reports of gunshots in sudan's capital where security forces are accused of attacking protesters demanding civilian rule. hello and welcome i'm peter w watching al-jazeera live from our headquarters here in the other top stories iran's foreign minister links what he calls extremists in the white house to attacks on ships off the coast of the united arab emirates. parts of sri lanka remain under curfew amid sectarian tensions over last month's easter sunday attacks. software developed in israel is blamed for

a hack on the quote sap messaging service potentially affecting one and a half 1000000000 users worldwide. beginning with breaking news this half hour coming to us out of saudi arabia and the energy minister says saudi aramco has stopped pumping oil through a major pipeline after a drone attack the east west pipeline a 1000 kilometers north of yemen was reportedly struck by 2 drones saudi arabia says the strikes were carried out by who see rebels in yemen only other hoofy said they were responsible for 7 drone attacks on the border with saudi arabia. let's talk to experts and various craig who joins us on the line to put that into context for us and various welcome back to al-jazeera what's your reading of this. i'm going to reserve a very rare. serious escalation amid already very heightened tensions in the gulf

particularly with the hawkish family and hearing in camber saudi arabia. and israel also trying to build a cactus belly for the last 6 couple months trying to stimulate or trying to trigger someone the white house to make a decision to escalate the situation with iran and in this conflict that with these operate as a surrogate i mean they are standalone entity but they operate as a surrogate of the iranians and any attack by the who is on u.s. interests that's what the american said would be considered to be an attack by the iranians which is highly problematic because as i said there were these are assigned to it but they operate mostly autonomous lee and i think there are these are trying to exploit the current heightened tension for their own political purposes but they have i obviously heightening tensions and potentially asking the saudis or allies to escalate and respond to that attack but it is very serious

because this is as a 1000 kilometers inside the saudi territory very closely it's very strategic infrastructure in the same way that the attack against these tankers 2 days ago was a strategic infrastructure for the immorality and in both cases it seems that the iranians or proxies of iranians have access escalated tensions and have shown that they have quite significant significantly build up their capabilities that you need to actually be able to launch this kind of attack that deep into the territory ok there are lots of things hi andrea i'd like to unpack in the next 90 seconds or so item number one so we had those 7 drone attacks earlier for which the thief has claimed responsibility we have had as yet no claim of responsibility is there any doubt in your mind that what we're talking about as old now is the work that he feels i mean could have come from someplace else. i mean in so deeply in saudi territory i don't see that there would be any other any other explanation i mean if

it was an external act unless it was covered charge which was purposely the bill done by the saudis it is most likely being the hoodies in the movies have the capability to deeply penetrate at least saudi territory not emraan jory but they've shown that they were able to fly these drones if they were willing to the question here isn't that it also relates to the tank a shoe is the iranians that pulled in this current state of heightened tensions to escalate in the case of the who are these as i said their economies they can do this on their own without terror on giving a green light when it comes to the tanker issue of iraq because which i think is part of this entire package of tensions at the moment i think that the r.g.c. the revolutionary guard of the iranians would have to do it on their own and that is quite a high risk because it would be directly attributable to the iranians now the question is both of these cases we still don't have any solid evidence both of them are claims we have no real investigation independent investigation yet and in both

cases it looks like someone is trying to build a pretext for military escalation so it's not completely out of the out of this world to think that maybe the americans or the saudis are trying to build a pretext and saying look this is what the ringing in the properties of done to critical infrastructure now america now washington where are you going to do about it so this is this is definitely a possibility i know you're not primarily a military analyst or a military kit analyst and various but we're not talking here about a drone or drones presumably that somebody could buy off a web site this to go more than a 1000 kilometers we were looking at the map to go more than a 1000 kilometers and get real adjacent when it came to the location that they were going after that is some properly grown up military piece of equipment or equipment plural that they've been using. absolutely not but this equipment exists and the who these 2 have that equipment so they've been getting a lot better over the last 23 years in kosovo they use drones for as our

