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

PewDiePie released a video on Sunday calling for end to the movement.

By Meagan Flynn, The Washington Post | Updated: 30 April 2019 12:06 ISTShare on FacebookTweetShareEmailRedditComment

On the day a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques in the worst terrorist attack in New Zealand history, the shooter also ushered PewDiePie, one of YouTube’s biggest stars, onto an unwanted stage: The terrorist invoked his name.

“Remember lads, Subscribe to PewDiePie,” the shooter said during a live stream of the mass shooting last month.

The shooter was referring to a grass roots movement among PewDiePie’s fans to keep his YouTube channel in the No. 1 slot as an Indian channel threatened his top status. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg and who has courted controversies involving racism in the past, immediately distanced himself from the terrorist, saying in a since-deleted tweet that he felt “absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person.”

But until Sunday, he had otherwise remained silent about the entire episode, and about how the worldwide “Subscribe to PewDiePie” fan movement had in some cases been hijacked by those seeking to spread hate.

On Sunday, he released a YouTube video calling for an end to the “subscribe” movement and addressing the New Zealand shooting for the first time on his channel. His message comes just after the accused San Diego synagogue shooter, John Earnest, apparently published a manifesto online in which he also referenced PewDiePie.

“To have my name associated with something so unspeakably vile has affected me in more ways than I might have shown,” the 29-year-old Swedish YouTuber said of the New Zealand attacker. “I just didn’t want to address it right away, and I didn’t want to give the terrorist any more attention. I didn’t want to make it about me. Because I don’t think it has anything to do with me. To put it plainly, I didn’t want hate to win.

“It’s clear to me now,” he added, “the ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ movement should have ended then.”

With more than 95 million subscribers, Kjellberg long held claim to the title of YouTube’s most popular channel until recently. But as he promoted an anti-Semitic YouTube channel, produced videos that cracked dark jokes about anti-Semitism and Nazis and once yelled the n-word while playing a video game, critics raised alarms about his influence on the young and impressionable.

The “Subscribe to PewDiePie” movement evoked some of those same concerns – culminating, of course, with its invocation during the Christchurch massacre.

The grass roots effort started harmlessly enough last year, with viral videos and pranks all seeking to promote the channel as the Indian channel T-Series encroached on PewDiePie’s subscriber count. Before long it turned into a full-fledged, worldwide publicity battle for the title. A fellow YouTuber, Mr. Beast, bought billboard ads and radio and television spots to relentlessly promote PewDiePie. A cheerleader squad performed a routine carrying “Subscribe to PewDiePie” signs. People wore “Subscribe to PewDiePie” T-shirts and posted fliers advertising his channel on telephone poles.

But then it started to go awry.

“Something I learned – and hopefully it’s something you can understand – is when you have 90 million people riled up about something, you’re bound to get a few degenerates,” Kjellberg said Sunday.

First, there were the hackers. Some of them hacked printers, managing to spew “Subscribe to PewDiePie” messaging worldwide. Others hacked the Wall Street Journal, publishing a mock apology to PewDiePie, which the newspaper immediately deleted.

Then there were the vandals. In March, a week before the New Zealand shooting, “Subscribe to PewDiePie” appeared scrawled three times on a World War II memorial in Brooklyn.

“Just so disgusting, so disappointing to have my name and community dragged into that,” Kjellberg said Sunday. “I addressed it on Twitter. I disavowed it. We saw that it got removed and donated to the park. I hoped that was going to be it.”

But it wasn’t, of course.

Two weeks after the New Zealand terrorist invoked his name, Kjellberg uploaded a mock music video targeting T-Series that India’s high court found so offensive that it ordered it blocked within the country. The video was one of two “diss tracks” that Kjellberg created during the battle with T-Series over YouTube’s top slot. An Indian judge said a quick perusal of the videos revealed “repeated comments made which are abusive, vulgar and also racist in nature.”

On Sunday, Kjellberg said the videos were just “made in fun, ironic jest,” but also expressed regret, saying it’s “clearly not fun anymore” and has “clearly gone too far.” He said he would comply with the court order.

