• Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Sri Lanka’s border and maritime security remain vulnerable – US Report

By: AswathyNair

Sri Lanka’s border and maritime security remained vulnerable in 2019, the United States Department of State says in a recently released annual report on terrorism.

The State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2019 on Sri Lanka said the government is working with the UN, along with Japan, to enhance border management systems at Colombo’s international airport and also expanded its partnership with the United States to secure its maritime border.

The U.S. Coast Guard, under the Department of State’s EXBS (Export Control and Related Border Security) program, continued to train Sri Lankan Coast Guard and Navy personnel on maritime law enforcement and security operation, and the Government of Sri Lanka continued to cooperate with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Energy through the container security initiative, “Megaports Initiative.”

According to the report, the U.S. Department of Defense continues regular engagements with the Sri Lankan Navy Special Boat Squadron and Fast Attack Flotilla to enhance maritime security through the expansion of vessel board, search, and seizure capabilities.

The State Department Wednesday released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism, detailing key developments in 2019 in the global fight against ISIS, al-Qaida, Iranian proxies, and other international terrorist groups.

Following is the full report on Sri Lanka:

Overview: ISIS-inspired terrorists conducted a series of suicide attacks against churches and hotels across Sri Lanka on Easter Day, resulting in hundreds of casualties. Then ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi publicly praised the attacks, illustrating that ISIS remains determined, following its defeat in Syria and Iraq, to continue the fight from its global branches and networks and by inspiring attacks. The attacks led to isolated outbreaks of anti-Muslim violence, which the government made efforts to stop, though some observers deemed these efforts insufficient. Sri Lanka also conducted prosecutions against members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist insurgent group that fought the government for 26 years until its defeat in 2009.

Following the Easter attacks, Sri Lanka sought to improve its CT efforts by engaging the United States on improving border security and soliciting assistance for the Attorney General’s office, which is charged with prosecuting the attack perpetrators. Sri Lanka is not a member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, but participated as an observer at the Political Directors meeting in June. The country’s secretary of defense and inspector general of police at the time of the April 21 attacks were both arrested for failing to act on available intelligence, which warned of pending attacks.

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