intelligence gathering reconnaissance but more recently over the last 18 months they've been also using drones to strike not really precisely but they were able to strike against saudi coalition forces from from the air b and what that takes is a bit more than a quarter to quarter that you can buy off the shelf so these are drones that have been built in yemen but definitely with the support of the iranians and i think it's quite very likely that at least when you look at the poorest and very that the managed defense and saudi arabia at the movies could actually penetrate saudi arabia that deeply and this is very worrisome because you know not all critical infrastructure in saudi arabia has their defense systems around them and as we said it is definitely possible and it is very much only possible because of the support that the release have received from the from the arraignment if we flip this around andrius the next 60 seconds or so and examine this will break it down within the context of what's going on in yemen particularly in yemen itself and i guess kind

of ignoring it in a way what you were saying there about the proxy conflict aspect of it this time yesterday we were talking on this channel about the so-called peace process in yemen how on the one hand all the players a signed up to the peace process as a stablished in stockholm last november into early december and yet today they're kind of saying one thing but doing another if this is the work of the who sees what does this do to that peace process so-called. i mean this is a this is definitely also an attack and sabotage attack on the peace process but this is one of the longest string of escalation that there were these have been driving in order to retaliate most of the time against an airstrike or action done by the coalition it's a lot of tit for tat so this is something that would you know is another blow because it is it is not something that is now somewhat confined to to yemen but actually escalates and could potentially also strike targets within deep in saudi

arabia but this is the same that we've seen with the ballistic missiles over the last couple of years with them becoming ever more capable and able to strike deeply in solitary so it hasn't really changed the way that saudi has looked at the peace process per se but it's definitely a provocation that the saudis will respond to and will find very hard to respond because these drones are launched very easily from anywhere remotely even and you know that it's impossible to strike them with the need to actually destroy them if they're in u.s. trade and so it makes it more difficult to manage the conflict but i don't think it's an escalation that goes beyond the escalation that we've seen over the last 2 years and the spoiling that thing going on on both sides under his critics from king's college london as ever we appreciate your analysis about developing situation andres pataki thank you. protesters in sudan say shot subpoena 5 near the city in the military headquarters in the capital city khartoum demonstrators are reinforcing barricades on the roads despite

a warning from the military council the military is denying its security forces use live fire against demonstrators in khartoum at least 5 protesters on one soldier were killed during the violence on monday night the military blames what it calls infiltrators but the protesters have rejected that even more good reports from khartoum. doctors in this makeshift clinic try to save the life of a young man in one of the dozens of protests and injured by who they say were members of a military unit known as the rapid support force has. said. they fired bullets at us and on protesters we tried to protect other protesters who were bleeding so i removed my shirt to use it to help someone the rapid support forces took the chance and attacked when. the shooting began on monday evening the protesters the members of the rapid support forces tried to move roadblocks they set up on some of the main roads when they refused to allow that.

the military denies or the rapid support forces were behind the shooting tensions have been on the rise in funding when the military was accused of trying to disperse they said they've been camping outside army headquarters demanding the military council which overthrew the country 30 year president i'm here to hand over power to a civilian government right now if i can. get it right more than more than 30 and. 40 or even more shooting. injuries or injuries from gunshots gunshot all of the gunshots. protests. our demanding justice and the country state prosecutor may be able to deliver some on monday his office and mounts that the ousted president is being charged with inciting and participating in the killing of protesters since the

demonstrations began in december last year but he will be tried under article $130.00 according to sudan's law if convicted he faces the death penalty the military council that ousted him says some security members also died in monday's confrontation of this the a 3rd party is behind the violence as an attempt to diminish the progress in talks with the opposition coalition in forming a transitional government no. seen with relief seen there were people who are infiltrating these groups they are or md and they targeted some of our military personnel we are aware of these people their elements and plans of provocation we know the means that they use they have targeted the military with armed i mean but these outlaws were using very crowded areas to target some of our soldiers but those at the city are seem to have no faith in the council and are not convinced to market by another market isn't enough the people who died did there have to be more deaths today and all the forces are saying it isn't them then who was it who blood

for blood no compensation was oh. oh oh god oh god no protests the same no force would make them break their state in which is in its 2nd month they say too many lives have been lost in the quest for an independent civilian government for them to give them tensions are at their highest since the protests began and the risks of further escalations and further violence remains people morgan are just they are a part of me but it was. who is in khartoum so mohamad more and more both sides becoming increasingly entrenched with the situation of claim and counterclaim. yes indeed the protesters have been escalating things ever since start. the square happened this morning everyone in khartoum is experiencing. some of the major roads coming in to the central business district

