April 21, 2019

"A series of coordinated explosions struck three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing more than 200 people and injuring 450."

"Blasts ripped through three churches in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa at approximately 8:45 a.m. as worshipers were gathering for services. Explosions also took place at four hotels within Colombo, the nation’s capital, police said, while an eighth blast occurred under a flyover within the city. There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombings.... Sri Lankan authorities... blocked Facebook and the messaging application WhatsApp to stop the spread of false and inflammatory messages."

WaPo reports.

ADDED: A "flyover" is "A railway or road bridge over another (e.g. a local over a main) line or road" (OED). This word goes back to 1901. I've never seen the word with this meaning. The American use of the word — which the OED calls "U.S. colloquial (depreciative)" — is "Designating the central regions of the continental United States over which aeroplanes travel on flights between the east and west coasts, regarded as less influential or significant than the urban coastal regions." This usage is traced to an article in Esquire by Thomas McGuane in 1980: "Because we live in flyover country, we try to figure out what is going on elsewhere by subscribing to magazines."

109 comments:

Mattman26 said...

False and inflammatory messages. Yeah, we can’t have that.

Robert Cook said...

Let me beat the many latter day Voltaires to the punch and say, witheringly: “Islam, the religion of peace.”

AllenS said...

Sri Lankan authorities... blocked Facebook and the messaging application WhatsApp to stop the spread of false and inflammatory messages

Not to worry, we plan on whispering to each other.

narciso said...

Seems like their local taliban:

https://www.afp.com/en/news/1272/blasts-sri-lanka-hotels-and-churches-kill-156-doc-1ft48d4

rhhardin said...

I think they want to prevent Islam from getting the publicity that terrorism depends on. The goal is to become bigger in the public mind than you actually are.

rhhardin said...

In the US you can't shut down the media, and the media love terrorism because it makes money for them. Lots of eyeballs sold to advertisers.

The venality of the media ought to be a meme.

Mattman26 said...

Well, that’s one take, rhhardin.

Ann Althouse said...

Remember Oklahoma City.

You could be wrong.

rhhardin said...

Small group kills lots of people, wants to seem larger than they are.

That would be a nice approach.

rhhardin said...

Rush Limbaugh was responsible for Oklahama City.

rhhardin said...

Suicide bombers suggests religion, and the religion that does that it Islam.

1 virgin and 71 party girls.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Easter Sunday... Good Lord!

Leland said...

Have they ruled out arson and acts of terror yet?

AllenS said...

Stop! What? Oklahoma City? Do you think that an American like Timothy McVeigh who perpetrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and injured over 680 others did this in Sri Lanka?

Hagar said...

There is also a long running ethnic civil war going on.

stevew said...

The target and the tactic suggest the responsible party, but it is irresponsible to speculate.

Fernandinande said...

A Britannic flyover is what we civilized people call a "Super Fly".

rhhardin said...

Theoretically you could get the same effect with CGI and social media, and wouldn't need to kill anybody. Hollywood ought to pressed to take it on, as it is in the anti-Trump stuff.

rhhardin said...

I mean London Has Fallen (2016) wiped out London with CGI and who didn't enjoy that. Do that for real terrorists and they'll stop killing.

Hagar said...

A "New IRA" has appeared in Ireland and it is not a Moslem organization.

tcrosse said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
gspencer said...

Sadly these attacks are inevitable because the West refuses to learn the elemental nature of Islam. A refusal in the face of Islam's clear core instructions found in its source documents, instructions which Muslims themselves tell us over and over about what they intend to do to us.

Of course the left and the media are complicit with Muslims in making sure that Westerners remain ignorant about Islam, but so too are all D &GOP "leaders" plus this Pope who refuse to call Islam what it is.

Recall Isaiah5:20 and Scripture's warnings, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that putbitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter."

tcrosse said...

They blew up a flyover (or overpass) for Passover.

Fernandinande said...

Britannic headline says "Starling flyover is poetry in motion" but it's really a murmuration.

Quaestor said...