“This negative rhetoric is something I don’t agree with at all,” he said, “and I want that to stop, and to make it perfectly clear: No, I’m not racist. I don’t support any form of racist comments or hate towards anyone.”

Kjellberg came under fire in 2017 after the Wall Street Journal reported on nine inflammatory videos that, with a combined 23 million views, contained content seen as insensitive, racist and anti-Semitic. In one, two men laughed as they held a sign that said, “Death to all Jews.” In another, a man dressed as Jesus said, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong,” and in another Kjellberg threw out the “Sieg Heil” Nazi salute during a mock video. A neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, endorsed his videos. Whether Kjellberg intended to be racist or was kidding, they wrote, “The effect is the same; it normalizes Nazism, and marginalizes our enemies,” as the New York Times reported.

Disney, which owned a firm that operated Kjellberg’s business, severed ties with Kjellberg over the videos the Journal unearthed. YouTube pulled a reality show series in which Kjellberg starred, TechCrunch reported.

At the time, Kjellberg disavowed hate groups in a statement as well.

“I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes,” he said in a statement posted to his Tumblr account in February 2017. “I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.”

On Sunday, Kjellberg rejected the idea that the “Subscribe to PewDiePie” movement had anything to do with politics, race or nationality, and said he hoped that gaining more followers will stop being simply about “beating another channel.”

While India grapples with the blacklisting of Masood Azhar in the United Nations Security Council, Pakistan has said that it is open to the listing of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, as long as it was not related to the Pulwama terror attack. The comments were made by Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Mohammad Faisal on a Pakistani TV show, Islamabad Views, on Sunday.

“(India should) give evidence that Masood Azhar had anything to do with the attack in Pulwama. If that is not the case, then we can discuss the listing. It is not a big issue,” Faisal said. Stating that the Pulwama attack was a separate issue, Faisal said that his country had said, several times, that India was trying to “suppress” the indigenous uprising in Jammu and Kashmir.

Faisal’s statement comes days after the United Kingdom said it was optimistic that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar will soon be declared a global terrorist by the United Nations even as it called for “verifiable” and “irreversible” action against terror groups by Pakistan. 

Last month, China put a technical hold on a fresh proposal to impose a ban on Azhar, the head of Pakistan-based JeM which claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack. It was for the fourth time, China blocked Azhar’s listing.

“We are strong supporter of listing of Azhar. We hope there will be conclusion to the issue soon,” Asquith added.

The fresh proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US, in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

Agencies

A ban on all face veils was proposed by MP Ashu Marasinghe at a recent meeting of Sri Lankan cabinet.

Exactly a week after the Easter Sunday suicide bombings killed 253 people in the island nation, Sri Lanka issued a Presidential decree banning all forms of face covers including Islamic garments such as burqa.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena approved the call for a ban on the face covering under an emergency law.

In a press release issued late on Sunday, the government said, “Any form of face covering that will hinder identification of a person is banned under emergency regulations.”

“The ban is to ensure national security…No one should obscure their faces to make identification difficult,” the statement added.

A ban on all face veils was proposed by MP Ashu Marasinghe at a recent meeting of Sri Lankan cabinet.

Marasinghe, a member of the United National Party, had also declared on Facebook that he was going to present a private member’s bill about the issue. He said that the garment is not “a traditional Muslim attire”.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had advised the government to defer the matter until talks with Islamic clerics could be held.

The ban on face veils does not apply on hijab and chador as the two garments do not cover the face.

According to reports, the influential All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama too had asked women to avoid wearing a burqa or niqab in order to help security forces.

Reports state that Muslims across the country are concerned about their safety. Many have stopped wearing the burqa.

Authorities in Sri Lanka said that a total of 106 suspects have been arrested in multiple raids carried out across the country since the 21 April blasts at three churches and three five-star hotels.

Police are continuing their search for other members of the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), the local terror outfit and splinter group of the Islamic State, which carried out the blast.

President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that over 130 suspects linked to the terror group have been operating in the country. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka needs new laws to deal with threats posed by local terror outfits linked to ISIS.

