it's only ten years next month till we see the hostilities or terrorism was defeated in this country so these sounds are very much still part of our memory so when i heard the noise i immediately knew it was an explosion. we are guessing as always happens with this kind of situation we are getting a a trickle of information when it comes to the number of explosions for you your friends and family are you expecting this are you expecting more of the same in the coming hours or do you get the sense from the authorities that whatever it is has happened has now come to a close and the authorities are dealing with it as best they can. get a boat i think there's a bit of uncertainty around it because the scale and size of the need to the attacks has not been seen even when there worked at least in this country in the war so there is a certain degree of i'm easy to assess but yet. some

security forces will. make the situation right or they will do the credit get action on the situation it was two thousand and nine when things arguably began to improve in sri lanka the economy is tilting upwards tourism has begun to return to the economy clearly it's far too early and we won't speculate on who may have been behind this but this is this is highly coordinated quarter these people who approve perpetrated this in your mind what you think they're trying to achieve. but they're trying to uncertain do that you're not trying to divide this reluctant people they are trying to bring back here but unfortunately i think this reluctant people are far more the zillions and far more wiser when it comes to these situations and they should be able to overcome those that is my belief give me

a feeling for if in your opinion the hospitals the doctors the nurses clearly they will be doing their best can the system of medical care and medical provision there can it cope with this. once again i'm no expert on it but like i said we do have prior experiences of having large scale attacks in colombo as well as its suburbs in the liberation demi tigers of. spreading their terror attacks in the capital so the system is very much capable to handle this type of attack and this this scale of attack human security forces i think that they're due to handle it and this is the general opinion a sailor i think the skype line to you is just on the tipping point of beginning to degrade so i'm worried that we might lose you so we'll pull our conversation to a close but i suspect we might talk to you in the coming hours listen thank you so

much for coming on at this difficult time we do appreciate it. well the sri lankan defense state minister ruan which or whether they're not says a curfew will be imposed today across the island country. do. you. do. you. want to. be someone you. do want to be. joining us here on the news or as alan keenan from london here is the sri lanka project director at the international crisis group and share with us your thoughts at this time. well it's a devastating blow to sri lanka and my my condolences to everybody all.

this is the last thing it needs. you know we just have to hope that the police are given free rein to to investigate properly and without political interference and find out who was behind the attacks why do you see political interference there. well i mean just that the political the politics in sri lanka are currently stream of the. divisive and confusing and lots of people are jockeying for for political power in the coming months with the presidential election and parliamentary elections sometime in the next eighteen months and there's lots of there will be lots of almost certainly lots of attempts to spin this one way or another depending on political agendas and i think the police have the capability to investigate thoroughly and properly we've seen that in a lot of cases we've also seen that there have been attempts in the past to politicize investigations so i think we all just have to hope that that that that

doesn't happen and and that the police really track down who was behind this devastating attack i'm not asking you to name an organizational to name names or to go too far down the road of speculation but the people who perpetrated. the trying to get to. one point you can't really separate those two out i mean you know that their motivations wouldn't bend on who they are so i mean i think it seems the targeting of of hotels high end hotels where western and other foreign tourists go could be an attempt to weaken the economy since tourism has been growing over the last ten years and is an important earner of foreign currency for sri lanka. but that could be lots of different groups could want that it could be local groups it could be foreign groups i think it is important to point out if you're looking from within the context of sri lanka and its history of the fortune long history of complex political violence there has been more than two decades campaign against

christians across the island. particularly targeting even jellicoe christians and their churches this is not gotten a lot of international attention but it has been and important sort of you know sort of issue bubbling under the surface and so within the sri lankan context this could. continuation of though it would be a major escalation there in nothing we've never seen anything like this targeting christians or indeed we even in as your previous guest was saying even in the dark days of the war where there was some both state and counter state terrorism from the l t t e there was nothing like sort of eight attacks in a single day killing hundreds and hundreds of people possibly so. we're really in unprecedented territory and i think it's important not to speculate. also but the other i think that without speculating i think the other context to put this in there are also the on the sort of ongoing pressures on the sri lankan muslim

