Sweden will reopen a preliminary investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Julian Assange is to be investigated in Sweden over a rape case dating from August 2010, prosecutors announced on Monday.

The WikiLeaks founder, currently held in Belmarsh prison in London, now faces possible extradition from Britain.

“My assessment is there is still probably cause [to investigate] rape and a lesser offence,” Eva-Marie Persson, Sweden’s deputy director of public prosecutions, said.

Sweden had first issued an arrest warrant and declared Assange an “internationally wanted suspect” in November 2010.

But after Assange skipped bail in the UK and went into hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the extradition order was impossible to enforce.

In November 2016, Assange was interviewed by Ecuadorian prosecutors after an agreement was reached between Sweden and Ecuador to cooperate in criminal investigations.

Julian Assange sentenced to 50 weeks for skipping UK bail

“Mr Assange was recently sentenced to 50 weeks in prison [in the UK],” Persson said. “He will serve 25 weeks before he is eligible for release.

“My intention is to submit to the district court today to appoint a public defender. It is also my intention in the near future [to ask] that the district court order Mr Assange remanded in absentia.

“I will proceed to issue a European arrest warrant providing for him to be extradited to Sweden after serving his sentence in the UK,” she said, at a press conference in Stockholm.

The US also wants to extradite Assange over his publishing of leaked military videos showing the killing of civilians in Iraq, as well as thousands of other documents. Persson said she expected the US to submit a formal extradition request to the UK no later than June 14, 2019. A decision on which extradition request would be given greater priority “will be left entirely to the British authorities”.

“If he’s extradited to Sweden, he must not be extradited to a third country without the consent of the British authorities,” she said.

“A future Brexit will not, according to available information, impact on the case.”

Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer said he was “very surprised” by the decision and said his client was innocent.

“I do not understand the Swedish prosecutor’s… reasoning for reopening a 10-year old case,” Per E Samuelsen told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

Swedish prosecutors had filed preliminary charges in 2010 after two women said they were victims of sex crimes committed by Assange when he visited the country.READ MORE

Julian Assange to fight extradition to US

Seven years later, a case of alleged sexual misconduct was dropped when the statute of limitations expired.

That left a rape allegation, and the case was closed as it could not be pursued while Assange was living at the embassy and there was no prospect of bringing him to Sweden.

The statute of limitations on that case does not expire until August 17, 2020.

“The reason the previous investigation was closed was not through lack of evidence, but because Julian Assange was in the Ecuadorian embassy,” said Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan.

Swedish prosecutors could interview Assange in prison via videolink, they said. “While Mr Assange is serving his sentence in the UK, I intend to further the investigation as much as possible,” Persson said. 

“I would like to make the following very clear: My decision to re-open the preliminary investigation is not an indication of whether to file an indictment with the court,” Persson added.

In a statement, WikiLeaks said there had been “considerable political pressure” on Swedish prosecutors to reopen their investigation. “Its reopening will give Julian a chance to clear his name,” Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, said in a statement.

Assange has denied the allegations against him, asserting that they were politically motivated and that the sex with the two women who have accused him was consensual.

The 47-year-old Australian met the women in connection with a lecture in August 2010 in Stockholm. One was involved in organising an event for Sweden’s centre-left Social Democratic Party and offered to host Assange at her apartment. The other was in the audience.

Assange left Sweden for Britain in September 2010. In November that year, a Stockholm court approved a request to detain Assange for questioning. 

He was arrested by British police on April 11 after a change in leadership in Ecuador revoked his political asylum. A letter signed by more than 70 MPs, across the political divide, urged Home Secretary Sajid Javid to prioritise any extradition request to Sweden over any from the United States.

“There are a couple of factors Sajid Javid has to consider,” added Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan. “There is the relative seriousness of the offences – for the American case, that’s about official secrets and treason – and in the Swedish case, an allegation of rape – and it’s up to the home secretary to compare those and decide which is of greater seriousness.

