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Agence France-Presse

For years, Sri Lanka’s Muslim community warned authorities about a firebrand cleric. Now it seems Zahran Hashim may have played a key role in one of the worst attacks in the country’s history.
A video released Tuesday by Islamic State, which earlier claimed responsibility for the Easter attacks that killed over 350 people, appears to prominently feature Hashim.
He appears to be the round-faced cleric in the footage – the only one of the eight figures depicted whose face is uncovered.
Dressed in a black tunic headscarf and carrying a rifle, Hashim is seen leading seven purported attackers in a pledge of allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Sri Lanka bomber studied in UK and Australia, defence minister says
The other seven people in the video all wear the same black tunics but with their faces obscured by black-and-white checkered scarves.
Sri Lanka’s government had already pointed the finger at Hashim indirectly, calling the little-known Islamist group he was believed to lead – the National Thowheed Jamath – its prime suspect.




Hashim was identified, albeit with his name misspelled as Hashmi, by police as heading NTJ.
But the video released by IS was the first concrete evidence of the apparently central role played by the Sri Lankan cleric in the attacks.
Hashim was a virtual unknown before the onslaught – even inside Sri Lanka.
He had attracted several thousand followers on several social media sites, including YouTube and Facebook, where he posted incendiary sermons.
Hilmy Ahamed, vice-president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, said he had gone to local authorities with concerns about Hashim three years ago.
Denmark’s richest man loses three children in Sri Lanka blasts
“This person was a loner and he had radicalised young people in the guise of conducting Koran classes,” he said.
“But nobody thought these people were capable of carrying out an attack of such magnitude.”
Ahamed said Hashim, who has also gone by the names Mohamed Zahran and Moulavi Hashim, was around 40 years old and from the east coast region of Batticaloa.
The only one of the attacks on Sunday to hit outside the Colombo area was at the Zion Church in Batticaloa.
“Zahran belonged to an average Muslim middle-class family. He was a drop-out,” said Ahamed, adding that the cleric had studied at an Islamic college in Kattankudy, a Muslim-majority city in eastern Sri Lanka.
He was considered a menace by the local Muslim community and caused trouble at Kattankudy’s Thowheed mosque.

“The mosque saw continuous conflict with the traditional mosque goers. Once Zahran took a sword out to kill people belonging to the traditional Muslim mosque,” Ahamed said.
Local media said Hashim formed the NTJ in Kattankudy in 2014.
There was still confusion about whether that group, or a splinter organisation, carried out the bombings.
“There has been a group that has split from the main body,” of the NTJ, Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said.
“We believe that the leader of this group has also committed suicide in one of the attacks,” he added, refusing to confirm if he was referring to Hashim or someone else.
The victims of Sri Lanka’s suicide bombings
Sri Lankan officials are still investigating to what degree IS may have helped the attackers, but Ahamed said Hashim was known by the community to have international ties.
“All his videos have been uploaded from India. He uses boats of smugglers to travel back and forth from southern India,” he said.
A source close to the investigation told AFP there was no evidence yet whether Hashim had been among the suicide bombers.
“Until we do DNA tests on everybody we can’t be sure,” the source said.
“I don’t know if he is dead or alive,” added Ahamed.


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Sri Lanka

Who is Zahran Hashim, the radical cleric linked to Sri Lanka bombings?

Relatives carry a coffin for burial in Negombo, Sri Lanka. Photo: AP

A Sri Lankan navy soldier searches a motor bike at a check point in Colombo, three days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Sri Lanka April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

National Thowheed Jamath leader Zahran Hashim (C). Photo: AFP

Sri Lanka bombings: investigators probe global terror links as IS claims responsibility and death toll climbs to 321

Mourners react during a mass burial of victims, two days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Coffins of victims are carried during a mass for victims, two days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Coffins of victims are carried during a mass burial of victims, two days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Sri Lankan security personnel inspect the debris of a car after it explodes when police tried to defuse a bomb near St. Anthony's Shrine as priests look on in Colombo on April 22, 2019, a day after the series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. - The death toll from bomb blasts that ripped through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka rose dramatically April 22 to 290 -- including dozens of foreigners -- as police announced new arrests over the country's worst attacks for more than a decade. (Photo by Jewel SAMAD / AFP)

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Asia

South Asia

Hashim was a virtual unknown before the onslaught – even inside Sri Lanka
But a video released by IS is the first evidence of the apparently central role played by the cleric in the attacks


A video released by IS is the first evidence of the apparently central role played by the cleric in the attacks.


Sri Lanka bombings

Terrorism

Who is Zahran Hashim, the radical cleric linked to Sri Lanka bombings?

Hashim was a virtual unknown before the onslaught – even inside Sri Lanka But a video released by IS is the first evidence of the apparently central role played by the cleric in the attacks

Hashim was a virtual unknown before the onslaught – even inside Sri Lanka

But a video released by IS is the first evidence of the apparently central role played by the cleric in the attacks