National Thowheed Jamaath 24/04/2019 – Posted in: Daily News
National Thowheed Jamaath
For: Preliminary
Topic Covered: Millitant groups, Interpol, Srilankan relations with other countries
News Flash
Sri Lankan authorities named a little-known local Islamist radical group, the National Thowheed Jamaath, as responsible for the ghastly Easter Sunday serial blasts.
The blasts target:
• St Anthony’s church in Colombo
• St Sebastian’s church in the Western coastal town of Negombo
• Another church in the eastern town of Batticaloa
National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ)
NTJ is an extremist fringe group within an already small religious minority – only 9.7% of Sri Lanka’s population of about 21 million are Muslim.
NTJ (National Monotheism Organization) is a Sri Lankan Jihadist group. It is believed to have ties with Islamic State.
NTJ is believed to have separated from the Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamath (SLTJ), also a hardline Islamist organization, in or around 2016.
The NTJ’s leadership had been condemned by several Sri Lankan Muslim organizations in 2016 for advocating extreme fundamentalist indoctrination of children, and for clashes with Buddhist monks.
International assistance
India assured Sri Lanka that New Delhi is ready to “provide any assistance at any time” to help combat terrorism.
Meanwhile, Interpol said it was deploying an Incident Response Team (IRT) at the request of the Sri Lanka authorities, including specialists with expertise in crime scene examination, explosives, counter-terror and victim identification. Interpol’s global network and databases can prove vital, especially for officers on the ground.
International Criminal Police Organization
The International Criminal Police Organization more commonly known as Interpol is an inter-governmental organization. It has 194 member countries, and it helps police in all of them to work together to make the world a safer place. It enables them to share and access data on crimes and criminals, and offers a range of technical and operational support.
Who makes up Interpol?
The General Secretariat coordinates our day-to-day activities to fight a range of crimes. Run by the Secretary General, it is staffed by both police and civilians and comprises a headquarters in Lyon, a global complex for innovation in Singapore and several satellite offices in different regions.
In each country, an INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) provides the central point of contact for the General Secretariat and other NCBs. An NCB is run by national police officials and usually sits in the government ministry responsible for policing.
The General Assembly is our governing body and it brings all countries together once a year to take decisions.
Source: The Hindu