community we saw the riots last year almost a week of rioting targeting muslims and we've seen the tax on them before that and then of course we have the history of the war and the interethnic tensions that led to that war. so unfortunately it has a long history of political violence and whether this will be sort of fit within some of those existing patterns or whether this is sort of a new entry of new forces from outside i think that's what that's what we have to wait and see hopefully get a clearer picture sometime soon your reading of two aspects of what we're seeing on folding in the run colombo i mean this this the the ferocity of this is amazing but also the coordination and the resourcing of the people who did it. yeah well exactly that's what you know if if it is a continuation of sort of a previous attacks on christians then this is a totally different scale i mean as you say that the resources the expertise the

coordination the professionalism of it for lack of a better word that would be sort of quite unprecedented but it would be true for whoever the perpetrators are this took a lot of sophistication a lot of planning a lot of resources and there's you know that that would we don't know of any x. there are certainly lots of extremist groups in sri lanka from all different communities but we don't none have to have perpetrated anything like this so we're really in some new news own i think unfortunately in a country that has already suffered so many decades of from of conflict you know trial and conflict that has harmed all communities understandably alan you are not an investigating policeman but when this kind of thing happens in certain parts of the world straight away the relevant authorities go to c.c.t.v. video footage they go to social platform social media footprints they go to

people's computer records is sri lanka set up in such a way that it could deploy people into the speed of the investigation or not. oh absolutely i mean has a very sophisticated. national intelligence sort of set of institutions. sourced from all major powers. principally of the war. so there's no lack of surveillance capabilities both on the ground and. through telephone lines and indeed you know the north and east are heavily militarized and surveilled as we speak. as a legacy of the war but there's no question that they have the police and the intelligence service is fully capable of investigating this the question is you know will they be allowed to do so without various politicians from different sort of angles trying to sort of nudge their investigations in one direction or another

ok. thank you so much if you just joining us here on al-jazeera let's just take the next twenty seconds or so to sum up for you to what's been going on in sri lanka we've got at least one hundred fifty six people several hundred have been injured the hospitals people are literally queuing up to give blood we've been hearing from various contributors over the past. it is still a very fluid situation we've got these reports not officially confirmed yet the social media platforms being one of saying but what's. difficult to get them to work. in sri lanka is apparently in the immediate area around colombo still working so we've got several blasts multiple multiple injuries and we're trying to get to the bottom of what we've been seeing over the

past few hours has indeed come to a close is this. significant in the past twenty years of the. the relationship that sri lanka has with its people its citizens and anyone inside the country who would want to perpetrate this kind of thing will get you right across all the developments in real time as we get them. people living in the libyan capital have reported hearing airstrikes and explosions overnight says the warlords only four after tries to take control of tripoli the city's only functioning airport has now been reopened after nearby fighting forced it to shut down fifteen half top fighters were killed on saturday along with thirteen of the tripoli government soldiers after it began an offensive to retake the capital three weeks ago he's fighting against the un recognized government base there al jazeera. is in tripoli. under cover of

a delivery shelling forces to libya as you could know as the government advance in what it will be so east of the capital. they're trying to push forces loyal to warlords and for hefted out over aims are unable. civil military units joined together in a number of flash points to form a defense called on facing hefted as forces south of tripoli government warplanes targeted have to his forces locations near the area and city and around eighty kilometers south of tripoli that. your forces providing fire support to our ground operations the economy is trying to flank our forces from the back but they have failed in the face of the strength of our fighters and the experience of our fighters it has become a war of attrition so the sicht as good as controlled by the. military sources with the un recognized government say they're preparing to launch

an offensive in the next few days to retake the former international airport they want to push to discuss has been a shared a strategic supply point for have to his forces involved in the fighting southeast of the capital some analysts believe forces loyal to the tripoli government have an advantage as a try to hold off have to advance. the strengths. our inability to understand the area national gini backed forces on the stand tripoli southern parts of tripoli the western parts of tripoli where the clashes are taking place they understand. the local the local roads the local deserts the backyards off of the battlefield and as we've seen there hasn't been. any long or stable. advance by on those locations since. you and recognize the government is accusing pastors forces of committing

