A Buddhist monk claiming to be the president of the self-styled ‘Protect Sri Lanka’ organisation argues with police personnel barricading the road leading to the president’s official residence in Colombo.
EPA-EFE/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA
The bombings have been framed as part of ongoing internal conflict, but Sri Lanka was just the stage for a play that could have been performed anywhere in the world.
Isis claims attacks in Beni province of northern Kivu, eastern Congo, close to the border to Uganda.
Shutterstock
Links between groups within the Kivu province and the Islamic state are not new.
The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, one of the landmarks in Brunei. Brunei recently announced punishing gay sex by stoning offenders to death.
AP Photo/Vincent Thian
Jessica Marglin, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Some Islamic nations, including Brunei, have harsh punishments under Sharia. In pre-modern times, Sharia was rarely used as criminal law, and standard of proof for any prosecution was very high.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Sri Lanka bombings – a clear signal the group is reforming in other parts of the world after its defeat in Syria and Iraq.
M.A. Pushpa Kumara/EPA
The deadly Sri Lanka attacks show a return to the coordinated, sophisticated strikes employed by al-Qaeda in the 2000s, focusing on soft targets with vulnerable institutions.
A soldier from the Syrian Democratic Forces after defeating Islamic State fighters.
EPA/Ahmed Mardnli
Like today’s Western women who joined ISIS and now want to return home, American women with British sympathies during the Revolution left the country – but many tried to bring their families back.
Three British teenagers, including Shamima Begum, center, left the U.K. to join the Islamic State in 2015. Begum wants to return home now.
AP/Metropolitan Police
David Malet, American University School of Public Affairs
Many of the men and women who left homes in the West to join ISIS or similar terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq as fighters or supporters now want to come home. Should they be allowed back?
Women and children, reportedly the family of Islamic State fighters, at the Roj refugee camp in Hasakah, Syria in late February.
Murtaja Lateef/EPA
With more cases of women such as Shamima Begum expected, the UK is under legal obligations to protect the rights of any children involved.
The aftermath of a 2018 attack by the Taliban in Ghazni city, Afghanistan. Will terrorist attacks like this one be as common in 2019?
Reuters/Mustafa Andaleb
Iraq beat the Islamic State. Now, its Shia government is jailing and even executing all suspected terrorists – most of them Sunni Muslims. The clampdown may inflame a centuries-old sectarian divide.
A handout photo of Shamima Begum, who left London in 2015 to join Islamic State.
Metropolitan Police/PA Wire
With the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to two leaders who fight against sexual violence as a tool of war, we looked into our archive to find stories about those efforts across the globe.
Muslim protesters in India marching against the Islamic State after the 2015 terror attacks in Paris.
Divyakant Solanki/EPA
Sensationalist media coverage serves the Islamic State’s objective by pitting Muslims and non-Muslims against one another.
Led by speaker Anjem Choudary (centre), al-Muhajiroun protests Omar Bakri Mohammed’s arrest in Lebanon in November 2015.
The Islamic State in Britain by Michael Kenney
The extremist network al-Muhajiroun has rebuilt itself before, but that doesn’t mean it’s destined to again.
Protests during the Iranian Revolution, 1978 represent broader struggles across the region between secular and Islamic models of governance playing out.
Wikicommons
The Iranian Revolution was a hard-fought battle for those in favour of the Islamist model of governance, inspiring similar movements that have had varying degrees of success across the region.