Soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the towns hit by sectarian violence this week as residents recalled how Muslims had hid in paddy fields to escape mobs carrying rods and swords, incensed over the militant attacks.

The April 21 attacks, claimed by Islamic State, targeted churches and hotels, mostly in Colombo, killing more than 250 people and fuelling fears of a backlash against the island nation's minority Muslims.

Mobs moved through towns in Sri Lanka's northwest on motorbikes and in buses, ransacking mosques, burning Qurans and attacking shops with petrol bombs in rioting that began on Sunday, Muslim residents said.

Police said they arrested 23 people from across the island for inciting violence against Muslims, who make up less than 10% of Sri Lanka's 22 million people who are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhists.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the situation is under control and no new incidents had been reported on Tuesday.

But a nationwide curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. would be in effect for a second night.

The lone fatality was a man killed while trying to protect his home from attack.

When mobs arrived in the Kottramulla area on Monday evening, Mohamed Salim Fowzul Ameer, 49, went outside while his wife, Fatima Jiffriya, stayed with their four children.

Jiffriya, 37, then heard shouts and sounds of fighting.

"I opened the door to see my husband on the ground in a pool of blood, the police right in front and the mob running," she said.

"His heart was still beating hard, I took him into my lap and started to scream for help," she added, her voice breaking, as women consoled her children at an uncle's house ahead of Ameer's burial.

Sri Lanka has had a history of ethnic and religious violence and was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government.

In recent years, Buddhist hardliners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or "Buddhist Power Force," have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying influences from the Middle East had made Sri Lanka's Muslims more conservative and isolated.

Last year, scores of Muslim mosques, homes and businesses were destroyed as Buddhist mobs ran amok for three days in Kandy, the central highlands district previously known for its diversity and tolerance.

Muslims said this week's violence was more widespread.

Residents in the town of Kottampitiya recalled how a group of about a dozen people had arrived in taxis and attacked Muslim-owned stores with stones just after midday on Monday, with the mob soon swelling to 200, and then 1,000.

The mob attacked the main mosque, 17 Muslim-owned businesses and 50 homes, witnesses said.

"The Muslim community huddled in nearby paddy fields, that's how no one died," said one of a group of men gathered outside the white-and-green mosque with smashed windows and doors.

Abdul Bari, 48, told Reuters his small brick shop had been burned down with a petrol bomb. "The attackers were on motorbikes, armed with rods and swords," he added.

Others blamed the police for failing to disperse the crowd.

"The police were watching. They were in the street, they didn't stop anything. They told us to go inside," said Mohamed Faleel, 47, who runs a car paint business.

"We asked police, we said stop them. They didn't fire. They had to stop this, but they didn't," he added.

Police spokesman Gunasekera rejected allegations that police had stood by while the violence unfolded. He said the perpetrators would be punished.

"All police officers have been instructed to take stern action against the violators, even to use the maximum force. Perpetrators could face up to a 10-year jail term," he said.

A police source said seven of those arrested for the violence in Kottampitiya were young Sinhalese men from nearby Buddhist villages.

"They were leading the charge yesterday. They were instructing people on which stores to attack," said the police source.

The men said they were seeking revenge for the militant attack in the city of Negombo, where over 100 people were killed at the St. Sebastian's Church during Easter prayers, the police source said.

A court remanded the men to police custody on Tuesday. They could not be reached for comment.

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The government acted after an exchange of accusations between two people on Facebook led a mob to attack a Muslim-owned shop Sunday in the Catholic-majority town of Chilaw, said Nalaka Kaluwewa, the chief of the Information Department. Police imposed a curfew in the town, located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Colombo, the capital, following the violence but lifted it Monday morning.

Kaluwewa said the government temporarily blocked social media in order "to prevent misinformation from being circulated and also to prevent spreading of information that would harm communal harmony."

Previous blocks on social media and messaging apps imposed following the April 21 suicide attacks on churches and hotels were lifted after several days.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said police have arrested a 38-year-old Muslim businessman, Abdul Hameed Mohamed Hasmar, for allegedly writing the Facebook comments that sparked the violence.

