COLOMBO, Sri Lanka _ As Sri Lanka began to hold funerals for victims of the Easter Sunday bombings, among the deadliest terrorist attacks of the last decade, authorities on Monday named a domestic Islamist extremist group as perpetrator of the six coordinated suicide bombings at churches and hotels.
Government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said a group called National Thowheeth Jamaath _ whose members had previously been arrested for defacing Buddhist statues _ was behind a total of eight blasts in multiple cities Sunday that killed 290 people and wounded hundreds.
"All the suicide bombers were local," Senaratne said. He added that an investigation would determine whether the bombers acted with support from international jihadist organizations to carry out the attacks, which were unprecedented in the South Asian nation's history.
Authorities have arrested 24 people. No group has claimed responsibility.
White flags and banners mourning the victims flew from street corners outside St. Sebastian's Catholic church in the Colombo suburb of Negombo, where more than 100 people were believed to have been killed in the deadliest of the bombings.
In Colombo, authorities imposed a nighttime curfew for the second straight day, with the normally crowded streets and busy seaside promenade deserted after 8 p.m.
About 2 million Christians live in Sri Lanka, a nation of 21 million people, the overwhelming majority of whom are Buddhist. Although the island nation has seen communal discord in the past, much of it involved radical Buddhist groups targeting Muslims, and many Christians said they didn't feel at risk before Sunday.
Sri Lankan officials pointed fingers at each other over the massive security failure, with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe blaming President Maithripala Sirisena _ his partner in a deeply divided coalition government _ and law enforcement agencies for failing to act on warnings of a possible terrorist attack.
Senaratne said international intelligence agencies had told Sri Lankan authorities on April 4 of possible suicide attacks targeting churches and tourist sites but that police failed to act on the information. He said Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet were not informed of the threat and accused Sirisena _ who tried in vain to fire Wickremesinghe in an ugly political standoff last year _ of shutting the prime minister out of national security council meetings.
As defense minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, Sirisena is also responsible for the police. He was out of Sri Lanka when the attacks took place, but when Wickremesinghe tried to call a meeting of the security council on Sunday in the president's absence, he was snubbed, Senaratne said.
"We were not kept informed about these developments in relation to the intelligence received," Senaratne said. "We are sorry and we apologize to the people."
Sirisena returned to Colombo late Sunday. Wickremesinghe's government has called on him to fire the head of the police.
The government announced that it would rebuild the damaged church in Negombo, as well as the two other churches that were hit, St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo and the Protestant Zion church in the eastern city of Batticaloa. The explosions took place while pews were filled with worshipers during Easter services.
Outside St. Anthony's church, panic briefly ensued Monday afternoon when a small explosion went off, sending rickshaws and pedestrians fleeing the area. The blast turned out to be a police bomb squad defusing an explosive found inside a van. There were no casualties.
A few miles away, 87 detonators were found at a bus stand.
Sunday's blasts also hit restaurants at three luxury hotels in Colombo during breakfast, when tables were occupied by foreign tourists and Sri Lankans during a holiday weekend. At least 40 foreigners were among those killed, according to Sri Lankan officials. The State Department said several were U.S. citizens.
Among the foreign victims were three of the four children of a Danish fashion tycoon, Anders Holch Povlsen, the billionaire behind the clothing brands Vero Moda and Jack & Jones. The deaths were confirmed through a company spokesman.
The attacks were the worst in Sri Lanka since the end of a 26-year civil war in 2009, which saw suicide bombings by ethnic Tamil separatists and widespread killings and abductions by state security forces. Over the last decade, Sri Lanka has emerged as a tourist destination and begun to rebuild its economy.
Rauff Hakeem, a leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and a minister in the Wickremesinghe-led government, said Muslim community leaders were shocked by the attacks and would assist security agencies in any way possible.
"This is something Islam or Muslims will never endorse," Hakeem said, "and we condemn this in the strongest possible terms."