and also blocked the bridges that come from outside cut the suburbs of khartoum and. people have been forced to walk to work this central business district is almost. most of the roads they are impassable because of the brocades the body caves the protesters are. put there saying this is in reaction and in retaliation for the blatant wasted and rocket support forces of course this is a claim denied by the military but the protesters are saying it eased up its support forces because the problem started when they tried to remove those body caves they had elected around the square for their protection and what's happening on the grown and does not shine in any sense at all with the idea of them having more discussions later today presumably where they're going to express

a desire to diffuse the situation and put the country on the right foot. well as more sides understand to vorst pox but on the whole the people of sudan have for. a solution to the cut and stalemate we're seeing and none of the sides is saying that they're not going to participate in the talks but then the plan they had put in place for. an expedited process talks where they were supposed to discuss today. or the direction the transitional council is going to rule the country now seems out of the window because they will have to discuss all the events of the past $24.00 hours and that will consume time so this is a big hitch to the talks. thank you. iran's accusing the us of escalating tensions across the gulf region iran's foreign

minister is in new delhi on an official visit to see his indian counterpart he says tehran predicted what he called the sabotage operation to escalate the situation going back to an aspect of the story in saudi arabia we were talking about at the top of the hour 4 cargo ships near the strait of hormuz were damaged by explosions 3 days ago an american military team is helping with the investigation. as. we discussed regional issues and the policies of extremists inside the u.s. administration and in the region who are trying to impose their policies we also discussed the concerns we have about suspicious sabotage operations that are happening in the region that we had earlier predicted that they would carry out such measures. in the region. ravi has more now from tehran. following an initial assessment by a u.s. military team sent to fit your report to investigate the incident that occurred

there an unnamed member of that team seemed to suggest that iran might be behind what happened in for gera now iranian leaders have been responding to that senior members of parliament have said that the information being provided as to what happened in for carol was too unclear it was too vague and there is not enough to determine actually what went on some suggesting that 3rd parties or some other actors might be trying to goad the united states into a conflict in the region earlier on tuesday a senior member of parliament seemed to suggest that israel might have been behind the incident and during a diplomatic visit to india a foreign minister zarif himself seemed to point a finger at the united states saying that the u.s. may be trying to destabilize the region and that iran had warned about possible sabotage attacks like this being carried out by the united states iran's leaders continue to press their neighbors to try to create an atmosphere of cooperation in

the region saying that the united states remains an outsider in this part of the middle east and that it is up to countries leaders in the middle east itself to focus on their own security their own stability and manage the region's security by themselves and for themselves of course the latest overtures by iran come at a time of heightened tensions with the united states iran and its neighbors have been sometimes friends sometimes foes but throughout it all they've been strong trading partners they've cooperated on regional issues but at the moment there seems to be no clear way forward especially with more american military hardware in the area. security forces in sri lanka tackling an increase in violence against muslims a curfew is still in place in one province we have the latest on the developments over the past $24.00 hours from our correspondent andrew simmons. security forces say the violence is

a direct result of the easter sunday bombings muslim businesses have been either set on fire or vandalized here a factory attacked by what police describe as mobs this was in the north where a curfew continued on tuesday morning police say they've used tough counter measures and the violence is now under control sri lanka's prime minister gave this warning in his speech to the nation i'd be honored to have the it or the anetta i have given all necessary powers to the security forces to take stern action against those breaching a peace by violating the curfew and emergency law security forces will take all steps to take action against those breaching the law therefore i request the fullest cooperation to the military and police to safeguard peace. police say in the 3 worst affected districts north of the capital colombo young people grouped together in what appeared to be planned actions. among the targets were muslim owned shops mosques were also attacked with. this small group

must stop the dangerous game they play against the lives and property of innocent people i must state that we want to allow the country to be led to anarchy by those who showed their strength on unarmed innocent civilians. because muslims make up less than 10 percent of the country's $22000000.00 population and political leaders here are warning that violence will not only increased tension but also hinder the investigation into these 2 bombings in which more than 250 people died andrew symonds al-jazeera. let's go live now to colombo and our correspondent in el fernando symon el as far as you're concerned from the vantage point what do the police the authorities have to do to restore calm to restore peace and to make sure that everyone understands that it's peaceful and calm. peter the police has their hands full as does the military right now the level of

