Radical Islamist linked to blasts

Colombo: For years, Sri Lanka's Muslim community warned authorities about a firebrand cleric. Now it seems Zahran Hashim may have played a key role in one of the worst attacks in the country's history.

A video released on Tuesday by the Islamic State group, which earlier claimed responsibility for the Easter attacks that killed over 350 people, appears to prominently feature Hashim.

He appears to be the round-faced cleric in the footage -- the only one of the eight figures depicted whose face is uncovered.

Dressed in a black tunic headscarf and carrying a rifle, Hashim is seen leading seven purported attackers in a pledge of allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

The other seven people in the video all wear the same black tunics but with their faces obscured by black-and-white checkered scarves.

Sri Lanka's government had already pointed the finger at Hashim indirectly, calling the little-known Islamist group he was believed to lead – the National Thowheeth Jama'ath – its prime suspect. Hashim was identified, albeit with his name misspelled as Hashmi, by police as heading NTJ.

But the video released by IS was the first concrete evidence of the apparently central role played by the Sri Lankan cleric in the Easter attacks.

He had attracted several thousand followers on several social media sites, including YouTube and Facebook, where he posted incendiary sermons. In one, the cleric with an unkempt black beard, delivers an extremist diatribe against non-Muslims against the crudely photoshopped backdrop of flags in flames.

Hilmy Ahamed, vice-president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, said he had gone to local authorities with concerns about Hashim three years ago.