Remember Oklahoma City.

Only two people were charged and convicted with that crime, though the employee of the agency that rented the truck used to transport the homemade bomb constructed by McVeigh and Nichols insisted that an unidentified third person was involved.

The blasts in Colombo, Negombo, and Batticaloa are probably the deeds of many more than three persons.

Amadeus 48 said...

Those who have been to London Heathrow and taken a taxi to Central London get to experience both the Chiswick and the Hammersmith Flyovers.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I've heard the term "flyover" used to describe a bridge for a small road passing over a larger road, while in Alabama.

Michael said...

Althouse has a point. With the rise in white nationalism we can’t rule out a gaggle of skinheads planning a coordinated attack on three churches and two hotels on the other side of the world. Plausible. Look for choppers parked at a secret location. White nationalists have it in for Christians.

rhhardin said...

Don't forget roundabouts.

Browndog said...

Waiting for the proverbial "We may never know the motive".

Michael McNeil said...

Sri Lanka had been in a civil war, yes, between the Tamil (Hindu) minority (principally located along the north coast of the island) and the dominant Sinhalese (who are Buddhist) majority. Given that religious distinction between the ethnicities involved, it seems unlikely Tamil terrorists would choose to strike Christians in particular rather than Buddhists. Ergo — probably not Tamils.

rhhardin said...

Never end a noun with a preposition.

Freder Frederson said...

Sadly these attacks are inevitable because the West refuses to learn the elemental nature of Islam.

Is Islam to blame for the recent riots and murder in Londonderry too, or the chruch arson in Loisiana?

You people are fucking morons. Do a little research before you blame everything on Muslims, from the Notre Dame fire to this incident.

The Tamil Tigers (who are the most likely perpetrators) are not a Muslim group. They are mostly, but not exclusively, Buddhist. The civil war in Sri Lanka was between ethnic groups, not religions. And most Sri Lankans are Buddhist or Hindu.

Sebastian said...

OK, so some people did something. Again. But whoever did it was misguided. They in no way represent to group to which they will appear to belong. We have to watch out for casting blame on whole groups and contain our -phobia. Some people doing something doesn't mean we should do something.

Lyle said...

Yeah, could just be Tamil rebels or even some crazy Buddhist extremists. More sophisticated than Tim McVeigh, he and his could blow up only one building.

Tim McVeigh, interestingly, might have been connected to Islamist terrorists. One of the Michigan guys apparently got bomb making training from them in the Philippines.

Freder Frederson said...

Given that religious distinction between the ethnicities involved, it seems unlikely Tamil terrorists would choose to strike Christians in particular rather than Buddhists.

The targets included hotels. The intended victims were probably foreigners, not anyone of a particular religion.

Sebastian said...

But I agree with Freder: it's an odd place for the usual suspects, so it's possible that some other people did something.

David Begley said...

Robert Cook:

Give us something witty and clever.Have a take. Don’t suck. Out.

rhhardin said...

carryover
changeover
crossover
cutover
hangover
holdover
layover
leftover
Passover
pullover
stopover
takeover

seems to favor deverbal -over nouns.

Michael McNeil said...

Freder: Wrong. The Tamils (Tigers or otherwise) are not Buddhists.

Lyle said...

We shouldn't cast blame on groups of people because guilt by association is a logical fallacy. That said, we should talk about events from Oklahoma City to 9/11 to attacks in Europe honestly, and not shy away from frank remembrance because that might incite one group against another group, or because we are afraid of being called "racists" or "Islamophobes".

rhhardin said...

The trouble with Islam is that while the peaceful major majority doesn't get involved in violence, they nevertheless think that the guy executed for drawing Mohammad got what he deserved. They're not real Americans, who more or less think that you get to do what you want, speechwise; and anything else is the work of an enemy.

The rule for Americans is agreement on the rules, the constitution of the US.

AllenS said...

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia

AH HA! I think I might know some suspects right here in the US of A.

rhhardin said...

Sri Lanka is India's Madagascar.

