National Thowheeth Jama’ath blamed but attacks of this scale require huge organisation

• Sri Lanka attacks – live updates

Sri Lankan officials have blamed a small local group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the bomb attacks on Sunday. It is unclear whether this assertion is based on new information discovered by investigators since the atrocity or a notice circulated by Sri Lankan police 10 days before the blasts, which said the group was planning suicide attacks against churches.

There is a similarly named Islamist organisation active on the island nation – the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jama’ath. It is unclear if this group is the one referred to by the warning, which was based on information passed to Sri Lankan authorities by a foreign intelligence service, believed to be either India’s or the US’s.

Multiple attacks in churches and luxury hotels as worshippers attended Easter services have killed more than 200 people

• Live updates: Sri Lanka church and hotel explosions
• At a glance: what we know so far

At least 207 people are dead and 450 injured after a coordinated wave of bombings struck Sri Lanka. At least five British citizens were among those killed when attackers targeted churches in the worst violence the country has seen since the end of its bloody civil war in 2009

• Sri Lanka imposes curfew after at least 207 killed in attacks
• Sri Lanka explosions: what we know so far
• Several arrested after 207 killed at hotels and churches on Easter Sunday – live

Much bitterness and grievance remain in country where war is unfinished business for some

• Live updates: Sri Lanka church and hotel explosions
• Full report: Sri Lanka imposes immediate curfew after attacks

Coordinated bomb attacks on worshippers attending Easter church services and multiple other targets across Sri Lanka were the work of terrorists or religious extremists, a government minister has suggested.

But after the murderous wave of indiscriminate violence shocked and paralysed the country on Sunday, it seemed clear the authorities had been caught off-guard by an unknown enemy that struck without warning and without mercy.

The archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith, has urged Sri Lankans not to ‘take the law into their own hands’, after a series of explosions targeting churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killed hundreds of people. ‘I condemn, to the utmost of my capacity, this act that has caused so much death and suffering,’ he said.

• Sri Lanka explosions: what we know so far
• Sri Lanka imposes curfew after hundreds killed in attacks