the attacks. ISIS claimed responsibility, but a link between the attackers and the terror group has not been proven.
In Friday’s shootout, one wounded suspect fled on a motorbike, and another suspected terrorist could be on the run as well, Maj. Gen. Aruna Jayasekera said.
One of the six suspected terrorists found dead has been identified as Mohamed Niyas, known to the authorities as a prominent member of the National Tawheed Jamath. Earlier in a statement from the army, Niyas was identified as the brother-in-law of the alleged ringleader of the Easter Sunday attacks, Zahran Hashim.
Hashim’s driver was arrested Friday in Kattankudy, a town about an hour’s drive north from Sainthamaruthu, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara told CNN. Police wouldn’t say whether the driver was directly involved in the Easter bombings.
According to Aliyar Mohamed, who lives opposite the alleged bomb-making garage, the building was rented to people from Kattankudy.
“The owners … realized there was suspicious stuff going on here, then police came here. The place was rented out two to three weeks ago,” he told CNN.
“They (the tenants) came here claiming to start a slipper factory, and the owners saw the materials but didn’t understand what they were. But after the Colombo bombings, and with the people being from Kattankudy, they then reported them to police.”
The eastern cities of Kalmunai, Chavalakade and Sammanthurai remain under extended curfew until further notice, according to police. The curfew was imposed after the shootout.
Over the last 24 hours, police have raided four safe houses in Addailachchenai, Sammanthurai, Nintavur and Sainthamaruthu – all in the eastern area, said Gunasekara, the police spokesman.
The raids came as the Sri Lankan army revealed new evidence Saturday about one of the suspected Easter Sunday bombers – Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, who killed himself while detonating a bomb at the Tropical Inn Guesthouse on the outskirts of Colombo.
In a document used to brief President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday and seen by CNN, the army says Mohamed traveled to Turkey with a friend “in the hope of entering Syria.” While the friend later joined ISIS in Syria, Mohamed returned to Sri Lanka.
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