The UN human rights chief on Wednesday termed Saudi Arabia’s mass executions of 37 men “shocking” and “abhorrent”, Al-Jazeera reported.

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said on Tuesday it beheaded dozens of its citizens over terrorism-related crimes, publicly pinning two of the bodies to a pole as a warning to others.

“I strongly condemn these shocking mass executions across six cities in Saudi Arabia yesterday,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement.

“It is particularly abhorrent that at least three of those killed were minors at the time of their sentencing,” she added.

The men had been convicted of charges including attacking security installations with explosives, killing a number of security officers, and cooperating with “enemy organisations” against the interests of the country.Bachelet said the executions were carried out despite repeated warnings from rights officials and UN rapporteurs about lack of due process and fair trial guarantees amid allegations that confessions were obtained through torture.

Former Pakistan captain and current Prime Minister Imran Khan and King of Swing Wasim Akram has been named in ESPNcricinfo’s all-time World Cup XI
According to the cricket website, ten of the playing XI featured in half or more of the sides. Of these, Wasim Akram was the only unanimous choice.

Cricinfo wrote that twenty-two members of their staff picked their alI-time World Cup XIs, from which they compiled a composite team. A total of 39 players featured in at least one of those 22 individual teams. Ten players featured in half or more of the sides. Of these, Wasim Akram was the only unanimous choice.

“The battle for the final spot was a close one: Kumar Sangakkara pipped the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya, Steve Waugh, Kapil Dev and AB de Villiers.” Cricinfo wrote.

Only two of the players in the final XI featured in a World Cup before 1992, both a reflection of how the ODI game has evolved and the average age of the selectors.

Only two of the players in the final XI of  featured in a World Cup before 1992, Cricinfo said.

Khan who has been named as captain of the side, represented Pakistan in 28 matches, scoring 666 runs and taking 34 wickets. The man behind Pakistan’s 1992 triumph was known to be steady with the bat and deadly with the ball.

Akram who is the other Pakistani named in the side played 38 matches and picked 55 wickets at an average of 23.83. Known as the greatest left-arm bowler of his generation, Akram swung the 1992 World Cup final Pakistan’s team’s way with bat and ball. He also lead his team to the final of the mega tournament in 1999.

The 38-year-old man, said to be the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka that killed 359 people, hailed from a coastal town in eastern Batticaloa where he ran his own radical mosque and had a reputation for making aggressive demands that the Shariah be implemented, security sources told The Indian Express.

Zaharan Hashim, founder of National Towheeth Jamaath, was also one of the two suicide bombers who detonated themselves at the five-star Shangri La hotel in Colombo.

On Wednesday, with President Maithripala Sirisena asking Sri Lanka’s defence secretary and police chief to quit for failing to act on intelligence warnings, officials said Hashim was among the eight suicide bombers who targeted churches and hotels in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.

Officials identified a ninth suicide bomber as the wife of one of the attackers — she blew herself up along with her three children when police raided her Colombo home hours after the blasts.

The Indian Express has learnt that police are now re-investigating the recent explosion of a motorcycle near Kattankudy, Hashim’s hometown in Batticaloa. Investigators suspect the explosion could have been a test for the explosives used in Sunday’s blasts. At the time, police had arrested the owner of the property where the explosion took place.

Residents said Hashim was feared in Kattankudy for his extremist views but also admired for his oratory skills by his small band of followers as well those opposed to his views. Kattankudy, incidentally, is where the LTTE attacked two mosques killing nearly 150 people in 1990. “He could talk very well. He used to say, we must live like how it has been said in the Koran, that you must cut off a person’s hand for stealing and that stoning was the punishment for adultery. He wanted to bring in the Shariah. But we used to argue that this is not Saudi Arabia, that we are a small minority in a Buddhist country and must live within the Constitution,” said Abdul Latheef Mohammed Sabeel, a local urban council member and an ex-member of the Kattankudy Mosques Federation.

Most residents only saw Hashim as an “aggressive loudmouth”, and realised recently that he had crossed over to violent radicalism after police linked him to the defacing of Buddha statues in central Sri Lanka last December. But even then, they did not expect him to be identified as one of the suicide bombers last Sunday.

Unlike some of the other bombers, Hashim was not from a wealthy family. Around 2007, said Sabeel, he was expelled from a tableeghi school in Kattankudy for arguing frequently with teachers. He then disappeared from town, and residents believe he enrolled himself at another such school in central Lanka.

“He returned with an Arabic certificate, and started preaching. Some people got attracted to him because he was a good speaker, and he gathered about 300 followers,” said Sabeel.

