US adds hacktivists, social media manipulators to top intelligence threats

Current Affairs
The US counter-spy organization has said that digital and observation innovation progresses have duplicated the insight risk to the nation, putting hacktivists and online controllers on a standard with admired enemy Russia.
The biennial National Counterintelligence Strategy on Monday just because singled out enemy of mystery associations, autonomous programmers and Islamic fanatic gatherings as undercover work dangers requiring close consideration.
"The United States is confronting progressively forceful and complex dangers from remote knowledge administrations, just as state and non-state entertainers," said William Evanina, chief of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, which gave the report. Past versions of the report singled out Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, alongside transnational wrongdoing gatherings, as the focal spying dangers to the United States. The new methodology report includes Cuba, Hezbollah, Islamic State and Al-Qaeda as gatherings ready to attempt knowledge activities against the nation. Likewise, it records "ideologically persuaded substances, for example, hacktivists, leaktivists, and open revelation associations," and outsiders with no formal hierarchical fondness who additionally contrive to take touchy information and licensed innovation.

While the report didn't specify the gathering by name, obviously WikiLeaks, which has distributed a tremendous measure of taken US insider facts just as top mystery CIA hacking instruments, added to the move in risk discernment. The fast spread of cutting edge yet modest innovation for hacking and reconnaissance has made it feasible for anybody to represent a danger, the report said. It highlighted the far reaching accessibility of advances with insight applications like biometric gadgets, unmanned frameworks, high goals symbolism, upgraded reconnaissance gear, encryption, man-made reasoning, and advance hacking apparatuses...READ MORE

Sri Lanka bombings shatter decade of peace, bring back carnage of LTTE days

International News

The Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka shattered the island nation's peace just days before it would have marked ten years since the end of a 26-year civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal shows that since 2010, no Sri Lankan civilian had been killed in a terrorist incident until Sunday -- when seven suicide bombers, originally reported to be members of the National Thowheed Jamath, perpetrated a series of blasts that ripped through three churches and luxury hotels, killing over 350 people and wounding more than 500 others. The Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attacks.

With this, they brought back the spectre of violence in a country that saw an estimated 100,000 people killed during the conflict with the LTTE, which was fought to the bitter end.

The political conflict between the island's majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils dates back to the early 1950s, but the civil war, which came to define the struggle between the two groups, is considered to have begun in July of 1983. In 1975, youth members of the Tamil United Front had founded the LTTE. The LTTE would go on to run a violent campaign for a separate Tamil homeland, a "Tamil Eelam", in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years, bringing with it terror tactics such as suicide bombings.

The war begins:


 On July 23, 1983, the LTTE killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers, triggering the worst-ever racial riots in Sri Lanka. An estimated 2,000 people lost their lives and Tamils faced arbitrary arrests, with many being detained for long periods without a trial. This was the start of what the Tigers called the "First Eelam War".

The massacre in Sri Lanka has opened doors for strongman Rajapaksa's return

International News

On a sunny day in Colombo some 18 months ago, more than 500 members of Sri Lanka’s political and business elite gathered along the Indian Ocean coastline to celebrate the opening of the Shangri-La Hotel.

The star-studded event, featuring both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, underscored the importance of the property beyond simply attracting more tourists: It was also a monument to Sri Lanka’s resurgence following a brutal three-decade civil war between the mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and predominately Hindu Tamils.

The Shangri-La was built on the old site of the army headquarters, which was shifted outside the city after former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government won a decisive victory in 2009 with tactics criticized by human-rights activists.

Sitting within walking distance of the central bank, president’s house, prime minister’s residence and a $1.4 billion China-financed port city, the hotel embodied the shift in priority from security to economic growth.

The Easter Sunday bombings that tore apart the Shangri-La, two nearby luxury hotels and three Christian churches have made security a top-of-mind concern in Colombo once again.
While Sri Lankan officials are attributing the attacks to local group National ­Thowheed Jamaath, the Islamic State has asserted responsibility, saying it had targeted Christians and citizens of "alliance countries" -- those involved in the U.S.-led military coalition against IS in Syria.


 Sirisena said he would overhaul the top posts in the country’s security services and acknowledged there were "lapses on the part of defense authorities." Since 2017, Sri Lanka had received intelligence information about the emergence of terrorist groups including some who’d received training in foreign countries, he said in a statement released late on Tuesday.