David Begley said...

Ten percent of Sri Lanks’s population Is Muslim. That’s Usually the tipping point.

Darrell said...

Althouse always urges the Right to proceed with caution and bended knee. She knows the Left won't regardless of what she says.

Anonymous said...

It certainly seems likely to be yet another grim atrocity from the Religion of Peace, but it should be kept in mind that there are other possibilities in that part of the world. There are hard core Hindu chauvinists who resent the inroads Christianity has made among their co-religionists, and then there is the backdrop of the vicious ethnically based civil war between the Tamils and Sinhalese that played out in recent decades. The island even has a presence of radical Marxists and Maoists who have committed terrorist attacks in the past, albeit against government institutions rather than civilians.

I think that potential for non-Muslim terrorism is what Althouse was referring to with her comment about Oklahoma City. Surely she doesn’t believe that the American far right was involved.

Curious George said...

"Remember Oklahoma City.

You could be wrong."

No.

narciso said...

Ntj claimed responsibility jackass.

Lurker21 said...

Freder: The Sinhalese are the Buddhists. The Tamils are Hindu. There are also Muslims of Malay or Arabic origins and Christians of Eurasian descent as well as some Christians from the Sinhalese and Tamil communities.

There was so much violence between Tamils and Sinhalese, Hindus and Buddhists for so long that I didn't automatically jump to the conclusion that Muslims were involved (I didn't even know that there were a substantial number of Muslims in the country), but neither Tamils or Sinhalese had a major grievance with Christians, so it is beginning to look more and more like a Muslim group did it.

Paul said...

Now we have millions of illegals with zero vetting. Just coming in by the thousands each day.

It would not take much effort to seed in a few thousand 5th columnist (old WW2 term for sleeper agents) and one day they would cause more terrorism than anything seen so far in other countries. Not much effort at all. And if I was China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, etc... that is what I'd do!

And that is just a fact.

Sleep tight good liberals.. I know those votes mean so much to you.

Mr. Groovington said...

I wish this wasn’t from the Daily Mail.

“Documents seen by news agency AFP reveal that Sri Lanka's police chief Pujuth Jayasundara issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago, warning that suicide bombers planned to hit 'prominent churches'.
'A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama'ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,' the alert said.
The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.”

FWIW

Mr. Groovington said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mr. Groovington said...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6944279/Sri-Lankan-police-warned-Easter-terror-attack-TEN-DAYS-bombings.html

Trumpit said...

I'm fine with outlawing religion and motorcycles. Churches are houses of whoreship. Preachers become multimillionaire in the U.S. by fleecing their flock. If you escape immediate death, motorcycles injuries can be the most horrific. Loud-engined vehicles disturb the peace, and could lead to deafness. Noise pollution alone, or combined with air pollution greatly distresses me. I want your noisy vehicle towed away.

Big Mike said...

I've never seen the word [flyover] with this meaning.

I’ve seen the word with that meaning in novels written by Brits and published in the UK.

Lyle said...

America will never be a place Trumpit loves to live. He or she will forever hate it.

BUMBLE BEE said...

I remember OK city, even the part about the "Middle Eastern looking" guy McVeigh was seen consorting with. Maybe Mueller was on that case as well. This is the new normal, If .5% of the unvetted immigrants "cook off"... do the math.

Michael K said...

The targets included hotels. The intended victims were probably foreigners, not anyone of a particular religion.

From someone whop has no idea of what Easter is.

President-Mom-Jeans said...

"Remember Oklahoma City.

You could be wrong."

Yeah, Oklahoma City, the Easter attack on Christians with suicide bombers.

You fucking retard.

Achilles said...

rhhardin said...
I mean London Has Fallen (2016) wiped out London with CGI and who didn't enjoy that. Do that for real terrorists and they'll stop killing.

I hope you are joking.

I don’t think you understand the motives of Islam much at all.

Big Mike said...

Sleep tight good liberals.

Oh they’re happy. Gives them another reason not to go to church.

Robert Cook said...