tension particularly in the northwestern province which was where you had lots of those flashpoints over the last $48.00 hours is a tinderbox the tensions are running very high and all it takes is a lie a couple of words wrong and it just sparks so the police basically has fanned out across the province with the military obviously under the emergency they using the full sort of ammunition available to them in the sense that they have the powers to arrest to detain people thought to be disturbing the peace there is a heavy security blanket but more than anything peter it is reassuring people because over the last couple of hours the last day or so when these incidents of violence occurred particularly targeting the brazilian community many people within

that community felt that the law enforcement authorities were not doing enough to prevent their places of business their homes their they cause being attacked in fact even this morning while the north person province still continued under a police car few where the rest of the country the curfew was lifted there were still reports that there were basically isolated groups that were moving around the province creating incidents of tension of attacks obviously the police and the armed forces can't be at every street at every junction and obviously they seem to be this element of organized groups because there were reports that these groups were hitting places and locations that one covered by the law enforcement authorities and then withdrawing so the police and the law enforcement needs to get on top of this situation. and also being seen being in control of that thank you very much. the world should cut financial ties with the military in me and mom

according to a u.n. fact finding mission the panel has finished another trip to countries across the region and found evidence of continued violation against the muslims now earlier the mission concluded that new mass generals should be prosecuted on charges of genocide chris sidoti is a human rights lawyer and member of the human rights the united nations human rights council's independent international fact finding mission on me and maher who joins us from sydney chris sidoti if this were to happen what would it actually achieve. it would achieve in the end justice in may in march but i think more importantly a transform ation of man masses society the military continues to dominate me and politically and economically and unless that changes we are not going to see fundamental changing in the human rights situation within that country ok cutting

financial ties or imposing financial sanctions on countries usually harms the people that external actors are trying to protect they are trying to save so why would this be different if it happened. we're not advocating financial cuts to me and as a whole in fact to the contrary we are arguing strongly against comprehensive national sanctions they didn't work in may and mar in the past they result was exactly as you described and that is that the people were impoverished the fact is that during the sanctions in the past the general still got richer we advocating stated not nation wide sanctions not comprehensive sanctions but carefully targeted sanctions against the military they're the ones who are responsible for the situation they're responsible for the massacres the rights of the human rights violations across the country and they're the ones that should bear the price of that and so what we were g.e.

is disengagement financial disengagement political disengagement from the generals individually and the military as an institution and that means as well all of the economic vehicles through which the military of the generals in the institution enrich themselves at the expense of the people. are you saying or is your central allegation that the military in effect orchestrated this or was involved in it. our finding was that they orchestrated it there was certainly involved in it but there is no doubt at all to us the international fact finding mission that the military were centrally in gauged in planning and executing the violence that took place certainly in rakhine state against 0 hinge of people late in 2017 but in fact throughout the period of military domination of me and my life so we're talking about decades of the military have been behind gross human rights violations in all

parts of me and ma and not only those in rakhine state against the regime. you're also seeing me in general should be prosecuted on charges of genocide i think i'm right in saying we started covering the story on this channel a good 18 months 2 years ago now maybe it's approaching 2 years for sure why has it taken until now that a body as substantial as your body has got that concept on to the news channels onto the front pages so that the idea of the myanmar military being linked to genocide is being put out there. we in fact released that conclusion almost a year ago in september last year we conducted an intensive investigation covering a period of $12.00 to $18.00 months we interviewed $855.00 witnesses and victims and another 250 secondary witnesses and our report almost 450 pages in length

appeared last september since then we have been continuing our work not me lee conducting further investigations because that work really was primarily completed last september but rather looking at the implications of our findings and our recommendations one recommendation of the time as you've indicated was that the military leaders be brought to justice we named 6 senior generals individually including the senior general the commander in chief and his deputy and we recommended further investigation and prosecution against them individually for war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide we also recommended this kind of financial disengagement from the military but we've considered it necessary to conduct further investigations in that area to be able to identify all of the vehicles that the military uses in me and ma to make their financial gain we haven't yet completed that task the major 2 we have the main economic cooperation

