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1. The Islamic State’s news agency has claimed responsibility for the string of bombings in Sri Lanka which left 321 people dead. It’s taken them more than 2 days to do so, which is unusually long for ISIS: 
2. The claim published by the Amaq News Agency cites “security sources” and states that “Those who carried out the attack that targeted nationals of the Coalition and Christians in Sri Lanka the day before yesterday are Islamic State fighters” (as translated by @monaelnaggar).
3. Since the series of bombings on Easter Sunday, which hit churches as well as hotels where foreign tourists were staying, the Sri Lankan government has maintained that a local Islamist group was behind the assault but that they had help from an international network.
4. There are only two international jihadist groups that in my view have the know-how to do what happened in Sri Lanka: ISIS and al-Qaeda, and I would rule out al-Qaeda because post-Christchurch, their leaders issued a statement saying that attacks on churches are off the table
5. Remember that ISIS considers both directed attacks (meaning ones carried out by combatants they dispatched) and inspired attacks (meaning killings carried out by people inspired by their ideology) to be equally part of their war arsenal. Both in their eyes are legitimate.
6. The reason that intelligence agencies believe the Sri Lankan attack is the handiwork of an international jihadist organization is because of its sheer sophistication: 6 sites in 3 cities hit by 7 suicide bombers. Nearly all of the explosive charges went off with deadly effect.
7. Even the attackers who were dispatched directly from Syria to attack Paris in 2015 were not as deadly. The suicide bomber who entered Paris’ Comptoir Voltaire killed only himself, for example. Death toll in Paris from 10 attackers was 130. Sri Lanka = 321.
8. Carrying out that level of murder means that the cell had a talented bombmaker. We’ve seen numerous directed ISIS plots where the attackers couldn’t cook the explosives including in Hyderabad: nytimes.com/2017/02/04/wor…
9. A plot of this nature involving at least 7 suicide bombers means this was no small cell. Imagine the backup that you need: Who drove the attackers to the sites? What safehouses did they use? Not hard to imagine that the core group relied on a dozen or more support staff
10. Once you have so many people involved, you need good operational security to make sure word of the looming attack doesn’t get out. They weren’t perfect given that authorities were warned earlier this month. But a plot of this nature takes longer than a month to hatch
11. I’m still researching this, but if the ISIS link in Sri Lanka proves true, this could be their most deadly attack outside Iraq and Syria. The only other attack that I can find that comes close is the Sufi mosque attack in the Sinai (311 dead). Sri Lanka is 321 and climbing.
12. Finally, it bears noting that ISIS has put out numerous claims for attacks in other theaters in the 2+ days since the Sri Lanka attack. Claims that take longer than 1 day are not uncommon. But 2 days? That’s rare. There’s a reason for this delay & I’d like to know what it is
13. Meanwhile, ISIS supporters say that Sri Lanka is the deadliest attack since the declaration of the caliphate in 2014. They brag that removal of their physical caliphate has done nothing to stop them:
14. ISIS has just issued a longer press release on the Sri Lanka attack, in which it provides what it says are the noms de guerre of the 7 bombers: Abu Ubayda, Abu al-Mukhtar, Abu Khalil, Abu Hamza, Abu al-Baraa, Abu Muhammad and Abu Abdullah.
15. The statement goes on to say, according to a translation by @siteintelgroup, that Abu Hamza detonated his vest in St Anthony’s Church in Colombo; Abu Khalil detonated his in St Sebastian in Negombo; Abu Muhammad in Zion Church. The rest were dispatched to target hotels.
16. Three of the noms de guerres used in the ISIS statement today match the names provided by an unofficial ISIS supporter channel on Monday, which showed pictures of three of the alleged “commandos” who carried out the attacks, shown masked and posing before the ISIS flag.
14. The Amaq news agency of ISIS has now provided an image of what it says were the attackers in Sri Lanka standing before the ISIS flag:
15. And finally, ISIS has issued a video from the alleged attackers. It shows the same 8 men as in the still photo above. They hold their hands together and pledge allegiance to Abu Bak al-Baghdadi, calling him "emir al-mumineem," the emir of the believers:
16. At the end, they yell Allahu akbar, "God is great," and point their index fingers at the sky, in a sign appropriated by ISIS which indicates their belief in monotheism. Does this prove that ISIS was behind the attack?
17. It doesn't prove the group was in direct communication with ISIS. What it does indicate - providing the video is proven authentic & really does show the attackers - is that the cell in Sri Lanka took pains to make sure their violence would be seen as being on behalf of ISIS.
18. It also shows that the alleged attackers were steeped in ISIS lingo. They knew that attackers are supposed to pledge allegiance to the caliph of the Islamic State before an attack. They correctly went through the honorific and the long sequence of family names in their pledge
19. Again, provided this video really does show the attackers, what we have is at a minimum an ISIS-inspired attack. The investigation that follows should tell us whether there was more substantive direction from ISIS. Either way, this shows the group’s lethality is far from over
20. I was asked by someone if ISIS is framing this attack as retaliation for Christchurch? There have been 4 official ISIS communications so far. None of them mentioned Christchurch and we know that targeting churches has long been ISIS policy.
21. That said in ISIS’ larger ecosystem online in the chatrooms used by their supporters, Christchurch has been invoked. See this poster bragging about how many more Christians were killed versus Muslims in NZ. Again this is put out by supporters / is not official ISIS propaganda