Blogger David Begley said...
Robert Cook:

”Give us something witty and clever.”

Exactly my point.

Wilbur said...

Highways lanes that are constructed to go high over the regular lanes are called 'flyovers". At least where I live.

buwaya said...

It is in fact a Muslim terrorist conspiracy.
Current reporting identifies at least one suicide bomber, a Muslim, and the Sri Lankan authorities warned of a plot over a week ago, identifying a known radical Muslim group.

I suspect the crackdown on discussion in Sri Lanka is to prevent an organized reaction against Muslims, which is already a risk there. The Buddhist majority is already unhappy about Muslims, which is not helped by the fact that the vast majority of Sri Lankan Muslims are Tamils, though most Tamils are not Muslim.

buwaya said...

Most of the victims seem to have been those hit in the attacked churches.

The foreigners largely seem to be those in the hotels (the ID'ed suicide bomber was one of those that attacked a hotel).

The attacks on foreigners seem to have been the element intended to attract foreign attention.

Nichevo said...

I hope you are joking.

I don’t think you understand the motives of Islam much at all.


Achilles, a thousand wogs getting popped far across the sea is just soap opera fodder to him. The only way you could get through to rh would be to shoot his dog.

Nichevo said...


Blogger Robert Cook said...
Blogger David Begley said...
Robert Cook:

”Give us something witty and clever.”

Exactly my point.

4/21/19, 10:51 AM


Yeah, reality is boring.

iowan2 said...

It's hard to take advice to avoid rushing to judgement. After 2+ years listening the left claim to have solid evidence of President Trumps conspiricy with Putin in order to win the 2016 election.
Rush to judgement indeed. I plan on holding the left to the rules they demand.

buwaya said...

Its the same sort of attack as the Mumbai event of 2008, in intent anyway.
The point of it was to create an anti-Muslim reaction in order to radicalize the local Muslims. And there were foreigners targeted there also, to make it an international incident.

Paco Wové said...

"The intended victims were probably foreigners, not anyone of a particular religion."

Yeah, it's not like you're going to find people of any particular religion in a church on Easter Sunday.

Paco Wové said...

"I've never seen the word with this meaning."

You flyover rube.

Drago said...

Trumpit: "I'm fine with outlawing religion and motorcycles. Churches are houses of whoreship. Preachers become multimillionaire in the U.S. by fleecing their flock."

Now rewrite that with keywords "mosques" and "Imams", coward.

Drago said...

rhhardin: "The trouble with Islam is that...."

The trouble with Islam is that itis chock full of islamic supremacists...and that the Western Left/LLR-left has clearly aligned with them to achieve their radical transformation of the west...thinking they can convince the islamic crocodile to not eat them last...

buwaya said...

If there is a silver lining here, if there can be one, it is that the Sri Lankan nativist Buddhists, who have been feeling their oats, are likely to lay off their harassment of Christians, being as the Christians are now even bigger victims of perceived foreign influence than the Buddhists.

narciso said...

Possibly, but they are faithfully following the surahs 5:33 if I remember correctly

Some Seppo said...

buwaya, don't forget Bali in 2002.

The 2002 Bali bombings occurred on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attack killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, and people of more than 20 other nationalities).[3] A further 209 people were injured

The attack involved the detonation of three bombs: a backpack-mounted device carried by a suicide bomber; a large car bomb, both of which were detonated in or near popular nightclubs in Kuta; and a third much smaller device detonated outside the United States consulate in Denpasar, causing only minor damage.


The Hate America Firsters will blame Bush and the GWOT. Because those Aussie partiers and Balian workers were wearing short skirts and were asking for it.

hombre said...

Sri Lanka ranks 46th on the Open Doors list for Christian persecution. In this instance the culprits may be from the other “religion of peace,” Buddhists. Old hippies will, I assume, be in denial.

hombre said...

“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama'ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo," the alert said.

The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.” AFP.

Maybe it was the Muslims. Although, the Buddhists put Sri Lanka on the Open Doors watchlist.

Leora said...

