Army could have contained situation if it had access to April 9 intel - Commander

Army Commander Lt. General Mahesh Senanayake today (31) said the army could have deployed its resources effectively to contain the situation had it been made aware of the April 9 letter containing intelligence information about a impending attack by Zahran Hashim and his group, National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ).

By Sandun Jayawardana

Army Commander Lt. General Mahesh Senanayake today (31) said the army could have deployed its resources effectively to contain the situation had it been made aware of the April 9 letter containing intelligence information about a impending attack by Zahran Hashim and his group, National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ).

He made the statement while giving evidence before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) investigating the Easter Sunday attacks. 

Testifying before the PSC for the second time, the Army Commander said military intelligence had been collecting information on radical Islamic extremist groups since about 2017 and after analyzing the intelligence, they would share it with other agencies such as the police, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) as well as the navy and air force. 

"We have also shared information in writing with officials such as the Chief of National Intelligence (CNI), the Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP). Sometimes, we have also recommended that certain individuals be arrested as we ourselves could not do so since there was no State of Emergency at the time. As such,arrests could only be made by law enforcement agencies," Lt. General Senanayake told the Committee. 

He noted that it was because the army had identified those involved in the extremist network that it was able to swiftly arrest so many of the suspects within such a short period of time after the attacks. 

The Army Commander further stated that he attended the Weekly Intelligence Coordination Meeting held on April 9, though the contents of the letter sent by the Director of SIS to the CNI and the IGP did not come up for discussion then. 

"I regret that I was not made aware of the contents of this letter, which I only saw on social media after the Easter attacks. If I knew of it, I would have definitely raised the matter at the intelligence coordination meeting. Moreover, with the intelligence we already had in our possession, we could have utilized our resources to contain the situation," he remarked. 

Lt. General Senanayake also said there was a level of mistrust between Military Intelligence and the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) following the arrest of several military intelligence operatives in connection with various cases. There was also a lack of cooperation from the TID when investigating an LTTE revival attempt after 2015, he remarked. 

He said the army was fully cooperating with investigations and court cases, but that there was a degree of mistrust between the TID and the Army under the previous leadership of the TID. The Army Commander stressed this was no longer the case under the present TID leadership and there was close cooperation with them.