Local media reported that residents in the area angered by the comments stoned Hasmar's shop.

Tensions have been running high in the Buddhist-majority Indian Ocean island nation since the attacks by seven suicide bombers who struck two Catholic and one Protestant church and three luxury hotels. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, carried out by a local radicalized Muslim group.

Since then, the government has intensified security across the country, with armed policemen and troops being deployed to protect schools, churches and key government offices.

On Sunday, the Catholic Church held the first regular Sunday Mass since the attacks amid tight security. Sunday services had been canceled the two previous weekends for fear of more attacks, leaving the faithful to hear Mass via live TV transmission from the residence of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo.

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Military forces and police armed with assault rifles patrolled the streets leading to churches and stood guard outside the compounds. Everyone entering was required to produce identity cards and was body searched.

Volunteers were stationed at the gates of churches to identify parishioners and look for suspicious individuals.

Parking was banned near the churches and officials requested worshippers to bring along only minimum baggage.

Seven suicide bombers struck two Catholic and one Protestant church and three luxury hotels on Easter Sunday. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, carried out by a local radicalized Muslim group.

Sunday services were canceled in the two subsequent weekends for fear of more attacks, leaving the faithful to hear Mass via live TV transmission from the Colombo residence of Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith.

Church authorities are also mulling reopening church-run schools on Tuesday if they can be satisfied with security.

President Maithripala Sirisena told The Associated Press last week that "99%" of the remaining suspects in the Easter attacks had been arrested and their explosive materials seized, and it was safe for tourists to return to the Indian Ocean island nation.

Police say two previously little-known radical Islamist groups – National Towheed Jamaat and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim – considered in the attacks. Officials say Zahran Hashim, a vitriolic preacher from the country's east, may have led the attackers and was one of the bombers to die.

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But when Masliya went to the clinic nearly three weeks after Islamic terrorists killed over 250 people in churches and hotels across the country, she said things had changed.

The 36-year-old said she was in a queue with her five-year-old daughter when a nurse told her to remove her abaya, saying: "What if you blow us up with your bomb?"

Muslim groups say they have received dozens of complaints from across Sri Lanka about people from the community being harassed at workplaces, including government offices, hospitals and in public transport since the Easter Sunday attacks.

The government has blamed the attacks on two little-known radical Islamic groups. Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

In the city of Negombo, where over 100 people were killed at the St. Sebastian's Church during Easter prayers, many Pakistani refugees said they fled after threats of revenge from locals.

Now, anger against Muslims seems to be spreading. On Sunday, a violent clash erupted between local Muslims and Christians after a traffic dispute.

"The suspicion towards them (Muslims) can grow and there can be localized attacks," said Jehan Perera of nonpartisan advocacy group, the National Peace Council. "That would be the danger."

A ban on facial veils and house-to-house searches by security forces in Muslim-majority neighborhoods across the country have added to the distrust.

The government says it is aware of tensions between communities and is closely monitoring the situation.

"The government is consciously in dialogue with all the religious leaders and the community leaders," Nalaka Kaluwewa, Sri Lanka's director general of information, told Reuters, adding that security has been increased across the country to avoid any communal tensions.

Muslims make up nearly 10% of Sri Lanka's population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Indian Ocean island was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government.

The government stamped out the rebellion about 10 years ago.

In recent years, Buddhist hard-liners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or "Buddhist Power Force," have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying influences from the Middle East had made Sri Lanka's Muslims more conservative and isolated.

Last year, scores of Muslim mosques, homes and businesses were destroyed as Buddhist mobs ran amok for three days in Kandy, the central highlands district previously known for its diversity and tolerance.

The violence in Kandy was triggered by an attack on a Buddhist truck driver by four Muslim men after a traffic dispute. The driver later died from the injuries.

BBS' chief executive Dilantha Vithanage said as successive Sri Lankan governments had failed to address what he called a rise in Islamic extremism, Sri Lankans might be forced to do it on their own.

"This is a bigger danger than Tamil separatism," Vithanage told Reuters.

Sri Lanka's junior defense minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, told Reuters the government was taking measures to curb radicalization but conceded that communal tensions were a big concern.

