What Isis wants

It has become commonplace to describe terror attacks as ‘senseless’. The horrific Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, which cost the lives of more than 350 people, several British citizens among them, make little sense. The only way to understand them is as a symptom of the growing globalisation of terror.

The tactics — synchronised bombs on a Christian holy day — are grotesquely familiar. And it was not surprising to learn that one of the attackers was partly educated in London. The attacks, on three Catholic churches and three hotels favoured by westerners, clearly targeted Christians. The culprits have been identified as local Islamic extremists. The purpose of the attacks, therefore, was to increase tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Sri Lanka used to be well-known for violence. A civil war divided the country bitterly and cost the lives of between 70,000 and 80,000 people. But it was an ethnic conflict between a rebel group of Tamils demanding independence from the majority Singhalese.