“Then there’s also the issue of chronology – which extradition request came first. And it also seems in the Extradition Act that there is a distinction between European and non-European requests – the suggestion seems to be that a European arrest warrant request would get precendence over a non-European one, but given the close relationship between Britain and the United States, it’s entirely up to the home secretary to make a decision at his discretion.”

Aljazeera

The US military has stepped up its campaign of air raids in Somalia since President Donald Trump took office.

The US military has killed 13 ISIL fighters in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region in an air attack, it said, days after another raid killed three.

The US military has stepped up its campaign of air raids in Somalia since President Donald Trump took office, saying it has killed more than 800 fighters in two years.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has gathered recruits in Puntland, although experts say the scale of its force is unclear and it remains a small player compared with the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group that once controlled much of Somalia.

What you need to know about Africa’s refugees

US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said late on Thursday that the latest raid on Wednesday targeted an ISIL-Somalia camp in the Golis Mountains.

“At this time, it is assessed the air strike on May 8 killed 13 terrorists,” it said.

In April, AFRICOM had said it killed Abdulhakim Dhuqub, identifying him as ISIL’s deputy leader in Somalia.

Last month, AFRICOM also said it has resumed air raids against the al-Shabab group in Somalia after a brief pause that followed a critical report condemning the “shroud of secrecy around civilian deaths” caused by the US military.

The aerial bombardment was believed to be the first since Amnesty International said in a March 18 report that 14 civilians had been killed and seven wounded in the course of five air raids between April 2017 and December 2018, all attributed to the US military.

Initially, AFRICOM denied its operations had resulted in any civilian deaths, but later acknowledged that a woman and a child had been killed in an April 2018 raid. 

Somalia has been mired in a civil war and armed rebellion since 1991 when clan warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on each other.

Al-Shabab was pushed out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011, but retains a strong presence in parts of southern and central Somalia and has often clashed with the ISIL.

Aljazeera

Sri Lankan authorities Monday extended by 48 hours the deadline for the public to surrender swords, daggers, sharp weapons and clothing similar to that of military uniforms as part of a crackdown on suspects following the Easter Sunday bombings which killed over 250 people.

On Saturday, the Sri Lankan police asked the public to hand over swords and large knives to the nearest police station after a large haul of weapons, including swords, and camouflaged materials were recovered during searches of mosques and houses.

“The time period granted to hand in swords, daggers, sharp weapons and clothing similar to that of military uniforms has been extended by 48 hours. The time period set to hand in such objects was to expire at midnight today (Monday),” News 1st channel reported.

The police Head Office has taken all necessary steps to inform the police stations across the country about the extension, police media spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekara said.

According to the police, several people including politicians were arrested for possessing sharp-edged weapons like swords since the crackdown began to arrest the suspects and their network, following the April 21 blasts which killed 253 people and injured over 500 others.

The Islamic State terror group claimed the attacks, but the government blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ).

Sri Lanka banned the NTJ and arrested over 100 people in connection with the blasts.

Sri Lanka has imposed a state of emergency since the attacks and given sweeping powers to soldiers and police to arrest and detain suspects for long periods.

House-to-house searches are being carried out across the country looking for explosives and propaganda material of Islamic extremists. 

Agencies

Rockets and missiles from Gaza killed four civilians in Israel, while Israeli strikes killed 19 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, in surging cross-border fighting on Sunday, according to Gazan officials and the Israeli military.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the military to continue “massive strikes” against Gaza’s ruling Hamas group and Islamic Jihad in the most serious border clashes since a spate of fighting in November.

Israel’s military said that more than 600 rockets and other projectiles – over 150 of them intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system – had been fired at southern Israeli cities and villages since Friday.

It said it attacked more than 260 targets belonging to Gaza militant groups. Gaza officials said Israeli air strikes and artillery fire killed 27 people, including 14 civilians, since Friday.

A rocket that hit a house in Ashkelon on Sunday killed a 58-year-old man, police said. He was the first such Israeli civilian fatality since the seven-week Gaza war in 2014.

Another rocket strike killed a factory worker, a hospital official said. The military said a civilian was killed near the border by an anti-tank missile fired at his car from Gaza and a fourth died when a rocket struck the city of Ashdod.

