Security personnel inspect the interior of St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo on April 22, 2019, a day after the church was hit in series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. – The death toll from bomb blasts that ripped through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka rose dramatically April 22 to 290 — including dozens of foreigners — as police announced new arrests over the country’s worst attacks for more than a decade. (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP) (Photo credit should read ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images)
By:
LekshmiSajeev
It appears reports that terrorists from Sri Lanka have slipped into the Philippines and were preparing for attacks in Luzon were nothing more than a family feud “gone awry,” said the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Sunday, August 11.
“Per verification, there is good reason to doubt the veracity of the report as it came out in the papers,” said AFP spokesperson Brigadier General Edgard Arevalo in a statement.
On Saturday, August 10, Arevalo said the AFP was verifying reports that a certain Mark Kevin Samhoon and Victoria Sophia Sto Domingo have entered the Philippines from Sri Lanka, and were working with an extremist group based in Northern Luzon to launch terror attacks on churches and other establishments.
The reports tagged Samhoon and Sto Domingo as “suicide bombers.”
However, it turned out that Sto Domingo had already responded to the accusations before the Counter-Terrorism Division (CTD) of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on July 22, Arevalo said.
