In a residential building in Sri Lanka, the police and the army have found several explosives vests and bomb-making equipment. After the raid in the village Sammanthurai in the east of the island state, there were also three explosions and a shootout, as the police said. The details were initially unclear.
Seven young Muslims were arrested, the police said. Television pictures showed a flag of the terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS), which is said to have been found in the house. This was not confirmed by the police at first. The site is not far from the town of Batticaloa, where a church had been attacked on Easter Sunday.
Seven suicide bombers blew themselves up almost simultaneously on Easter Sunday in three churches in several cities and three luxury hotels in the capital, Colombo. Another attack on a five-star hotel failed. A few hours later, two more bombs exploded in a small hotel and residential building in the suburbs of Colombo. In total, more than 250 people were killed.
The IS reclaimed the suicide bombing for itself. As a perpetrator Sri Lanka makes a local Islamist group responsible, which must have had help from abroad.