In Batticaloa, an eastern city home mainly to Christians and Hindus and where a bomber from a neighboring town attacked an evangelical church on Easter, a Tamil group has called for a boycott of Muslim-run businesses.

The alleged ringleader of the Easter attacks, preacher Zahran Hashim, and the bomber who targeted Zion Church in Batticaloa were natives of neighboring Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated town.

"If you have any dignity, stop buying from Muslim shops," read a red-inked leaflet distributed in Batticaloa and produced by a group called 'Tamil Youth, Eastern Province'.

Two members of the group, who both said had lost relatives in the blast, told Reuters that resentment had been building for years against the people of Kattankudy.

"They have always been hostile towards us. They do not eat from our places. If they are going to grow by insulating themselves, we might as well too," one of them said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Business has plummeted at the around 250 Muslim-owned stores in Batticaloa and some will be forced to shut unless sales pick up, said Mohamed Kaleel, the vice-president of the Batticaloa Traders Association.

Among many Muslims, resentment is also building because they believe the community is being unfairly targeted, even though the government was warned repeatedly about possible attacks.

The government has said it had received prior warnings about impending attacks on churches but these were not shared across agencies and admitted that was a lapse.

Muslim community leaders have also said they had repeatedly warned the authorities about Zahran, the alleged mastermind, for years.

"The government knew about the bombings and yet they didn't take any action. But once it happened, they are targeting us innocent people. This is not fair," said Milhan, a resident in the northwestern town of Puttalam.

Abdullah, a Muslim preacher in Puttalam who declined to give his full name, said the discrimination will alienate Muslims and make them more vulnerable.

"By doing this, extremism will only increase, it won't go away. This is what happened with the Tamils," he said.

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Sri Lankan security forces also said they were maintaining a high level of alert amid intelligence reports that the militants were likely to strike before the start of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.

"Tremendous progress has been made towards apprehending those plotters but I don't think the story is over yet," Ambassador Alaina Teplitz said in an interview. "We do believe that there is active planning underway [for more attacks]."

Scores of suspected Islamists have been arrested in the multiethnic island nation since April 21 suicide bomb attacks on hotels and churches that killed more than 250 people, including 42 foreign nationals.

"Security will stay tight for several days because military and police are still tracking down suspects," a senior police intelligence official said.

Another government source told Reuters a document has been circulated among key security establishments instructing police and security forces across the country to remain on high alert because the militants were expected to try a strike before Ramadan.

Ramadan is scheduled to begin in Sri Lanka on May 6.

Teplitz told Reuters that the risk of more attacks remained real.

"We certainly have reason to believe that the active attack group has not been fully rendered inactive," she said.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting Sri Lankan authorities in the investigations but Teplitz declined to give more details.

The government has lifted a ban on social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber, a source at the president's office said. The ban had been imposed immediately after the attacks to prevent the spread of rumors.

The government has also banned women from wearing face veils under an emergency law put in place after the Easter attacks.

Authorities suspect members of two previously little-known groups – National Thawheedh Jamaath (NTJ) and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim – of carrying out the attacks, although the Islamic State extremist group has claimed responsibility.

Authorities believe Zahran Hashim, the founder of NTJ, was the mastermind and one of the nine suicide bombers.

In India, police said they had arrested a 29-year-old man in the southern state of Kerala, close to Sri Lanka, for planning similar attacks there. The man had been influenced by speeches made by Zahran, the government's National Investigation Agency said in a statement.

Sri Lanka's population of 22 million is about 70% Buddhist but includes Hindu (13%), Muslim (10%), and Christian (7%) minorities.

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The video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to whom the suicide bombers in last week's attack apparently pledged their loyalty, came as the top official in the Catholic Church urged Sri Lanka to crack down on Islamic extremists "as if on war footing."

Despite numerous claims about his death in the past few years, al-Baghdadi's whereabouts remain a mystery. Many of his top aides have been killed, mostly by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. He is among the few senior ISIS commanders still at large after two years of steady battlefield losses that saw the self-styled "caliphate" shrink from an area the size of Britain to a tiny speck in the Euphrates River valley.