war crimes by targeting residential areas with heavy weapons. two weeks of fighting has forced thousands of civilians to leave their homes the military general prosecutor in tripoli issued an arrest warrant against hefted and other military officers did accuse of targeting areas including airport the only operational airport in the city the latest move on tripoli by have to his forces has derailed a peace conference that was due to be held this month in the city over the dam is libya has two competing administrations since twenty fourteen and violence has followed among their raver armed groups many libyans now fear that the next few months could bring even more interest to belittle. and mahmoud joins us live from tripoli mahmoud why is the international airport or the old international

airport such a focus for everyone involved in this. well a piece of a i have to depreciate first between the international it with the disused international airport which is a front line now around thirty kilometers to the southern west from tripoli city center this is disused in active international airport and it's a front line now between have to the forces and forces loyal to the government but the other operational airport the only operational airport in tripoli is made to get airport that is the airport that is there they have suspended. briefly. but this morning is back to normal after it was suspended last night when a random rockets landed in nearby. in ains are this is

a residential area on the southern and eastern suburbs of the capital tripoli there as a state of panic last night around and in the village city of m eighty get airport after around the rockets nobody knows yet. which some people say that it was a drone others say it wasn't a warplanes but there is no official statement so far to give details about that targeted the residential areas last night peter martin thanks very much. voting has begun in the runoff election in ukraine between the incumbent president petro poroshenko and the political novice a comic. the latest opinion polls suggest the lenski is leading. forty five percent the election is a decisive one for the country of forty four million people with mr the lenski proposing direct talks with the russians to resolve the conflict in the eastern ukraine robin first a walker joins us live now from the capital kiev as far as mr selenski is concerned

does he have any political policies at hold that we actually know about. but as you said he's willing to hold talks with most and in attempt to try to resolve the ongoing conflict in the east of the country and also over the issue of crimea which as many of our viewers will know was the knicks by vladimir putin the russian military back in twenty fourteen but other than that he hasn't said an awful lot he's kept an extremely tight campaign in which he's kept quiet and has relied very much on his fictional persona as the ideal president of ukraine but that may well be quite far from the reality well we're going to have a chat about that now with a professor. from kiev. academy thank you very much professor

for agreeing to talk to us on al-jazeera about this how did it come to this ukraine is it war still with russia with russian backed militants separatists in the east of the country why would you crazy and want to elect a comedian to be their commander in chief well let me explain to you well we saw as their eyes are fortunately practically every way the united states yuki q-tip but here in the ukraine there is a specific sit. keesha a person who is totally inexperienced in politics so he would like to see just to see from t.v. movie in the presidential chair how could it affect the loop of seeing the incumbent president but to do i mean the forms in succumb theoretically to forms we shall necessary but we shall very difficult to do in time of war in time of you can difficult economic situation many of this informs on the populace and necessary but

say unpopular and at the same time we have freedom of media and freedom to criticize the government and the sort it is on every channel so actually it could be waves the whole wave of these in the ukraine and many others it can do this all is akin to this plea for peace and insisted ation one person image who said i do not believe in dubai do not belong to old so i means that you one please elect me i will visit on the president likes a guy i played with explanation of basically this will talk you clean yes this is emotional and protest vote but this is not possible so we need to understand can identify just for the benefit of everyone here it's not a progression because he was. in many many regions across ukraine not just russian speaking regions of ukraine but ukrainian speaking regents he over rule was the preferred candidate and ukrainians made a choice that's correct they weren't but by propaganda yes so i mean there are very

