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TWO officials at Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi were being expelled for “espionage activities,” India’s foreign ministry said late Sunday, alle-gations its nuclear-armed rival called “baseless.”

Tensions are already height-ened between the neighboring foes over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was split between them in 1947 when they gained independence from Britain.

“The government has declared both these officials persona non

grata for indulging in activities incompatible with their status as members of a diplomatic mission,” the ministry said in a statement.

The pair had to leave the country “within 24 hours” and Pakistan’s charge d’affaires was issued with a “strong protest” over their alleged activities, the ministry said.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it “strongly rejects the baseless Indian allegations” and called Delhi’s action a “clear violation of the Vienna Conven-

tion... especially in an already vitiated atmosphere.”

Kashmir has become a bigger source of tension in relations between the regional powers after New Delhi last August scrapped the Muslim-major-ity region’s semi-autonomous status and imposed a curfew.

In response, Islamabad at that time said it would recall its ambassador from Delhi and send back the Indian envoy.

Late Sunday, Pakistan sum-moned India’s charge d’affaires to express its “condemna-

tion” of the expulsion order.India and Pakistan have

fought three wars against each other since independence, including two over Kashmir where they have rival claims.

There have also been numer-ous flare-ups between the two foes, including in February 2019 when they conducted tit-for-tat airstrikes.

Rebel groups in Indian-administered Kashmir have battled for decades for the region’s independence or its merger with Pakistan, and

enjoy broad popular support.Since 1989 the fighting has

left tens of thousands dead, mostly civilians.

India has more than 500,000 troops stationed in Kashmir, where clashes are a common occurrence but last month extended into the regional cap-ital Srinagar. Police said a key rebel leader was killed during the first shootout between Indian Government forces and militants to hit the city’s center in two years.

(SD-Agencies)

India expels Pakistan o�cials for alleged spying

Burkina Faso gunmen ‘kill dozens’ at cattle market in KompiengaSOME 30 people have been killed in eastern Burkina Faso in a gun attack on a cattle market, reports said.

Gunmen on motorbikes fired into the crowded market in Kompienga town around lunchtime Saturday, eyewit-nesses and residents said.

It is unclear who was behind the attack, but Burkina Faso

has seen a recent sharp rise in jihadist violence and inter-com-munal clashes.

The violence has forced hun-dreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Local media earlier reported 20 killed, while quoting sources as saying the death toll could be considerably higher. AFP news agency quoted local

residents as saying 30 died.On Friday, at least 15 people

were killed when suspected Islamist militants attacked a convoy of traders in the north, near the border with Mali.

The government blamed the attack on “terrorists,” a phrase usually used to describe al-Qaida and Islamic State-linked jihadists Burkina Faso has

been battling in recent years.Despite occasional govern-

ment claims of success against the Islamist militants, the inse-curity in the north and east of Burkina Faso has dramatically escalated.

Jihadists have often targeted schools, forcing about 300,000 children out of education.

(SD-Agencies)

People wade through a flooded street at El Modelo neighborhood in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Sunday. SD-Agencies

14 dead in flooding as storm hits El Salvador

EGYPTIAN armed forces killed 19 terrorists in the country’s restive North Sinai province, a military spokesperson said Sunday.

The forces obtained intel-ligence information about a number of terrorists hiding in several hideouts in Bir al-Abd, Sheikh Zuwayed and Rafah cities of North Sinai, military spokesman Tamer al-Refai said in a statement.

The army troops carried out two raids on these hotbeds, killing three terrorists who had automatic rifles, the spokesman said. Grenades and RPG rock-ets have been seized, al-Refai said, adding that five explosive devices that were planted to target the armed forces were detonated.

Al-Refai revealed that 16 other terrorists were also killed in several airstrikes in North Sinai, adding that two four-wheel drive vehicles and a warehouse of explosive devices were destroyed in the air raids.

The spokesman pointed out that two officers and two soldiers were killed or injured during these operations.

He did not mention when these military operations took place.

Egypt has been fighting a wave of terrorist activities that killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians since the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Most terrorist attacks in Egypt over the past few years were claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the Islamic State regional terrorist group. (Xinhua)

AT least 14 people have died and hundreds have been evacuated in El Salvador as the first tropi-cal storm of the Eastern Pacific season drenched parts of Cen-tral America, officials said.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele decreed a 15-day state of emergency to deal with the rains that began pounding the country Friday ahead of Tropi-cal Storm Amanda’s landfall Sunday.

Interior Minister Mario Duran said the country was “facing a critical situation.”

He added: “The situation in all of the country and espe-cially in the metropolitan area of San Salvador is grave.” The storm had maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers per hour when it hit Sunday morning, but

soon dissipated as it moved overland.

Forecasters said that even though it had dissipated, heavy rains could continue to fall over parts of El Salvador, Guatemala, western Honduras and south-eastern Mexico over the next few days.

By Sunday afternoon, Amanda was downgraded to a tropical depression and has since weakened to a tropical rainstorm. But forecasters say dangers from the storm have just begun, with torrential, life-threatening rainfall forecast to persist early this week.

Officials in El Salvador issued a “Red Alert” and extended the state of emergency due to this surge of heavier rain.

As of Sunday night, there are

reports of at least 14 deaths in El Salvador due to impacts from Amanda. In Guatemala, nearly 1,500 shelters have been opened for those affected by the storm.

Amanda is forecast to con-tinue tracking to the northwest across Guatemala early this week. The rugged terrain has helped to rip the storm apart, but the remaining tropical moisture will continue to fuel heavy rain and thunderstorms across Central America through the beginning of the week.

“If Amanda were to survive and make it into the Bay of Campeche as a named system, it would be unprecedented,” stated AccuWeather Meteorolo-gist Courtney Travis.

(SD-Agencies)

19 terrorists killed in North Sinai

TEHRAN said yesterday that scientist Sirous Asgari, one of more than a dozen Iranians behind bars in the United States, is set to return to the Islamic republic within days.

Asgari was accused by a U.S. court in 2016 of stealing trade secrets while on an academic visit to Ohio.

But the 59-year-old scientist from Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology was acquitted in November.

The academic told British newspaper The Guardian in March that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was keeping him in a detention center in Louisiana without basic sanitation and refusing to let him return to Iran despite his exoneration.

“Dr. Sirous Asgari’s case has been closed in America and he will probably return to the country in the next two or three days,” said Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi. “That is, if no issues or obstacles come up,” he said, quoted by semi-official news agency ISNA.

Iran’s foreign ministry said last month that Asgari had contracted the novel coronavi-rus while in U.S. custody.

If he returns to Iran, the sci-entist would become one of the few detainees held by either side not to have been released in a prisoner exchange.

Both Iran and the United States hold a number of each other’s nationals and they have recently called for them to be released amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Iran is battling what is the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak of the virus, while the U.S. has reported the highest total number of deaths world-wide from the disease.

Iran is holding at least five Americans and the U.S. has 19 Iranians in detention.

Tensions between the two arch enemies escalated in 2018, after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from a land-mark nuclear agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran’s economy. (SD-Agencies)

Iran: Scientist jailed in US to return in days