ISIS celebrate Sri Lankan bomb attack with poster showing the Pope and Donald Trump on fire
ISIS followers have celebrated the Sri Lanka terror attack with a propaganda poster promising to make the ‘enemies of religion’ bleed ‘rivers of unclean blood’.
The image, being circulated on pro-ISIS forums, shows the eight jihadi attackers at the top, with Donald Trump, Pope Francis and Buddha on fire at the bottom.
Text across the middle reads: ‘We will not make you cry of blood, enemies of religion and the first of the clouds shall fall upon the rivers of your unclean blood.’
It comes after coordinated bomb attacks targeting Christians and tourists on Easter Sunday killed at least 359 people and left another 500 wounded.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, and released a video showing alleged plot mastermind Zahran Hashim and his co-conspirators pledging allegiance to the group and fugitive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Sri Lankan authorities say the men were part of the National Tawheed Jamaat group but splintered off as their views grew more extreme.
They were motivated by the belief that Islam should be the only religious group in Sri Lanka and all other religions should be ‘eliminated’, ministers have said.
Most were middle or upper class, from wealthy backgrounds, and many of them had studied at university.
One of them, named by security sources as Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, is believed to have studied engineering at Kingston University in the UK between 2006 and 2007.
British intelligence was not believed to have been watching Abdul Lathief during his stay in the country.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the man – who he did not name – had been in Australia on a student and a graduate skilled visa with a spouse and child visa as well. The individual left in early 2013.
Morrison told reporters Thursday the person’s Australian link was part of an ongoing investigation and wouldn’t comment further.
Elswhere on Thursday, Sri Lanka has banned drones and unmanned aircraft as authorities continue controlled detonations of suspicious items as the security situation in the country remained tense.
Sri Lanka’s civil aviation authority said Thursday that it was taking the measure ‘in view of the existing security situation in the country.’
Hobby drones have been used by militants in the past to carry explosives.
Iraqi forces learned that they are difficult to shoot down while driving out the Islamic State group from northern Iraq, where the extremists loaded drones with grenades or simple explosives to target their forces.
Also Thursday Sri Lankan authorities detonated a suspicious item in a garbage dump in Pugoda, about 22 miles east of Colombo.
Source: Daily Mail
