Colombo (News 1st): State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardena responded to questions raised by journalists on Sunday’s terror attacks.

Journalist: How many of these suicide bombers are there? We have obviously seen pictures of them in the AMAQ video which was released yesterday. What credibility do you have attached to that video? The Islamic State claimed responsibility for this attack, and can you give a sense of as to whether they trained these people, what’s the coordination, who is the mastermind behind the attack? Is it a foreigner?

Ruwan Wijewardene: We are conducting those investigations at the moment to see whether there is a direct link to any international organization. Right now the IS has claimed responsibility. But I can say that it’s through ideology and maybe funding. But on the funding part, we are conducting investigations to find out whether there was direct funding. But also what I can say is that this group, some of these suicide bombers, most of them are well educated and come from maybe a middle class, upper-middle class families. So financially they are quite independent and their families are stable financially. So that is a worrying fact. Because some of them have studied in various other countries. They hold degrees. LLMs. Quite well-educated people.

Journalist: You said yesterday that one of them have been to the UK as well. Can you confirm that?

Ruwan Wijewardene: We believe that one of the suicide bombers studied in the UK And later on he did his post graduate studies in Australia, before coming back to Sri Lanka.

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