'Every indication' IS inspired Sri Lanka attacks: Pompeo

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Reuters
Published : 10:19, Apr 25, 2019 | Updated : 10:22, Apr 25, 2019

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a joint news conference with Slovakia`s Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak in Bratislava, Slovakia, February 12, 2019. REUTERS/File PhotoUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a television interview on Wednesday there was "every indication" that Sunday's bomb attacks in SriLanka that killed 359 people were inspired by Islamic State.
"Every indication is that this was at the very least inspired by ISIS," Pompeo said in an interview with CBS News, referring to the group by an acronym.
Sources familiar with internal US government reporting on the attacks told Reuters that while investigations are ongoing, US agencies believe the group that carried out the attacks had sympathies and possibly contacts with the Islamic State movement.
US agencies are collecting information on the attackers' relationship with Islamic State and are trying to determine if there was any involvement in the attacks by what remains of the militant group's central organization, which scattered following its eviction from territory it controlled in Syria, the sources said.
Broken windows are seen at the family home of a bomber suspect where an explosion occurred during a Special Task Force raid, following a string of suicide attacks on churches and luxury hotels, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 25, 2019. REUTERSOne of the sources said official reporting supported news reports that the leader of the group that carried out the attacks is known as Mohammed Zahran Hashim and that he is the central unmasked figure in a photo of the alleged attack team issued by an Islamic State publicity outlet.
The source added that investigators believed another person involved in the attacks was Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohammed. The Guardian reported that British counterterrorism investigators believed Mohammed attended a university in southeast England from 2006 to 2007.

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