Muslims in Sri Lanka were viewed as a “model community” that supported the government in the fight against the Tamil Tiger rebels in the civil war that ended in 2009, RSIS terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said. It was only after the 2001 attacks in the United States and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq, he said, that radical preachers began coming to Sri Lanka, often from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and extremists began more regularly posting online hate.