Sri Lanka Suicide Bombers Included Two Sons of a Spice Tycoon

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — He built his fortune on black pepper, white pepper, nutmeg, cloves and vanilla. His family lived in a beautiful white villa and traveled in a chauffeured BMW. He was feted by Sri Lanka’s former president for “outstanding service provided to the nation.”

But on Wednesday the narrative of Mohammad Yusuf Ibrahim, one of Sri Lanka’s wealthiest spice traders, was ripped apart. Officials revealed he was in custody in connection with the devastating suicide attacks on Easter Sunday that killed hundreds of people.

An Indian official said that two of Mr. Ibrahim’s sons, who have been identified in Indian media reports as Inshaf and Ilham, were among the eight suicide bombers who struck at hotels and churches across this island. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and investigators said Mr. Ibrahim was being extensively interrogated.

During a raid Sunday at his family’s villa near Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, a female suspect blew herself up in front of two of her children, killing them all, along with several police officers who were closing in, investigators said. The Indian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of a major terrorism investigation, said the woman who killed herself and her children was most likely the wife of one of Mr. Ibrahim’s sons.

One distraught woman could not stop crying and shouting at the police. She blamed them for not having acted on intelligence warnings of the attacks.

Indian agents had interrogated a man last year who was linked to the Islamic State,

Might that be the same Islamic State that Obama, McCain and Brennan tried to use to overthrow Assad in Syria? Who was fed Gaddafi's weapons from Libya when he was overthrown and Hillary laughed about it? Could it be the same Islamic State that then set up their base in Western Syria and recruited Islamists from all over the world?

Just asking for a friend....

[One distraught woman could not stop crying and shouting at the police. She blamed them for not having acted on intelligence warnings of the attacks.]

It comes down to “who, what, how, when”. Without prior knowledge, it’s really impossible to act with any effectiveness. Terrorists are always issuing real and false signals of impending attacks. At less than 1% of the population, cops and other security people simply cannot be on high alert 100% of the time - the overtime expenses and curfews would be cost-prohibitive. 9/11 was preceded by masses of intelligence warnings that were just like the intelligence warnings of the past that came to nothing. Intelligence warnings have become part of the background noise, an effort by terrorists to drain the limited energy and resources of their targets.

We can deter terrorists, but that would require draconian measures involving collective punishment. The complete extermination of the bin Laden family and the families of all the 9/11 hijackers would probably have given future terrorists pause. Such policies would strike at the heart of the niggling worry even among the most devout of believers - what if I’m wrong and my deity doesn’t really exist? Do I really want to risk having my blood kin - parents, children, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews - wiped off the face of the earth? When Muslim terrorists start detonating nukes in Western cities, reprisals against the kin of terrorist perpetrators might just become a live option.

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