I fist heard the term "flyover country" in a David Steinberg comedy routine where he claimed to keep a cyanide capsule under his tongue when he flew coast to coast. I thin it was on the Smothers Brothers show though it could have been Tonight with Johnny Carson. Definitely in the 60's though.

hombre said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
hombre said...

Freder: “You people are fucking morons. Do a little research before you blame everything on Muslims, from the Notre Dame fire to this incident.”

Right, Freder. 90% of the terrorist attacks in the world are perpetrated by Muslims and we are morons for noticing? Meanwhile, you and your ilk are enlightened as a result of being in a pathological state of denial.

According to thereligionofpeace.com Muslims have carried out nearly 35,000 documented attacks since 9/11. Who compares? Show us your research. We’ll wait.

Joe said...

And Islams express their outrage.

hombre said...

Freder: “The targets included hotels. The intended victims were probably foreigners, not anyone of a particular religion.”

Like I said at 12:31, “pathological denial.” Although this looks more like pathological stupidity.

JAORE said...

In my past life (working) I was a civil engineer. Flyover ramps were a common expression, often shortened to flyover.

Yancey Ward said...

I think it safe to say this was an anti-Christian attack with 100% certainty. It is likely to be Muslims behind the attack, but am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Yancey Ward said...

Both Christianity and Islam are minor religions in the Sri Lanka, as is Hinduism- most are Buddhists.

Clyde said...

Here in Fort Myers, Florida, they built a "flyover" a few years back where one major road crosses US 41. It helped traffic immensely.

narciso said...

correction it was surah 9;5, that's got be a transliteration, jammah is a variation on army,

Leland said...

I'm used to "flyover" as a description for interchange roadways that allow traffic not to stop. Then again, I'm an engineer.

stop the spread of false and inflammatory messages.

Sad that in a time of emergency, the first action of these countries (UK included) is to squash free speech. If mob rule is such a threat; the moment authorities clamped down on innocent people would be the moment of major protests. Except mob rule really isn't a threat, so the government really just wants to shutdown free speech and will take any excuse to do so.

narciso said...

as with the Rakhine dislocations, there are grievance going back to 1990, but other wise it resembles Mumbai in 2008

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

There has been no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks in a country which was at war for decades with Tamil separatists until 2009, during which bomb blasts in the capital were common.

Last year, there were 86 verified incidents of discrimination, threats and violence against Christians, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL).

And there have been recent reports of clashes between Sinhalese Buddhist and Muslim communities, with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam.


the first thing the left want you to do is not blame Islam prematurely.
Then after we find out it IS Islam - shut up.

Nicholas said...

The death toll vastly exceeds that of the Christchurch massacre a few weeks ago, yet I'm still waiting for the outpouring of support for Sri Lanka's Christians from the international Great and the Good. The Daily Mail quotes President Macron offering a generic, non-denominational message to "the people of Sri Lanka" (very few of whom are Christians).

Fen said...

Must be those damn Quakers again, right?

Fen said...

Freder: Do a little research before you blame everything on Muslims, from the Notre Dame fire to this incident.

You first.

1) How many French churches have been set on fire in the last 3 years by Muslims.


(cue jeopardy theme)

Freder? Time's up. How many?

Fen said...

Without even googling the exact number, I'll go with 427

Your turn Freder....

Fen said...

"According to the German news site PI-News, every day in France, two churches are desecrated. They report 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols like crucifixes, icons, and statues in France in 2018, marking a 17 percent increase from the year before."

Lyle said...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4shTPpUwAE8k7f.jpg:large

Guy is wearing a Milwaukee Brewers t-shirt. God have mercy on these people. I posted this in the wrong thread earlier. Warning... graphic image of one of the church bombings earlier today.

Fen said...

Remember Oklahoma City.

I remember. It was revenge against Federal Agents for gassing children to death.

The Army NBC officer (nuclear bio chem) at the Waco site warned Reno that children's lungs could not handle adult doses of CS gas and would suffocate and die. They did it anyway.