profound changes and moods of ukrainians ukrainians do not want to have any more an e.u. ration union or customs union was that i should say i in favor of you see i am favor even the nato and insist sedation definitely even the four. and you can it would be almost impossible to move the country back to russia as a problem with zelinsky as they feel that he's. experience we don't know much about the steam what does it feel to experience the sea and what it definitely will try to play us. and here we are coming to certain to certain deja's but i hope we will overcome again because because im sure that all's course of ukraine seems to me to see as as these current the current president bush ok professor i think we learned we'll leave it there for now it's going to be

a gripping race today to see whether or not zielinski does in fact make it to the top job his television show by the way is called servant of the people and that is the kind of president that zillion steve wants to be or at least claims he is going to become the reality though it may be somewhat different because he has as we said no political experience and a lot of people are worried about who has been the hard pull out to me is in its will bring you more on that as we progress through this election throughout today robyn thanks very much day two of voting in egypt's controversial referendum which could extend president bill fattah el-sisi term until twenty thirty the poll is happening over three days but human rights groups say the referendum won't be free or fair voters are also deciding on whether to allow the president to appoint top judges and to expand the role of the military security has been increased across

egypt joining us today again omar sure he joins us here in doha he's the director of the security studies program and the doha institute for graduate studies omar sure is there one sense perhaps that this is a good thing inus much as it bucks the trend of what's going on across so much of north africa as we speak. there's so much pessimism in the whole region i don't think this adds to the optimism in any way i think the it's more of a facade. the system and the status quo is built on bullets not ballots what you will see now is more or less effort on them out of the twenty eight and on them that egypt's had in the modern history since the day in a public all of them ended with all of them or the only two of these twenty eight referendums that were free and fair was one in twenty eleven and one in twenty twelve they ended with yes but with sixty percent and seventy seven percent yes on

constitutional issues this one it's a foregone result we know that it will be resoundingly yes and we know that it will be over ninety percent if not even over ninety seven or more and also the issues of tackling they are more or less they're already happening in egypt but they are giving them a constitutional framework the idea that the parliament which already had rigged elections was not a free and fair elections now it will have an upper house one third of it will be appointed by the president and it will be jockeying to outbid the lower house to please the president the president term now risks having he will be in power or if this goes on for about sixteen years i'm going to be fourteen to twenty twenty thirty being quotes guardian and protector on paper sounds like a good thing what's the reality about. guardian and protected this is that all of the military in the constitution and the amendments for the democratic and civil nature of the state so it's basically saying that the military will guard the

flourishing egyptian democracy and will guard as well the civil nature of the state if you look at the reality it's more a military rule with no democratic provisions going on on the state so i think it's safeguarding the empty democratic nature and the middle. in each of the state would be the more appropriate interpretation of of the amendment so it's not looking good in terms of democracy in terms of his rule he has his guardian council dating his. will in that and. they're the main worry i think is about the turnout because the has been looked at today and yesterday massive media campaign on the official media on the streets urging people to go and vote calling the ones who will not vote traitors not take enough. followers of the one followers of the muslim brothers everything of that sort basically to smear people who are not voting is it your

sense that for the voters or the people who will vote against perhaps all the people who will in effect abstain or take themselves out of this act of democracy quotes they've almost got a quite fatalistic approach to this because some of them talking anonymously on social media just this morning they seem to be saying well look he will do what he wants anyway the military will do what they want anyway there is ok fair enough there's like two opinions on that there's one opinion is that what you just mentioned abstention and we won't do anything because there's no effect and this has to do with a long long culture and history of apathy and voter apathy in egypt the other option is like there is no where else to resist or try to participate to affect the outcome so hence you have two versions of this one version is go and say no the other version is just go and. ruin your vote basically. stain but mention

that i did not vote because of so and so on the ballot paper and this has been happening as well it was about the last fall on them it was one point seven percent just you know people destroyed the vote. so you may you may see some of that. but the understanding. in the general public is that that is not. build on ballots is built on bullets it's came by guns it came by the military it would basically and therefore of disco and of exercise won't affect the outcomes in the end or marshall thank you we're getting reports of an attack in mali as an army camp north of the capital in query nicholas hark joins us live from. nic get us right up to date what do we know. well peter this attack took place around five o'clock this morning and it started with heavy artillery being fired on

