- Level reduced from 4 (highly credible threat) to 2 (mild occasional threat)
- Cautioning against wearing Jewish or Israeli symbols remains
Israeli authorities eased a travel warning for Sri Lanka on Wednesday (13), some three weeks after cautioning tourists at a popular beach town of an imminent terrorist threat.
The National Security Council (NSC), which publishes travel advisories, said that it was lowering the warning level for the Arugam Bay area from four, which indicates a highly credible threat, to two, indicating a more mild occasional threat. The high-level threat area had extended across Sri Lanka’s South-eastern coast as far as the town of Hikkaduwa. The rest of the island nation was lowered from level three – moderate – to level two. The NSC said that the threat level is being updated from level four (high) in the South-west of the country and level three (moderate) in the rest of Sri Lanka, to level two (an occasional threat) for the entire country.
However, the NSC said that Israeli travellers should alert the local security forces if there are any hostilities toward Jews or Israelis, and cautioned against wearing Jewish or Israeli symbols. The NSC cautioned travellers on Wednesday to remain vigilant while visiting the country, leaving in place the advisory against wearing Jewish or Israeli symbols.
Last month, the NSC called on Israelis to leave Sri Lanka’s South and West, and said that Israelis should postpone travel to the rest of the country. They also urged nationals to hide signs that indicate that they are Israelis and to avoid gathering in large numbers. Israel had advised its nationals in Arugam Bay and nearby areas to leave immediately on 23 October, citing the “threat of terrorist attacks against several targets, including popular terrorist locations in Arugam Bay and the South and West coastal areas of Sri Lanka”. Israelis remaining in the country were advised to go to Colombo, where there were more local security forces, and to hide anything that might identify them as Israelis or avoid gathering in large numbers.
The United States (US), which had also issued a warning for Arugam Bay, rescinded its advisory as well on Wednesday, the Embassy in Colombo said.
According to an affidavit filed in a US Federal Court late last week, an Afghani man named Farhad Shakeri, recruited by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told the Federal Bureau of Investigation on 28 October that he and an accomplice had been ordered to plan a mass shooting attack against Israelis at an unnamed location in Arugam Bay, a popular spot for Israeli surfers chasing an endless summer. Shakeri remains at large and is thought to be in Iran. According to the complaint, aside from allegedly plotting to attack Israelis at Arugam Bay, he had also plotted attacks for Iran against US President-elect Donald Trump, as well as attempted assassinations of Jewish business people in New York and a prominent Iranian exile. The accomplice, whom the filing identified as one of three people arrested by the Sri Lankan authorities a day after the warning was issued, had agreed to provide AK-47s and other weapons for the attack, according to the complaint. The accomplice was unnamed, but was said to have served prison time with Shakeri in the US. According to reports, three others have since been arrested.
The decision to downgrade the warning came two days after the Foreign Affairs Ministry asked the US to cancel its warning. The Sri Lankan authorities had bolstered security for tourists following the warnings and on 10 November, Defense Secretary, Air Vice Marshal (Retired) Sampath Thuyacontha visited the area around Arugam Bay to assess the security situation.
Protests by local Muslim groups against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have drawn support from the wider community in the predominantly Buddhist South Asian nation. The war broke out following Hamas’s 7 October onslaught last year, which saw terrorists kill some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnap 251.
Israelis accounted for less than 1.5% of the 1.5 million tourists who visited the island in the first nine months of this year (January-September) – or around 20,000 people altogether. But, Arugam Bay, a hotspot for surfing around 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of Colombo by road, is a popular destination for Israeli tourists.
(Times of Israel)
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