The blasts also left at least 500 people injured in the serial bombings as well.R

Madrid, Apr 29 : The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has led in the Spanish election on Sunday when 95.60 percent of the votes have been counted, but will need to pact with other parties in order to form a government.
According to data published by the Spanish Interior Ministry with 95.60 percent of the votes counted, the PSOE won 28.72 percent of the votes to gain 122 seats in the 350-seat Spanish Congress.
It is 37 more than that in the June 2016 election when they won 22.63 percent of the vote and 85 seats.
The big loser of the night is the right wing People’s Party, who have seen their representation in Congress halved. The party led by Pablo Casado saw their vote share crash from 33.01 percent, which gave them 137 seats in June 2016, to 16.69 percent, just 65 seats.
Ciudadanos led by Albert Rivera has seen their share of the votes climb from 13.06 percent to 15.82 percent which is translated into 57 seats, 25 more than in the last election.
Sunday also saw the extreme right wing Vox party claim their first ever seats in the Congress. The party led by Santiago Abascal claimed 10.26 percent of the vote and won 24 seats, although it is below the 30-32 seats opinion polls had expected them to win.
The leftist party Unidos-Podemos also saw their share of the votes fall from 16.97 percent to 14.30 percent and the number of representatives reduced from 71 to 42.

The bodies of 15 people, including six children, were discovered at the site of a fierce overnight gun battle on the east coast of Sri Lanka, a military spokesman said on Saturday, six days after suicide bombers killed more than 250 people.

The shootout between troops and suspected Islamist militants erupted on Friday evening in Sainthamaruthu in Ampara, to the south of the town of Batticaloa, site of one of the Easter Sunday blasts at three churches and four luxury hotels.

A police spokesman said that three suspected suicide bombers were among the 15 dead after the shoot out.

One child caught in the crossfire was admitted to hospital.

Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said in a statement that as troops headed towards the safe house three explosions were triggered and gunfire began.

“Troops retaliated and raided the safe house where a large cache of explosives had been stored,” he said in a statement.

He said the militants were suspected members of the domestic Islamist group National Towheed Jama’at (NTJ), which has been blamed for last Sunday’s attacks.

Bomb-making materials, dozens of gelignite sticks and thousands of metal balls were found in a search of a separate house in the same area, the military said.

The government has said nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers carried out the Easter Sunday attacks, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman.

Police said on Friday they were trying to track down 140 people they believe have links with Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings.

Police have detained at least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far. Twenty were arrested in the past 24 hours alone, they said.

Authorities warn of more attacks 

Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home on Friday after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence.

Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence have already caused Muslim communities to flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps.

The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centres.

Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters he had seen a leaked internal security document warning of further attacks on churches and there would be no Catholic masses this Sunday anywhere on the island.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers were deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centres, the military said.

Authorities have so far focused their investigations on international links to two domestic groups they believe carried out the attacks, NTJ and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim.

Intelligence failure 

Officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing intelligence warnings from India of possible attacks.

President Maithripala Sirisena said on Friday that top defence and police chiefs had not shared information with him about the impending attacks.

He blamed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government for weakening the intelligence system by focusing on prosecution of military officers over alleged war crimes during a decades-long civil war with Tamil separatists that ended in 2009.

Sirisena fired Wickremesinghe in October over political differences, only to reinstate him weeks later under pressure from the Supreme Court.

Opposing factions aligned to Wickremesinghe and Sirisena have often refused to communicate with each other and blame any setbacks on their opponents, government sources say.

The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since the civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended.

Sri Lanka’s 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island’s conflict and communal tensions.

Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 40 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck.

They included British, US, Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals this week to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary.

Agencies

US President Donald Trump’s proposals on nuclear arms disarmament is “not serious,” a Kremlin spokesman said on Saturday.

Trump has ordered his administration to prepare a push for new arms-control agreements with Russia and China citing the cost of the 21st-century nuclear arms race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday citing administration officials.

“It would be ideal to clean up the whole world from the nuclear weapon…but on the other hand we would have been deprived of the deterrent factor,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road plan. “Don’t forget about the deterrent factor, about the deterrent parity,” he said.

Peskov also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held substantial talks and exchanged views on Syria, Venezuela and Libya when they met on Friday.
 

Agencies