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WASHINGTON � The United States on Wednesday announced it was adding the student wing of the Pakistan-based militant organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba, to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Army of the Pure, is an anti-Indian militant group with historical ties to Pakistan's top spy agencies. It has been accused of orchestrating numerous attacks, including a 2008 assault in Mumbai that killed 166 people, six of them Americans.

The State Department move against the student group, Al-Muhammadia Students, came as the Treasury Department added two Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders to the U.S. list of specially designated global terrorists, subjecting them to U.S. sanctions.

LeT was banned by the Pakistani government in 2002 but it has continued operating through front organizations, according to U.S. officials, and their leaders conduct public rallies and interviews.

The State Department announced that it amended the designation of LeT as a foreign terrorist organization to include what it called the group's student wing.

Since the original designation occurred, LeT has repeatedly changed its name and created front organizations in an effort to avoid sanctions, the State Department said, adding that the student group aided senior LeT leaders in recruiting and other activities.

The State Department action subjected the student group to sanctions, including a ban on Americans providing or attempting to provide it with material support.

The Treasury Department said it was adding Muhammad Sarwar and Shahid Mahmood to the U.S. list of "specially designated global terrorists," freezing any U.S. property or other assets they hold and banning Americans from doing business with them.

Both are involved in fundraising activities, it said.

Sarwar, the department said, is the LeT leader in Lahore and Mahmood is a senior LeT leader in Karachi and has routinely traveled outside Pakistan on the group's behalf.

Source: Voice of America

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN � Russia, China and Pakistan bowed to Afghan complaints Tuesday, announcing after talks in Moscow that Kabul will be invited to participate in future meetings on the threat posed by Islamic State militants in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials had objected to being left out of the three-way talks in the Russian capital, ostensibly held to discuss "the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan." The three nations also said they were interested in facilitating peace talks between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban.

The long-running Taliban insurgency poses by far the greater threat to Afghanistan, whose forces have been on the defensive for the past year. But members of the so-called Islamic State group have been trying to establish a foothold in Afghanistan, in some cases fighting directly with the Taliban.

Participants in Tuesday's meeting said it was the third session of their trilateral "working group" on Afghanistan. In a joint statement released by Pakistan after the talks, they expressed "particular concern" over "increased activities of the extremist groups including the ISIL (Daesh) affiliates in the country." ISIL is another acronym for IS.

The statement said Beijing, Islamabad and Moscow had agreed to continue their consultations in an expanded format and would welcome the participation of Afghanistan. The group previously suggested it might include Iran in future talks.

"The participants agreed to continue their efforts towards further facilitating the Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan according to the known principles of reintegration of the armed opposition into peaceful life," the statement said.

Hours before the Moscow meeting, Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmad Shekib Mostaghani said that regardless of the good intentions of the participants, the Moscow talks would not help the situation in Afghanistan, where government forces have been battling Taliban insurgents for 15 years.

The joint statement said that China and Russia, as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, had confirmed their "flexible approach to delisting Afghan individuals from the U.N. sanctions lists" as a contribution to peace efforts in Afghanistan.

The Taliban has identified removal of international travel and financial restrictions on its leaders as one of its conditions for engaging in reconciliation talks.

The Afghan government has recently sent a formal request to the U.N. sanctions committee seeking delisting of members of the Hizb-e-Islami group, with which Kabul signed a peace deal.

The group, led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, agreed under the peace deal to quit violence and join mainstream politics once the delisting happens, paving the way for the warlord to return to Afghanistan from years of hiding.

Russian officials say that IS is trying to expand its influence to Russia and China through Central Asian states that share borders with Afghanistan.

Moscow's permanent representative to the United Nations told a Security Council meeting last week that more than 700 IS terrorist families have arrived in Afghanistan from Syria. The deteriorating Afghan security situation is encouraging IS fighters to look at the country for refuge, he added.

Russia recently admitted to having contacts with the Taliban following reports Russian authorities are trying to help the Islamist insurgency fight IS militants. But Moscow insists the links are meant only to ensure the protection of Russian nationals in Afghanistan and to encourage the Taliban to join peace talks.