That's why whats-his-name made a point to ask about the daycare center at the federal building he targeted.

Fen said...

"Guy is wearing a Milwaukee Brewers t-shirt"

We saw a lot of this in Somalia. Starving kid wearing a Bart Simpson shirt, 10 years out of date. Surreal. It's the 3rd world at the other end of America donating the clothes they would throw out to charity.

I'll be surprised if knows who the Brewers are. Probably snagged it cause he liked the logo.

Fen said...

I think the Peace Corps should be mandatory instead of military service. I don't want my Marine NCO wasting their time babysitting snowflakes who don't want to serve. But a mandatory 4 year tour through Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Venezuela setting up sewage lines and building roads sure would nip all this Social Justice bullshit in the bud.

Passover reminds me to talk about this jewish family I know. Die hard Democrats. Annoyingly so. But the most charitable people I have ever known, the shame me. Nothing nice in their house, no big screen tv, no luxury furniture, no fancy cars. All their money goes overseas to keep people from starving to death. Not some mere 20% tithe, they do the reverse. 80%.

And while I'm living large back in the states, they spend EIGHT MONTHS of EVERY year in some shithole country teaching the locals how to filtrate water and rotate crops.

And here's the kicker - they don't tell a damn soul about what they do. No one knows, there are no award ceremonies on some stage, no write-ups in the local paper, no recognition of any kind.

Of course, they wouldn't accept any even if there were. That's not why they do this.

So, whenever I want to pat myself on the back for giving some homeless guy a 20, or for showing mercy and compassion to the less fortunate, I think of these Jews and I want to cry with shame.

Anyway, telling their story because no one else can.

Anonymous said...

But wait! I thought Obama said that mass killings only happen here. That there was something wrong with us, but not the rest of the world.

Stop the madness!

narciso said...


http://mackenzieinstitute.com/funding-terror-the-liberation-tigers-of-tamil-eelam-and-their-criminal-activities-in-canada-and-the-western-world/

wildswan said...

"The intended victims were probably foreigners, not anyone of a particular religion"

All three churches were Roman Catholic. Apparently the Islamic jihadist group the police regard as responsible for these Easter Sunday attacks. previously attacked Buddhists. The Islamic jihad version of Islam regards everyone outside Islam, as attackable (and enslaveable) infidels. This includes people drinking alcohol in hotels who don't want that or any other lifestyle choice to be a religious issue. Sorry, but some people do some things and these some things some people did were all about religion whether some people for some reasons want to think so or not.

Lydia said...

The death toll vastly exceeds that of the Christchurch massacre a few weeks ago, yet I'm still waiting for the outpouring of support for Sri Lanka's Christians from the international Great and the Good. The Daily Mail quotes President Macron offering a generic, non-denominational message to "the people of Sri Lanka" (very few of whom are Christians).

Macron's message at least used the word "Easter", unlike our president's statement: "138 people have been killed in Sri Lanka, with more that 600 badly injured, in a terrorist attack on churches and hotels. The United States offers heartfelt condolences to the great people of Sri Lanka. We stand ready to help!" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1119923840161857536

Here's the full Macron: "We are deeply saddened by the terrorist attacks against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. We firmly condemn these odious acts. We stand by the people of Sri Lanka and our thoughts go out to the loved ones of the victims on this Easter Sunday." https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1119923997016231937

Lewis Wetzel said...

"There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombings.... Sri Lankan authorities... blocked Facebook and the messaging application WhatsApp to stop the spread of false and inflammatory messages."
Thank God our president -- Donald J. Trump -- is the world's foremost opponent of Fake News!

narciso said...

Reasonable inference suggests its Islamic state, this ntj is a thread bare front.

narciso said...

You know why it looks that way because jammaath and thowteeth sound native to south Asia but national is not.

Skippy Tisdale said...

"Hagar said...
A "New IRA" has appeared in Ireland and it is not a Moslem organization.

4/21/19, 8:44 AM"

So you feel this justifies the Shri Lankan bombings?