In Gaza, militant groups identified eight fighters killed in Israeli strikes, while medical officials said that nine civilians also died, including a couple and their baby daughter.

In what it said was a separate, targeted attack, Israel’s military killed Hamed Ahmed Al-Khodary, a Hamas commander. The military said he was responsible for transferring funds from Iran to armed factions in Gaza. Hamas confirmed Khodary had been killed.

The attack on his car was the first such killing by Israel of a top militant since the war five years ago. Israel had suspended what Palestinians call an assassination policy in an attempt to lower tensions.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh issued a statement late on Sunday saying his group was not seeking a broader conflict and held out the possibility of a ceasefire, although sirens warning of rocket fire continued to sound in Israeli cities into the night.

President Donald Trump expressed full US support for Israel and called for an end to the rocket attacks, saying Gazans would only face more hardship and that it was time to seek peace.

“Once again, Israel faces a barrage of deadly rocket attacks by terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We support Israel 100% in its defence of its citizens… To the Gazan people — these terrorist acts against Israel will bring you nothing but more misery. END the violence and work towards peace – it can happen!,” Trump said in a message on Twitter.

Sirens and explosions

The sounds of sirens and explosions reverberated on both sides of the frontier on Sunday, fraying nerves and keeping schools closed.

Israel halted supplies from its main natural gas field. The Tamar field’s offshore production platform is in range of Palestinian rockets. Israel also stopped fuel imports into Gaza through the main Kerem Shalom crossing.

The latest round of violence began two days ago when an Islamic Jihad sniper fired at Israeli troops, wounding two soldiers, according to the Israeli military.

Islamic Jihad accused Israel of delaying implementation of previous understandings brokered by Egypt in an effort to end violence and ease blockaded Gaza’s economic hardship.

This time, Israeli strategic affairs analysts said, both Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants appeared to believe they had some leverage to press for concessions from Israel, where independence day celebrations begin on Wednesday.

In two weeks, Israel is also hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, the target of a Gaza rocket attack in March. That attack caused no damage. On Sunday, sirens sounded in the city of Rehovot, 17 km (11 miles) southeast of Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu, who doubles as defence minister, convened his security Cabinet, which issued a statement saying it had ordered the military “to continue its strikes and to prepare for the next stages”.

Ramadan approaching

For residents in Gaza, the escalation comes a day before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins in the territory on Monday. It is traditionally a time for prayer, family feasts to break daylight fast and shopping.

Among the 14 Gazan civilians killed since Friday was a 14-month-old child and the child’s aunt, according to the health ministry. Israel’s military said the intelligence information showed they were killed by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

In Gaza, two Palestinian human rights groups described the cause of their deaths as an explosion with an as yet undetermined source.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the firing of rockets into Israel and urged all parties to “exercise maximum restraint”. A U.N. envoy said it was working with Egypt to try to end the fighting.

Israeli bombings in Gaza destroyed four multi-storey structures. Witnesses said the Israeli military had warned people inside to evacuate the buildings, which it alleged housed Hamas security facilities before they were hit.

Saeed Al-Nakhala, an owner of a clothing store in one of the buildings, said he had no time to save his merchandise.

“I was together with my son in the shop, there was a big noise and then another and people started to run. We left everything behind and escaped,” said Nakhala.

Some 2 million Palestinians live in Gaza, the economy of which has suffered years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades as well as recent foreign aid cuts and sanctions by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas’ West Bank-based rival.

Israel says its blockade is necessary to stop weapons reaching Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew its settlers and troops from the area.

Agencies

TV footage shows plane making a crash landing with much of its rear part engulfed in flames.

At least 41 people on board a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane were killed when it caught fire while making an emergency landing at a Moscow airport on Sunday.

Television footage showed the Sukhoi Superjet-100 making the crash landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport with much of the rear part of the plane engulfed in flames.

The harrowing video showed passengers leaping from the front of the burning plane onto an inflatable slide and staggering across tarmac and grass.

At least two children were among the dead, Russian investigators were cited by the Interfax news agency as saying.