The video released by a media outlet run by the extremists, Al-Furqan, shows al-Baghdadi with a bushy gray and red beard, wearing a black robe with a beige vest and seated on the floor with what appears to be an AK-74 rifle propped up next to him. He is speaking with three men seated opposite him whose faces were covered and blotted out.

The 18-minute video of al-Baghdadi included images of the extremist leader sitting in a white room with three others, assault rifles by their sides. He discussed Sri Lanka in an audio portion of the video, suggesting the April 21 attacks came after they filmed him.

Al-Baghdadi praised the attackers, saying they conducted the bombings as revenge for the fall of Baghouz, Syria, the last territory the extremist group held there or in Iraq.

"As for your brothers in Sri Lanka, they have put joy in the hearts of the monotheists with their immersing operations that struck the homes of the crusaders in their Easter," al-Baghdadi said, according to a transcript from the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group.

He also called on Islamic State-pledged militants in the island nation off the southern tip of India to be "a thorn in the chests of the crusaders."

Authorities initially blamed the Easter attacks, targeting three hotels and three churches, on a local militant named Mohammed Zahran and his followers. Then the Islamic State group on April 23 released images of Zahran and others pledging their loyalty to al-Baghdadi.

Police conducted a later raid in eastern Sri Lanka that saw militants detonate suicide bombs in violence that killed at least 15 people, including six children. Explosives recovered by authorities bore hallmarks of the Islamic State group as well.

Anger against Sri Lanka's government has grown after the country discovered its security services had prior, specific warnings an attack loomed.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo and the Catholic Church's top official on the island, said the church may not be able to stop people from taking the law into their own hands if the government doesn't do more.

"All the security forces should be involved and function as if on war footing," Ranjith told reporters.

"I want to state that we may not be able to keep people under control in the absence of a stronger security program," he said. "We can't forever give them false promises and keep them calm."

Ranjith, however, sought to assure Muslims the church will not allow any revenge attacks against them.

Catholic churches canceled Mass on Sunday, a week after the bombings, for fear of another attack. Catholics celebrated Mass in their homes while watching Ranjith preside over a televised service. Other denominations also closed their doors.

The church closing followed local officials and the U.S. Embassy in Colombo warning that more militants remained on the loose with explosives and places of worship remained targets.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena also appointed former army commander Shantha Kottegoda on Monday as the top official in the Defense Ministry. He earlier requested the resignation of his predecessor, Hemasiri Fernando, for intelligence failures that led to the bombings.

In the eastern Sri Lankan city of Kalmunai, Associated Press journalists saw police and soldiers conducting raids in a predominantly Muslim area. Such operations are likely to continue around the area Zahran once preached his extremist message glorifying killing non-Muslims.

Meanwhile, Sirisena's ban on wearing the niqab face veil took effect. The niqab is a black veil made of thin fabric, often with a small opening from which a woman's eyes can peer out.

While previously unseen in Sri Lanka, the niqab has grown in popularity in the last 10 years after the country's civil war.

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Zainee Hashim, Rilwan Hashim and their father Mohamed Hashim, who were seen in a video circulating on social media calling for all-out war against nonbelievers, were among 15 killed in a fierce gun battle with the military on the east coast on Friday, four police sources said.

Niyaz Sharif, the brother-in-law of Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the wave of Easter Sunday bombings that killed over 350 people in churches and hotels across the island nation, told Reuters the video showed Zahran's two brothers and father.

Three of the people killed in Friday's gun battle were the same people who were seen in the undated video on social media, in which they discus martyrdom and urge their followers to kill all nonbelievers, police sources said.

Sri Lanka has been on high alert since the attacks on Easter Sunday, with nearly 10,000 soldiers deployed across the island to carry out searches and hunt down members of two local Islamist groups believed to have carried out the attack.

Authorities have detained more than 100 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt since the April 21 bombings.

In the video, Rilwan Hashim is seen calling for all out "jihad," or holy war, while children cry in the background.

"We will destroy these nonbelievers to protect this land and therefore we need to do jihad," Rilwan says in the video, sitting beside his brother and father.

"We need to teach a proper lesson for these nonbelievers who have been destroying Muslims."