and the main economic holdings ltd the 2 principle the rules the holding companies for military control of large parts of the economy but we're going for. that and we will be providing within the next several weeks or couple of months a full statement of the man was economic interests that should be boycotted chris thank you. thanks very much good to talk to you. an israeli cyber firm is accused of developing a software used to hack whatsapp the u.k. newspaper the financial times says the group's pegasus program targeted an unknown number of people using the app what the spyware was used to penetrate phones through missed voice calls the firm who searches 1500000000 uses to update their. israel classifies technology as a weapon in the company must obtain approval from the ministry of defense to sell

it to foreign governments the firm maintains that software is only sold to fight crime and terrorism but a number of lawsuits accuse n.s.o. of improperly helping the governments of mexico the u.a.e. and saudi arabia to spy on journalists and activists and the murder of jamal khashoggi last year put the firm on that renewed scrutiny a friend of the journalist omar abdel aziz filed a lawsuit saying his phone was monitored by the saudi government just before the death of jamal khashoggi raphael sutta is an investigative journalist at the associated press who's been covering the n.s.a. the group extensively explains now whether the company must be held responsible or not for how its technology is used. it's one that dog the n.s.o. group for years in fact because on the one hand they say that they they sell a product and what their customers do with that product is between the customers and their own national authority on the other hand and as a group has also said that they investigate allegations of wrongdoing and they

suspend customers who behave badly we don't yet fully understand just how much of an insight n.s.o. has into its own customer's behavior and that's a question i hope we'll see answered sometime soon i think that in the n.s.o. groups defense i would be very surprised if it least some of their products weren't being used to genuinely go after criminals and terrorists and and others of that ilk that being said if you sell to countries like saudi arabia or other authoritarian governments then i would hope that a company in that position would ask themselves some very serious questions about how their products are really going to be used and also monitor how their products are going to be used that's not so difficult in the cypress in cyberspace. the american actress for the city hofmann has pleaded guilty to conspiring to gain a place for her daughter at

a prestigious university known for her role in desperate housewives hoffman paid $15000.00 to improve her daughter's exam scores the person who corrected the answers and the test supervisor also are facing prosecution dozens of wealthy parents paid a total of $25000000.00 for a variety of schemes to get their children into the best universities. we're going to just joining us we have several developing stories for you this half hour here on al-jazeera this is the top one saudis state oil company has stopped pumping oil through a major pipeline after a drone attack the east west pipeline a 1000 kilometers north. of the border with yemen has reportedly been struck by 2 drones saudi arabia says the strikes were carried out by rebels in yemen earlier who said they were responsible for 7 drone attacks on the border with saudi arabia . protesters in sudan say shots have been fired near the city an outside the

military headquarters in the capital khartoum protesters are reinforcing barricades on the roads despite a warning from the military council now the military is denying it security forces have used live fire against demonstrators in khartoum at least 5 protesters and a soldier were killed during the violence on monday night the military blames what it calls infiltrators fox the protesters reject that. iran's accusing the u.s. of escalating tensions in the gulf iran's foreign minister job in new delhi on an official visit to see his indian counterpart he says tehran predicted what he called a sabotage operation to escalate the situation on monday for cargo ships for the straits of hormuz were damaged by explosions and american military team is helping with the investigation. last month. we discussed regional issues and the policies of extremists inside the u.s. administration and in the region who are trying to impose their policies we also

discussed the concerns we have about suspicious sabotage operations that are happening in the region that we had earlier predicted that they would carry out such measures. in the region. security forces in sri lanka trying to contain an outbreak of religious unrest the violence is happening just north of the capital colombo where mosques and muslim owned businesses have been targeted so far one person has died in rioting. the world should cut financial ties with the military in me and mom according to a u.n. fact finding mission the panel has finished another trip to countries in the region if found evidence of continued violation against the minority. those are the headlines up next it's inside story also you from 70 tomorrow but.

along the gulf off the ships there are attacks off the u.a.e. coast does it mean for global oil supplies can anyone secure shipping lines in the false region this is inside story. hello and welcome to the show i'm sam he's a than sabotaged and significantly damaged saudi arabia says 2 of its oil tankers were attacked off the coast of the u.a.e. riyadh also called on the international community to protect maritime navigation the incidents happened off the coast of foot gyra the emir.