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Children killed during Sri Lanka gunbattle between troops and Islamist militants
SAINTHAMARUTHU/COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - As darkness fell in Sainthamaruthu village on Sri Lanka’s east coast on Friday, troops and police prepared to storm a concrete shack that local residents had told them was a safe house for a band of Islamist militants.
It was five days after suicide bomb blasts that killed more than 250 people and stunned a country that few expected to be a target of Islamist attacks. Many of the dead in Sunday’s attacks were killed in Batticaloa, a town about 28 miles (46 km) north of Sainthamaruthu.
On Friday evening, as the troops approached the house - a one-storey building on a narrow lane opposite an open drain - three explosions went off and they opened fire on the suspects holed up inside, according to the military.
The wife and a daughter of the suspected mastermind of the suicide attacks, Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran, were wounded in the ensuing gunbattle, police and his sister said on Saturday.
Nearly 10,000 soldiers have been deployed across the island to carry out searches since the Easter Day attacks on three churches and four hotels, most of which were in the capital Colombo. Security forces have detained 100 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the bombings on the Buddhist-majority country, which would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.
The Friday night shootout in the Muslim-dominated district of Ampara followed warnings from authorities that there were still militants at large plotting further strikes. The militants hiding there were suspected members of a domestic Islamist group, National Thawheedh Jamaath, the military said.
The gunbattle ended before dawn, and as troops moved in on the ruined house they found the bodies of 15 people, including six children and three suspected suicide bombers, a military spokesman said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-blasts-gunbattle/children-killed-during-sri-lanka-gunbattle-between-troops-and-islamist-militants-idUSKCN1S3032