Days after a series of explosions that appeared to target Christians and foreigners at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka and left more than 300 people dead, some details of who was behind the attacks and their motives are beginning to come out.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks Tuesday, while Sri Lankan authorities said Islamist extremists had carried out the attacks in retaliation for attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, that left 50 Muslims dead.
But big, unanswered questions remain about how the attacks were possible and what links exist between the Islamic State and local extremists, if any. Here, we try to break these questions down.
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Why did the Islamic State claim of responsibility take so long?

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledge to build a new community named after US President Donald Trump on the Golan Heights in gratitude for the president’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty on the strategically important territory.
During a family visit to the Golan Heights, Netanyahu said that “all Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty on the Golan Heights.”
“Therefore, after the Passover holiday, I intend to bring to the government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights named after President Donald J. Trump.”
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

The United States on Monday offered a reward of up to $10 million for information that could help disrupt financing of Hezbollah, the armed Shi’ite group backed by Iran.
The announcement by the US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program comes amid growing concerns by Washington about Hezbollah‘s growing role in the Lebanese government.
Hezbollah’s regional clout has expanded as it sends fighters to Middle East conflicts, including the war in Syria, where it has fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
Reuters and Algemeiner Staff
{Matzav.com}

According to a report on the website Alkhaleej Online, a member of Fatah’s central committee revealed on April 20 that heavy Arab pressure was being applied to the Palestinian Authority leadership with regard to US President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan—the so-called “deal of the century”—that the White House is expected to unveil in June. According to the report, the official stated that Saudi Arabia was leading the campaign.

Sen. Bernie Sanders argued Monday that all prisoners, including domestic terrorists such as the Boston Marathon bomber, should have the right to vote while they are incarcerated.
“If somebody commits a serious crime, assault, murder, they’re going to be punished,” Sanders said. “They may be in jail for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, their whole lives. That’s what happens when you commit a serious crime.”
“But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy,” he continued. “Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away … you’re running down a slippery slope. … I do believe that even if they are in jail, they’re paying their price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.”

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ second in command, Fatah Vice Chairman Mahmoud Aloul, said on Monday that if the peace process remains on its current course the PA will cease its security cooperation with Israel and retract its recognition of the Jewish state.
“The leadership is preparing to retract its recognition of Israel and cease its security cooperation with the occupation forces,” Aloul said during an interview with the Shehab news agency on Monday, April 22.

The leader of a right-wing militia group that has been detaining migrants who enter the U.S. through Mexico allegedly bragged two years ago that the group’s members had received training to assassinate figures such as former President Obama.
The papers said that while it had been investigating allegations of “militia extremist activity” in 2017, witnesses accused Larry Hopkins, the leader of the United Constitutional Patriots, of saying his group was planning to assassinate not just Obama, but 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and George Soros, a wealthy supporter of liberal causes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers Monday that there are no plans to immediately open impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, rejecting calls from several Democrats to initiate steps to try to oust the president.
In a rare Monday night conference call, the California Democrat stressed that the near-term strategy in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report is to focus on investigating the president and seeing where the inquiries lead. Members of Pelosi’s leadership team reaffirmed her cautious approach, according to four officials on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
“We have to save our democracy. This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy,” Pelosi said.

The Social Security retirement program will be unable to pay full benefits by 2035, according to a new report issued Monday by the Trump administration.
Without reforms, the report says, payments to beneficiaries would have to be cut by 25 percent starting in 2035 to keep the program solvent.
The report said the program’s roughly $3 trillion in reserves will be depleted by 2035. The government will have to tap into those reserves beginning in 2020, when the costs of the program will begin exceeding the income it receives from taxes.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}

Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Senator who ran in the Democratic primaries prior to the November 2016 election, said that the US should not “support one country” run by a “right-wing” and “racist” government.
In an video clip published on CNN, Sanders explained: “I spent a number of months in Israel, I worked on a kibbutz for a while, I have family in Israel. I am not anti-Israel. but the fact of the matter is that [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu is a right-wing politician who I think is treating the Palestinian people extremely unfairly.”
“What I believe, and you know the United States gives billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. What I believe is not radical,” he emphasized.