Another 11 people were injured, said Dmitry Matveyev, the Moscow region’s health minister. Three were hospitalised but they were not in a serious condition.

The airport said in a statement the plane turned back for unspecified technical reasons and made a hard landing that started the fire.

“Investigators soon will begin interviewing victims, eyewitnesses, airport staff and the airline carrier, as well as other persons responsible for the operation of the aircraft,” Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.

Seventy-eight on board

News agencies said the Sukhoi aircraft, which had been flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk before turning back, was carrying 73 passengers and five crew members.

“As the aircraft was gaining altitude, about seven minutes into the flight and at about 10,000 feet, the aircraft started to descend,” Anil Padhra, an aerospace engineer, told media.

“This shows that the pilots were aware that something was wrong with the aircraft. They knew that they had to get back to the airport.”

Citing an anonymous source, Interfax said the plane landed with its fuel tanks full because – having lost contact with air traffic controllers – it was too dangerous to dump its fuel tanks over Moscow.

“It attempted an emergency landing but did not succeed the first time, and on the second time the landing gear hit [the ground], then the nose did and it caught fire,” the source said.

The Flightradar24 tracking service showed the aircraft circled twice over Moscow before making the emergency descent and landing after about 45 minutes.

“We had just taken off and the aircraft was hit by lightning… The landing was rough, I almost passed out from fear,” the tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted one passenger, Petr Egorov, as saying.

Agencies

Terrorists in Sri Lanka are believed to be planning attacks on bridges in Colombo, authorities said, as they warned several conspirators in the Easter Sunday bombings that killed over 250 people still at large.

Police confirmed they had instructed stations around Colombo to deploy additional officers and asked the navy to deploy more vessels on rivers, following leaks of police intelligence reports warning bridges into the capital were at risk of attack.

Sri Lanka’s military has also set up a special command centre to coordinate anti-jihadist operations, while the army said more troops have been deployed for search operations.

Additional troops conducted searches overnight and seized explosives and weapons from several locations, although these were from criminal groups and not jihadists, official sources said.

“Extensive cordon and search operations of the army and sister services across the country with assistance of the police are continuing in search of terrorists, hideouts, explosives, weapons and other warlike items… with the deployment of more and more troops as required,” the army said in a statement.

Authorities had information about a small group of radicals who may be trying to stage more strikes, said health minister and government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne, who added that the crackdown on extremists after the Easter bombings had been largely successful.

“You can’t say the threat is over, but the situation is well under control… better than what we expected.”

But the government was also still on the hunt for “four terrorists” involved in the Easter attacks who were still at large, Senaratne said.

The Catholic Church announced Thursday that they had called off the resumption of Sunday services following information of a “specific threat” against two of their locations just outside the capital.

Catholic schools which were due to reopen after an extended Easter holiday will now be put off indefinitely.

Public schools are due to reopen on Monday under tight security.

Sri Lankan authorities have admitted that there was a failure to act on advance intelligence warnings of the deadly Easter Sunday attacks against churches and luxury hotels.

Senaratne said the country’s minority Muslim community had helped authorities root out extremists in the weeks since.

“Everyone is giving information. They come forward to give a lot of information,” he said.

Sri Lanka was also receiving international help, with foreign intelligence services working alongside their local counterparts, Senaratne added.

“We have already received foreign assistance from the US, UK and from India. There are other countries also which have offered intelligence services,” he said.

Soon after the attacks, President Maithripala Sirisena said he believed there were 140 Islamic State-inspired jihadists in Sri Lanka and he had ordered security forces to track them down.

Since then, authorities have been carrying out nationwide cordon-and-search operations and have detained hundreds of people. Some have been released after questioning.