account where there was about one hundred soldiers then there were mortar shots on to the on to the camp of course. the government in order to get a statement but there is no government because that government resigned last thursday sources close to al-jazeera say that they saw a scene of utter chaos there's also been confirmed fifteen soldiers killed we're also hearing that some of them may have been abducted by the attackers no one yet has claimed responsibility. but there has been attacks in that area during the election in august where election campaigners. and earlier before the election there was also a police officer that was abducted and then later on killed those attacked were claimed by dooku flies group. i mean an umbrella organization of rebel groups that are fighting the government of we know what's

particular in this attack is that it's just four hundred kilometers away from the capital so a very close to the center of power here at a time where here the government the president is struggling to to find a government or people to lead this country peter. thanks very much. ok let's return to the big story of the day there's been another explosion in sri lanka following on from several earlier in the day a follows a series of bomb attacks on sunday one hundred fifty six people have died more than four hundred have been injured several churches and high end hotels were targeted across three cities. police say the attacks were coordinated the prime minister called an emergency meeting of his government. on the scene of hospitals in the capital is frantic as casualties continue to arrive and family and friends

go to the hospital seeking information on their loved ones. and as joins us from one of those churches attacked in colombo so i guess at this hour the main takeaway is the the ferocity of what's been perpetrated here. absolutely peter just the scale of the sheer sort of brutality and of destiny of this attack still sinking in among the sri lankan people just behind me this is an anthony shrine one of the first. where an explosion ripped through the easter sunday congregation just behind me and just a reflection of the federal city in terms of the fatalities that that explosion caused just over my shoulder you might see lined up just to be taken the way the body bags the fatalities from that easter sunday service here in colombo now the

magistrate's to concluding or heard investigations inside but this is the nature of things that we're hearing from and getting reports from all the look here sions that were hit by explosions this morning the three churches as well as three big her toes in colombo and since then we've also had reports of at least two big explosions one at an eatery opposite the national zoo and one at a housing complex so a lot of things unfolding the authorities trying to get a handle on the situation come to grips with stop what's happening and find out exactly what's going on and who is behind it peter and it looks rather obvious now but our ago when we were discussing the shutdown partially we think of social media and also the imposition of the curfew that they brought forward since not just the

nighttime curfew is not just an hours of darkness curfew it's already kicking in in certain areas the authorities obviously want to get a lid on this they need to be seen to be keeping people safe and secure literally inside wherever they live or work. that's right peter because the initial reports that we had quoting the state minister defense was that the police curfew would be imposed island wide from six to six beginning this evening however within the hour we had an update on that that indeed the police curfew was being imposed with immediate effect of right now the police is in place until such time that the authorities say otherwise the reason being all of these reports of continuing explosions and things like that have obviously put the authorities on the back foot till they can isolate what these incidents are who is causing them and what the scale and nature of this coordinated

blitz is peter and when it comes to the investigation and officially clearly hasn't started yet but the country because of its experience with the tamil tigers and sporadic can rest between two thousand and nine i guess and where we are today when it comes to looking at c.c.t.v. footage when it comes to seeing if any perpetrators or potential perpetrators that left an electronic or a computer footprint any place the country is actually quite well set up to deploy that mechanism. absolutely peter don't forget that we dealt with a very brutal conflict for over twenty five years a conflict in which time that you had bomb explosions ascension day going off every single day there was some days that we had multiple explosions of a massive scale and all the time the authorities had to sorry we just have someone

trying to interrupt a shot we have authorities basically trying to use the system to find out who is behind these attacks there's a huge intelligence operation obviously that. is capable of they had to use it during the conflict with the tamil tigers and it is pretty guaranteed that all of the enforcement agencies the different security arms will be putting their heads together to try and figure out what exactly has transpired in terms of so far. in terms of so far we have seen all the authorities it's all hands on deck we just had a contingent of marines of special forces commanders west seeing a huge military presence around all the locations of the explosions as well as in colombo and in other parts of the country because the.