Source: Voice of America

As Christians around the world prepared to celebrate the religious holiday, several hundred Iraqi Christians were celebrating Christmas Eve Mass in their hometown near Mosul as both a sign of hope and defiance.

Once home to thousands of Assyrian Christians, Bartella, on the outskirts of Mosul in Nineveh province, fell to Islamic State (IS) militants in August 2014.

IS ransacked the Mar Shimoni church, destroying crosses and removing religious icons and other fixtures, before setting it alight.

Iraqi forces freed Bartella in October as part of an ongoing campaign to liberate nearby Mosul. But residents have not been able to return; much of the town has been destroyed in recent fighting, and basic services are lacking. The militants also planted bombs in the city.

Worshippers were bused to the town from the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital of Irbil, where they have been living.

As bells pealed before the service, women joyously ululated when they stepped into the church. Almost everyone held a lit candle during the service, which was conducted in Aramaic and Arabic.

"It is a mix of sadness and happiness," Bishop Mussa Shemani told Reuters before celebrating the Christmas Eve Mass. "We are sad to see what has been done to our holiest places by our own countrymen, but at the same time we are happy to celebrate the first Mass after two years."

At the end of the service, however, Assyrian priest Yacoub Saady said, "This is the Mass of defiance. We, the Christians, are the oldest component of this country. We are staying put and no power can force us to leave."

Roughly a dozen U.S. military servicemen and a 100-man contingent from the Iraqi military also attended the service in a sign of solidarity with the worshippers.

Volunteers had worked to clean the church for the service, its first since IS militants took over 2� years ago. For many of the worshippers, the sight of Bartella, once a vibrant town of 25,000, was shocking. Only a few homes stand unscathed. Most have been damaged by shelling or blackened by fire.

Even with the distant sounds of explosions, however, many residents were happy to enter their town and church again.

"Our joy is bigger than our sadness," said university student Nevine Ibrahim, 20, who returned to Bartella Saturday for the first time since she, her parents and four siblings left in 2014. Their house was badly damaged; everything they owned was gone.

"I don't think we can return. The house can be fixed, but the pain inside us cannot," she said, seated among three of her siblings. "Who will protect us?"

Altar boy Masar Jalal, 16, and his father attended Mass on Saturday. It was Masar's first visit to Bartella since he fled with his family to Irbil in 2014.

"I cried for what has become of the town," Jalal told the Associated Press. "I will only come back to live here if there is security."

Elsewhere Saturday, security measures were heightened in Rome, where Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass in a packed St. Peter's Basilica. On Friday, the man believed responsible for the Berlin market attack was killed near Milan.

Francis has spent much of this year pleading for the world to better protect innocents caught up in wars, migrations and abject poverty. He also told Christians that materialism has "taken Christmas hostage. ... We have to set it free."

The late-night Mass was the first major event of the Christmas season. It will be followed by Francis' noon Urbi et Orbi (To the city and the world) blessing on Christmas Day.

In Bethlehem, Palestinian boy and girl scouts kicked off Christmas celebrations in the West Bank town with a festive march through Manger Square. The marchers carried Palestinian flags as they passed a giant Christmas tree decked out in gold, in front of the ancient Church of the Nativity.

Pilgrims from around the world watched the outdoor festivities, while inside the 4th century church, they waited in long lines to visit the Grotto of the Nativity, where tradition says Jesus was born.

In Pakistan

More than 1,000 congregants attended midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Karachi. Father Mario Rodrigues emphasized that Christmas was a time to strive for peace across the world.

In London on Sunday, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and the global communion of 85 million Anglican Christians, planned to say in his Christmas Day sermon that 2016 had left the world "more awash with fear and division."

Welby, who was to deliver his sermon at the Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England, was to say the world's values were "in the wrong place, with economic, technological and communications progress failing to deliver justice."

"The end of 2016 finds us all in a different kind of world � one less predictable and certain, which feels more awash with fear and division," he was to say.

Source: Voice of America

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