Authorities suspect there may be more suicide bombers on the loose. Defense authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic groups they believe carried out the attacks, the National Thawheedh Jamaath and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings, and on Sunday the group said three of its members clashed with Sri Lankan police for several hours in Friday's gun battle on the east coast before detonating their explosive vests, the militant group's news agency Amaq said.

The group said 17 policemen were killed or injured in the attack, but the Sri Lankan military has denied this. A police source told Reuters two policemen were slightly injured in the battle.

Police have said six children were among the other 12 people who died in the gun battle, but have not released further details.

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The minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, told Parliament the government possessed information that the series of bombings in and outside of Colombo that killed more than 300 people were carried out "by an Islamic fundamentalist group" in response to the Christchurch attacks. He did not provide evidence or explain the source of the information.

Wijewardene blamed "weakness" within Sri Lanka's security apparatus for failing to prevent the nine bombings at churches, luxury hotels and other sites.

"By now it has been established that the intelligence units were aware of this attack and a group of responsible people were informed about the impending attack," he said. "However, this information has been circulated among only a few officials."

As Sri Lanka's leaders wrangled in the aftermath of an apparent homegrown terrorist attack and massive intelligence failure, security was heightened Tuesday for a national day of mourning and the military was employing powers to make arrests it last used when the devastating civil war ended in 2009.

The six near-simultaneous attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels and three related blasts later Sunday were the South Asian island nation's deadliest violence in a decade. Wijewardene said the death toll from the attack now stood at 321 people, with 500 wounded.

Word from international intelligence agencies that a local group was planning attacks apparently didn't reach the prime minister's office until after the massacre, exposing the continuing political turmoil in the highest levels of the Sri Lankan government.

On April 11, Priyalal Disanayaka, Sri Lanka's deputy inspector general of police, signed a letter addressed to the directors of four Sri Lankan security agencies, warning them that a local group was planning a suicide attack in the country.

The intelligence report attached to his letter, which has circulated widely on social media, named the group allegedly plotting the attack, National Towheed Jamaar, said it was led by Zahran Hashmi, and was targeting "some important churches" in a suicide terrorist attack that was planned to take place "shortly." The report named six individuals likely to be involved in the plot.

On Monday, Sri Lanka's health minister held up a copy of the intelligence report while describing its contents, spurring questions about what Sri Lanka police had done to protect the public from an attack.

It was not immediately clear what steps were taken by any of these security directors. Disanayaka did not answer calls or messages seeking comment.

Among the 40 people arrested on suspicion of links to the bombings were the driver of a van allegedly used by the suicide bombers and the owner of a house where some of them lived.

Heightened security was evident an international airport outside the capital where security personnel walked explosive-sniffing dogs and checked car trunks and questioned drivers on roads nearby. Police also ordered that anyone leaving a parked car unattended on the street must put a note with their phone number on the windscreen, and post officers were not accepting pre-wrapped parcels.

A block on most social media since the attacks has left a vacuum of information, fueling confusion and giving little reassurance the danger had passed. Even after an overnight curfew was lifted, the streets of central Colombo were mostly deserted Tuesday and shops closed as armed soldiers stood guard.

Sri Lankan authorities also Tuesday planned to brief foreign diplomats and receive assistance from the FBI and other foreign intelligence-gathering agencies.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he feared the massacre could unleash instability and he vowed to "vest all necessary powers with the defense forces" to act against those responsible.

Authorities said they knew where the group trained and had safe houses, but did not identify any of the seven suicide bombers, whose bodies were recovered, or the other suspects taken into custody. All seven bombers were Sri Lankans, but authorities said they strongly suspected foreign links.

Also unclear was a motive. The history of Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka, a country of 21 million including large Hindu, Muslim and Christian minorities, is rife with ethnic and sectarian conflict.

In the 26-year civil war, the Tamil Tigers, a powerful rebel army known for using suicide bombers, was finally crushed by the government in 2009 but had little history of targeting Christians. Anti-Muslim bigotry fed by Buddhist nationalists has swept the country recently, but there is no history of Islamic militancy. Its small Christian community has seen only scattered incidents of harassment.

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