Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has, on Tuesday, pledged major security changes in the country’s security forces within the next 24 hours.
According to Al-Jazeera news reports, during a televised address to the country on Tuesday, the president has stated he would be making “major changes in the leadership of the security forces in the next 24 hours”.
Moreover, Sirisena also vowed a “complete restructure” of the nation’s security and police forces in the “coming weeks”, further alleging the country’s intelligence officials had failed to share with him the preliminary reports concerning over possible terror attacks.
Sirisena said, “The security officials who got the intelligence report from a foreign nation did not share it with me.”
Some sources having direct knowledge of the matter has said that Sri Lanka’s intelligence officials were already tipped off over possible attacks, just hours before Easter Sunday’s eight consecutive suicide bombing attacks, Reuters news agency has reported on Tuesday.
Citing one Indian government and one Sri Lankan defence sources, Reuters has reported that India’s intelligence officials had contacts Sri Lankan counterparts to warned Sri Lanka of specific threat over churches, just two hours before the attacks.
But however, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has stated he had received no reports warning of any possible terror attack in the region from intelligence officials.
While addressing a media conference, Wickremesinghe has cautioned about additional explosives in the country. The nation failing to effectively respond to the terror attack and threats have fuelled fears that tension between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe has undermined national security and doing so.