A US media report has claimed that Al-Qaeda factions are operating in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and these groups then enter the U.S. for terrorist activities.

WND.com, an independent news network operating in Washington also reported, quoting sources as saying that Iran was behind the Boston bombings and pointed to the collaboration of the regime’s Quds Forces with Hezbollah and elements of Al-Qaeda with links to individuals in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

He said that under Quds Force guidance, Hezbollah recruited Sunni terrorists allied with Al-Qaeda factions in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, who then entered the U.S. for terrorist activities.

Meanwhile the Telegraph reported that a recipe for how to make pressure cooker bombs, which investigators say were used in the Boston Marathon attack, was most notoriously published in the Al-Qaeda magazine Inspire.

In 2006 it was reported that the police arrested five Maldivian nationals in Colombo sparking unconfirmed rumours that the suspects were linked to Al-Qaeda.

The Sri Lankan government has however insisted that there are no Al-Qaeda cells operating or training in Sri Lanka.

The Times of India, in 2001, highlighted an alleged nexus between Al-Qaeda and the LTTE, and claimed that “Qaeda links with the LTTE is the first instance of an Islamist group collaborating with an essentially secular outfit”.

The US-based research organisation “Maritime Intelligence Group” had also said the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiya, which has known links to al-Qaeda, had been trained in sea-borne guerrilla tactics by LTTE Sea Tiger veterans.

Wikipedia had reported that the “Norwegians Against Terrorism” led by Falk Rune Rovik, described how some groups in Norway, at the behest of the LTTE, sold fake and stolen Norwegian passports to al-Qaeda members.

The LTTE itself acquired a fake passport for Ramzi Yousef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. He further alleged that funds from Government of Norway had been inadvertently diverted to the LTTE.

Source: Colombo Gazette