The Easter attacks were blamed on the local National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) whose leader was among the suicide bombers. The group had pledged an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Agencies

Gaza, May 2 : A delegation, including Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad movement, on Thursday left Gaza Strip through Rafah border to Egypt to discuss the understanding of the truce with Israel, according to officials of the two movements.
Khader Habib, the leader of Islamic Jihad, told Xinhua that the visit is upon to the call of Egypt to discuss the improvements of the Palestinian situations and the understandings of truce with Israel.
Habib accused Israel of trying to shirk its obligations on the understandings to break the blockade that has been imposed on Gaza Strip since 2007, adding “Israel is responsible for any escalation will be launched in the Strip.”
Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar have been in talks for several months between the Palestinian factions in Gaza and Israel to promote the truce following the protests of March 30, 2018 rallies demanding the lifting of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip since mid-2007.
Meanwhile, Bassem Na’im, the leader of Islamic Hamas movement, said “Israel is looking for any justifications to shirk its obligations on the understanding to break its blockade, what was committed to the United Nations and Egyptian mediator.”
Na’im added “the Palestinian people will not allow Israel in any way to continue its blockade against them or keep its shirking from the understandings to install the truce, under pretexts of flimsy.”
The Hamas and Islamic Jihad delegation is going to Egypt following field tensions with Israel after weeks of relative calm.
The Israeli army announced on Thursday that two rockets were fired from Gaza Strip toward the Israeli cities, with no injuries or damages reported.
No Palestinian factions claimed the responsibility for the shells.
The rockets were fired from Gaza in response to the Israeli air strikes that targeted a Hamas post in northern Gaza strip.

Afghan officials called for a ceasefire Thursday as a huge peace summit wound down in Kabul after thousands of delegates spent days discussing possible conditions for a peace deal with the Taliban.

This week’s “loya jirga”, or grand assembly, saw more than 3,000 religious and tribal leaders, politicians and representatives from across the country gather under tight security to discuss the possibility of peace. 

The Taliban, who were not at the talks, are this week separately meeting in Doha with US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in a bid to make a dealwith Washington that could see the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.

While the full results of the summit may not be announced until Friday, several committee leaders said they wanted to see an immediate pause in violence, which has continued apace across Afghanistan even with various peace summits taking place.

“Every day, Afghans are being killed without any reason. An unconditional ceasefire must be announced,” said Mohammad Qureshi, head of one of the jirga’s many committees. 

Huge swathes of Afghan society worry that if the US does make a deal with the Taliban, the militant Islamists would try to seize power and undo advances in women’s rights, media freedoms, and legal protections.

The Taliban has steadfastly refused to talk to the Afghan government, which it views as a puppet regime. 

That means that even if the US and the Taliban can agree to a deal to end the war and a timetable for an eventual troop withdrawal, the insurgents must still forge some kind of accord with Afghan politicians and tribal elders before an enduring ceasefire could kick in.

“We don’t want such a peace that women’s rights are not respected, freedom of expression are not ensured, elections are not held,” committee member Faizullah Jalal told the summit.

Several delegates also rejected Taliban and opposition calls for an interim government when President Ashraf Ghani’s term expires this month.

“It is you who will show the government the way towards peace and the government will do what you demand,” jirga chairman Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf said.

“No one will impose anything on you.”

Several opposition figures had boycotted the assembly, complaining it amounted to a political rally for Ghani, but Sayyaf said the summit was not aimed at supporting any particular candidate for the September presidential elections. 

The loya jirga is a centuries-old tradition in Afghanistan that has been convened at times of national crisis or to settle big issues.

Agencies

New Delhi’s counterterrorism focus on J&K has allowed jihadists to gain influence in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. ISIS has even named a ‘Bengal emir’. The situation is fraught and must be controlled.

As India seeks to address the terrorism challenge in Jammu and Kashmir, jihadist forces are quietly gaining ground in far-flung states, especially West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The situation in Assam is also fraught with danger. 

India can ignore this spreading threat at its own peril.

The ISIS, for example, has reportedly named a new ‘Bengal emir’. The Sri Lanka bombings, meanwhile, have helped highlight the growing cross-strait role of Islamist forces in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Such forces are affiliated with larger extremist networks or provide succour to radical groups elsewhere.

