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The government has agreed to give an extra £100m to the police to help them tackle a knife crime “epidemic” in England and Wales.

The money will mainly go to the seven forces where violence is highest. But the fund falls short of the £200m to £300m requested by police chiefs through the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) last week.

Chancellor Philip Hammond initially said police forces must use their existing budgets to tackle knife crime.

The NPCC welcomed the new money, which was announced in the chancellor’s Spring Statement, saying it would increase the number of officers patrolling crime hotspots, increase the use of stop and search and disrupt criminal gangs. The funding would also be used to fund Violence Reduction Units that seek to tackle the underlying causes of violent crime.

The chancellor’s announcement follows a spate of fatal teenage stabbings, with two 17-year-olds killed in separate knife attacks in London and Greater Manchester earlier this month.

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Detectives investigating devices sent to addresses in London and Glasgow have said a claim of responsibility has been made in the name of the “IRA”.

The Met and Police Scotland said similar packages were sent in the past by dissident Northern Ireland groups. Officers also revealed that one package may be unaccounted for.

The devices arrived on 5 and 6 March at Waterloo Station, buildings near Heathrow Airport and London City Airport and the University of Glasgow.

A joint statement from Police Scotland and the Metropolitan Police said the claim of “IRA” responsibility was received on Monday by the Belfast-based Irish News. A recognised codeword was used. It added: “Given the packages received last week bore similarities to devices sent in the past which were linked to dissident groups associated with Northern Ireland-related terrorism, officers were already looking at this as a line of inquiry. However, we continue to keep an open mind and enquiries continue.

“We are also aware that those claiming responsibility have indicated five devices were sent. At this time, only four devices have been recovered.

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Angus Sinclair, one of Scotland’s most notorious murderers, has died at the age of 73.

Kevin Scott, the brother of one of the murder victims, described the serial killer as a “monster”.

Sinclair was jailed for a minimum of 37 years after being found guilty of murdering Helen Scott and her friend Christine Eadie. Speaking to BBC Scotland, Mr Scott said: “He was a monster. To treat innocent people the way he did was just evil. You would need to be a beast to commit those crimes. “I would have wanted him to live longer to serve more of the 37 year sentence, as opposed to getting the easy way out.

“I do feel for the families of the other victims that he may have had. They’ll never be afforded the kind of justice that we received.”

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Humans will always make the final decision on whether armed robots can shoot, the US Department of Defense has said.

The statement comes as plans emerge for gun platforms that can choose their own targets on the battlefield. The plans seek to upgrade existing aiming systems, using developments in machine intelligence.

The US said rules governing armed robots still stood and humans would retain the power to veto their actions.

The defence department’s plans seek to upgrade the current Advanced Targeting and Lethality Automated System (Atlas) used on ground combat vehicles to help human gunners aim. The military is seeking commercial partners to help develop aiming systems to “acquire, identify, and engage targets at least three times faster than the current manual process”.

And some commentators feared this would mean systems that could choose their own targets and make an autonomous decision to fire.

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Indian police have arrested an alleged member of the Hizbul Mujahideen militant group after a grenade attack killed at least two people and injured more than 30 others.

The attack took place on Thursday in a bus station in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Last month a suicide attack against security forces triggered cross-border air strikes between India and Pakistan. Hizbul Mujahideen has said it was not behind Thursday’s attack. But police told BBC Urdu that the accused, Yasir Javed Bhat, had confessed. He is a Kashmiri and reported to be in his 20s.

“He revealed that he was tasked with throwing the grenade by Farooq Ahmed Bhat, a district commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in Kulgam district,” inspector general Manish Kumar Sinha said.

Mr Sinha added that they were gathering more intelligence on Yasir.

Hizbul Mujahideen was formed in 1989 when an armed insurgency against Indian rule first broke out in the valley. It was the largest Kashmiri militant group through the 1990s and is considered to be pro-Pakistani.

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