...and all that bebop.

The Obama administration quietly won Congress’s approval last month to shift about $8 million from Pentagon operations and counterterrorism aid budgeted for Pakistan to begin building an elite Libyan force over the next year that could ultimately number about 500 troops. American Special Operations forces could conduct much of the training, as they have with counterterrorism forces in Pakistan and Yemen, American officials said.

He told the AP news agency that it had been there long before the area was declared a sacred zone about 20 years ago.

But prominent monks in Dambulla say the mosque is illegally built on ground sacred to their religion.

On Friday the building was fire-bombed.

…

Buddhist leaders in Dambulla say they now intend to demolish 72 structures in the sacred area that they say are unauthorised, including the mosque and a Tamil Hindu temple.

A Dambulla monk told the BBC that the actions were necessary because Sri Lanka was “the only country to safeguard Buddhism”.