Hashim had several run-ins with local residents, a majority of whom remained unconvinced by his version of Islam, according to Sabeel. But three years ago, around the time he founded NJT, he set up his own mosque in Kattankudy.

“We complained to police, and wrote to the department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs to not register this body,” said Sabeel. Around this time, Hashim dropped out of view. Sabeel said the talk in town was he had been invited to preach in foreign countries.

On the website JaffnaMuslim.com, a writer identified as Muheed Jeeran, who claims to be a close friend of Hashim, said that after a police complaint following a clash between him and a section of Kattankudy residents, there was talk that he was living in the Maldives.

Hashim came on the radar again when police started hunting for him and another suspect for vandalising the Buddha statutes in Kegalle district. The search led to an 80-acre coconut farm in Puttalam where explosives, detonators and radical literature was discovered this January.
“The safe houses were normal residences, which ensured that their activities went unnoticed,” said the official, adding that the suicide vests used in the attacks were “not as sophisticated” as those assembled by the LTTE.

The female suicide bomber was the wife of the other Shangri-La bomber, who has been identified as the son of Mohammed Yusuf Ibrahim, an affluent businessman. Another son of the businessman was also among the bombers, investigators said.

Ibrahim, a well-known spice trader with political connections, has been arrested and is being questioned. One of the two sons — Inshad and Ilham — was among the four arrested after the explosives haul at the Puttalam farm, but was released later.

The Indian Express

An Indian Air Force review of its February 26 air strike on Balakot in Pakistan has shown that its aircraft hit five of six designated mean point of impact (DMPI) on buildings in the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror training complex. The detailed review, two sources conversant with it told The Indian Express, focuses on the strengths, weaknesses and lessons learnt from the air operation.

While acknowledging there could be a better weapon to target-matching and a better feedback loop to win the propaganda war, the review has highlighted the positives in terms of maintaining surprise, security of operations, pilot proficiency and accuracy of the weapon used. It also has hitherto unpublished details of the operation based on extensive debriefing and assessment.
According to sources, the operation had planned to use six Israeli Spice 2000 Penetrator type PGM (precision-guided munition) to hit the targets, and five of them had hit the designated mean point of impact (DMPI) on the buildings in the Balakot complex.

One PGM, sources said, did not leave the Mirage 2000 aircraft because it is a 35-year old legacy aircraft and there was drift in the inertial navigation system. It meant that there was a mismatch between the location seen by the PGM and the aircraft at the point of the delivery of the PGM, which led to it not being fired from the aircraft.Moreover, the IAF had also carried the Crystal Maze AGM 142 munition along with the Spice 2000 to hit the target. The Crystal Maze PGM could not, however, be fired because of heavy cloud cover which did not allow pilots to have a line of sight over the target area.
With its backward data linkage, Crystal Maze would have provided a video image of the target being hit which would have helped IAF quell doubts raised in the international media about the effectiveness of its air strike.
“In hindsight, we achieved our aim, hitting five of the six DMPI. Only one was unused. But considering the nature of the propaganda war that needed to be won, we could have used a weapon which would have flattened the target and we could have also sent a platform that gets us clear images or video of the destruction,” sources said.

The IAF has Spice 2000 penetrator type PGM, and not Spice 2000 Mark 84, in its inventory which can be fired from a stand-off distance — in this case, from the Indian side of the Line of Control. One of the rules of engagement stipulated for the operation was not to cross the LoC, although some Mirage 2000 aircraft, which were trying to fire Crystal Maze, did cross over to the other side to get a better line of sight on the target.
The review has highlighted the fact that full surprise was achieved by the IAF, through the selection of target, means of operation and use of deception. This happened after Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was on full air defence alert mode, as seen by 6-8 airfields from where aircraft were scrambled after Balakot was hit.

The target selected was in the middle of nowhere, providing surprise at an operational level, and the deception used was so effective that the closest PAF aircraft were 150 km away, near Bahawalpur, from the IAF fighters.

Moreover, the IAF has concluded that the security of the operation was of the highest order with no breach of communication networks despite the fact that more than 6,000 people were involved in one way or the other. But the actual target at Balakot was known to less than 10 persons in Air Headquarters.
The assessment has also shown that the accuracy of weapons used was better than stated — Spice 2000 PGM has a circular error of probability of 3 metre — with the targets being accurately hit despite multiple PGMs hitting the same target. This has given greater confidence to the IAF on the use of Spice 2000 PGM.

The review found pilot proficiency to be of the highest level, with commanding officers leading from the front. It is learnt that five of the pilots have been recommended for gallantry awards.

The Indian Express