Terrible Sunday: Links have been found between Islamist forces in Tamil Nadu and the horrific bombings in Sri Lanka. (Source: Reuters)

The main group blamed for the Sri Lanka bombings — the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) — is an ideological offspring of the rapidly growing Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamaath (TNTJ). The Saudi-funded TNTJ, wedded to fanatical Wahhabism, is working to snuff out pluralistic strands of Islam. Such Arabisation of Islam is increasingly apparent in Muslim communities extending from Bangladesh and West Bengal to Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province. 

More broadly, the collapse of the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq has only intensified the terrorism challenge. Battle-hardened terrorist fighters returning home from Syria and Iraq have become a major counterterrorism concern in South and Southeast Asia, given their operational training, skills and experience to stage savage attacks. 

The presence of such returnees in Sri Lanka explains how an obscure local group carried out near-simultaneous strikes on three iconic churches and three luxury hotels, with the bombers detonating military-grade high explosives through suicide vests. Similar returnees are present in a number of other Asian countries.

The Sri Lanka attacks indeed underscore the potential of such returnees to wage terror campaigns in the same way that the activities of the Afghan war veterans, like Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, came to haunt the security of Asia, the Middle East and the West. 

The jihadist threat, however, is posed not only by the returnees from Syria and Iraq. Such a threat also arises from those elements who never left their countries but see violence as a sanctified tool of religion and a path to redemption. Such local forces extolling terror are gaining clout. 

The TNTJ in India, for example, helped to establish the Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamaath, from which the bomber outfit NTJ emerged as a splinter. In the current national elections in India, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and some other local political parties have openly courted the TNTJ.

Just as Bangladesh blamed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for instigating the 2016 brutal Dhaka café attack through a Bangladeshi outfit, Sri Lanka’s NTJ has ties with the ISI’s front organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The ISI and the LeT, through their joint Sri Lanka operations, have sought to establish cross-strait contacts with TNTJ activists in India. 

NTJ leader Zahran Hashim, who reportedly died in one of the Easter Sunday suicide bombings, was inspired by fugitive Indian Islamist preacher Zakir Naik’s jihad-extolling sermons. Hashim also reportedly received funds from jihadists in south India. 

India, despite providing detailed intelligence warnings to Sri Lanka about the bombing plot, has been slow in developing a credible strategy to counter the growing jihadist influence within its own borders. For example, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government initiated action against Zakir Naik only after the Dhaka café attack prompted Bangladesh to demand action against him. The prime minister, however, is right in saying that Naik enjoyed the patronage of the predecessor Manmohan Singh-led government — which, according to Modi, once invited Naik to address police personnel on the issue of terrorism!

Today, Naik is ensconced in Malaysia, which has granted him permanent residency. Yet, India has imposed no costs on Malaysia, such as cutting palm-oil imports from there, for sheltering a leading fugitive from Indian law. 

Like al-Qaeda at one time, ISIS seeks to show its continuing relevance by claiming responsibility for terror strikes that have occurred in places far from the areas where it has had presence. Rather than ISIS being directly involved in the Sri Lanka bombings, it is more likely that the ideology ISIS subscribes to — Wahhabi fanaticism — inspired those attacks. 

It takes months, not weeks, to motivate, train and equip a suicide bomber. So, the speculative comment that the Sri Lanka bombings were a reprisal to the March 15 Christchurch, New Zealand massacre made little sense, especially as it came from the Sri Lankan junior defence minister.

Fortunately, the Sri Lankan prime minister later walked back that speculation. 

Some portray the Sri Lanka terror attacks as ‘revenge’ for the killings in Christchurch, New Zealand. This is mistaken. (Source: AP)

Detaining a terrorist attacker’s family members for questioning has become a de facto international anti-terrorist practice. Sri Lanka quickly rounded up the bombers’ family members, including parents, for questioning once the suicide killers were identified. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation also detains a terrorist attacker’s family members for questioning — but not India.

For example, the Pulwama bomber’s family members not only remained free but also gave media interviews rationalising the February 14 suicide attack. 

Publicity is the oxygen of terrorism.

Terrorists rely on media publicity to provoke fear and demonstrate power.  

