Suspicions whether Saharan is the real NTJ leader: not a lone wolf strategy

The security forces are suspicious as to whether Saharan is the actual National Thawheed Jama’ath organisation, it is reported.

As Saharan has been continuously engaged in propaganda activities of the organisation, suspicions have arisen whether he is only the head of the NTJ propaganda wing.

Another factor that has given rise to suspicion is that he had carried out the suicide bombings himself, which has been confirmed through DNA tests.

Generally a leader of an organisation does not carry out suicide attacks himself and as such, the security forces have decided to conduct further investigations on Saharan Hashim.

However, according to Jonah Blank, a Principal Investigator and Senior Political Scientist for RAND Corporation, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) didn’t choose Sri Lanka, but the Sri Lankan extremists chose ISIS. 

He further stated, “It could have happened anywhere, but in this case the terrorists happened to be Sri Lankan, and they got their skill-set and training (apparently) from ISIS.”

He noted that this was the opposite of a ‘lone wolf’ attack.

He further stated, “A lone wolf attack is typically when an individual (not a group) simply plans and executes an attack with no external support from ISIS apart from ideological inspiration. Usually, this is something very simple: Driving a car into a crowd, or opening fire with firearms. The Sri Lanka attacks were the opposite of this: They were very carefully planned and executed, most likely with external assistance from ISIS.” 

*Excerpts from the Daily FT interview with Jonah Blank.