Unfortunately, in the absence of US-style media peer guidelines in India on terrorism-related coverage, Indian journalists supplied the oxygen of publicity by reporting allegations of the Pulwama bomber’s family members — including their claim that he was once roughed up by army or paramilitary soldiers. What the family members did not reveal was that the bomber had previously been detained on four separate occasions by J&K police, on suspicion of providing logistical assistance to the LeT, but that each time he was freed without the investigators getting to the bottom of his activities. 

Make no mistake: Islamist terror is closely connected with the spread of Wahhabism, the obscurantist and intolerant version of Islam bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and other oil sheikhdoms. Wahhabi fanaticism is terrorism’s ideological mother, whose offspring include ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, LeT and Boko Haram. 

Wahhabi fanaticism is terrorism’s ideological mother — its offspring include ISIS, LeT and Boko Haram. (Source: Reuters)

The jihadist threat in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam — like in Sri Lanka — is linked with the growing spread of Wahhabism. If left unaddressed, this scourge of Islamist extremism could become a major internal security crisis in India.

India’s counterterrorism focus on Jammu and Kashmir has allowed jihadists to gain influence in other states far from J&K. India needs to wake up to this spreading threat.

It must crack down on the preachers of hatred and violence. It also must rein in the increasing inflow of Saudi and other Gulf money so as to close the wellspring that feeds terrorism — Wahhabi fanaticism.

Agencies

The designation of Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN demonstrates the international commitment to rooting out terrorism in Pakistan and bringing security and stability to South Asia, the White House has said.

The UN sanctions committee on the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda on Wednesday announced the designation of Azhar, leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), over its ties to Al-Qaeda.

The JeM has claimed responsibility for the Pulwama suicide attack that killed 40 CRPF soldiers and led to a spike in military tensions between India and Pakistan.

Reacting to the development, Garrett Marquis, spokesperson of the National Security Council, White House said, “Designating Azhar demonstrates an international commitment to rooting out terrorism in Pakistan and bringing security and stability to South Asia”.

The US commends the United Nations Security Council 1267 Sanctions Committee for the designation of Azhar, the leader of JeM, a UN-designated terrorist group that was responsible for the February 14 terrorist attack in Kashmir that killed over 40 Indian security personnel, Marquis said in a statement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also welcomed the move and said that it is a victory for American diplomacy and the international community against terrorism.

Pompeo also congratulated the US mission in the UN which took the lead in America’s diplomatic effort to designate Azhar as a global terrorist, after China finally lifted its nearly 10-year technical hold on such an effort by India, the United States and other permanent members of the Security Council including Britain and France.

“Congrats to our team @USUN for their work in negotiating JEM’s Masood Azhar’s #UN designation as a terrorist,” Pompeo tweeted.

“This long-awaited action is a victory for American diplomacy and the international community against terrorism, and an important step towards peace in South Asia,” Pompeo said.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said that the JeM has been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks and is a serious threat to regional stability and peace in South Asia.

“The JeM was designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2001 and has been listed by the UN since 2001,” she said.

The US also designated Azhar as an SDGT in 2010.

“As JEM’s founder and leader, Azhar clearly met the criteria for designation by the UN. This listing requires all the UN member states to implement an asset freeze, a travel ban, and an arms embargo against Azhar. We expect all countries to uphold these obligations,” Ortagus said.

Today’s designation is an important step in promoting a peaceful and stable South Asia, she said.

“In line with this vision, we appreciate Pakistani Prime Minister Khan’s stated commitment that Pakistan, for the sake of its own future, will not allow militant and terrorist groups to operate from its territory,” Ortagus said.

The spokesperson said that the US looks forward to further and sustained actions from Pakistan as outlined in its National Action Plan consistent with its international obligations.

The UK has also welcomed the development. A British high commission spokesperson said it is “positive development for the security and stability of the South Asia region.” 

France was the first country to react on the listing of Masood Azhar on Wednesday calling it “successful realisation” of its efforts.

Azhar was released from prison in exchange for 155 hostages held on an Indian Airlines flight that had been hijacked to Kandahar in 1999. Since then, he is responsible for many terror attacks in India including the 2001 Parliament attack and 2019 Pulwama attack. 

Agencies