Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

Acting Pentagon chief defends space force amid skepticism

The acting Pentagon chief is sharpening his argument for creating a Space Force, amid skepticism among some in Congress that it's worth the cost.

Patrick Shanahan calls the proposed Space Force a "low cost, low bureaucracy" way to stay ahead of China, Russia and other nations seeking to erase American military and technological advantages in space. He says the next big war may be won or lost in space.

Shanahan spelled out his arguments in a speech Tuesday to a space symposium in Colorado Springs. He pointedly cited China as a space threat, saying it is developing the ability to jam and target satellite communications that the U.S. military relies on in combat and in peacetime.

Congress is considering a Trump administration to establish a Space Force in 2020.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Maldives ex-president appears in court on laundering charges

Former Maldives President Yameen Abdul Gayoom has appeared in court to answer money laundering charges.

Yameen appeared in criminal court in Male, the capital, on Monday afternoon after the country's top prosecutor charged him last week with money laundering.

Prosecutors say police investigations found $1 million allegedly linked to a shady tourist resort development deal in his bank account.

Yameen lost his bid for re-election last year in a surprise upset by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who campaigned on a promise to investigate allegations of corruption by his predecessor's government.

Solih has also suspended two of his Cabinet ministers over money allegedly found in their accounts from the same deal.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Biden slams Trump's treatment of European allies as speculation mounts of possible 2020 run

Amid widespread speculation that he could soon declare his candidacy for the 2020 presidential race, former Vice President Joe Biden offered up this weekend his latest critique of the Trump administration and its foreign policy direction.

Speaking during a security conference in Munich on Saturday, Biden criticized President Trump’s treatment of the United States' traditional allies in Western Europe and promised a rekindling of the close ties European powers shared with Washington.

“The America I see does not wish to turn our back on the world or our closest allies,” Biden said, as The Washington Post reported.

He added: “The America I see cherishes a free press, democracy, the rule of law. It stands up to the aggression of dictators and against strongmen.”

BIDEN, SANDERS, HARRIS, WARREN TOP 2020 DEM FIELD IN NEW POLL

Biden has been one of the harshest voices speaking out against Trump’s isolationist “America First” initiatives and his continued condemnation of the White House’s policies have added more fuel to the rumors that he could plan to challenge Trump in the 2020 race.

“This too shall pass. We will be back. We will be back," Biden said in Munich, according to the New York Times.

A source close to the Biden camp told Fox News last week that the former vice president is almost certain to enter the race soon.

The source said the timing of an announcement is still up in the air. With such a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls, Biden wants to keep big donors and potential staffers with him and has been conducting outreach to former colleagues, grassroots activists and contributors, the source said.

The 76-year-old former vice president’s decision comes as a slew of younger and more liberal Democrats have already jumped into the fray, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, California Sen. Kamala Harris, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

BIDEN STRIKES CONTRAST WITH 2020 FIELD, JOKES ABOUT LIKING REPUBLICANS

However, some close to Biden have suggested that with his name recognition and long record of public service, he could afford to wait before moving forward.

Also speaking at the conference in Munich was the man who took Biden’s job when Trump came into office, Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence used his time at the pulpit to double down on American criticism of Europe.

Pence stuck to the U.S. line that the NATO guideline for its nations to spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense is a strict commitment rather than a target, saying while more alliance members have met the criteria, "the truth is, many of our NATO allies still need to do more."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

He also reiterated American opposition to the joint German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which Washington has claimed could make Europe overly reliant on Russian gas.

"The United States commends all our European partners who've taken a strong stand against Nord Stream 2," he said. "And we commend others to do that same."

He added: "We cannot ensure the defense of the West if our allies grow dependent on the East."

Fox News’ Alex Pappas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

0 0

Australian prime minister expected to call May 18 election

Australia's prime minister on Thursday called for a May election that will be fought on issues including climate change, asylum seekers and economic management

Prime Minister Scott Morrison advised Governor-General Peter Cosgrove as representative of Australia's head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, to set the election date.

Morrison is expected to announce later Thursday that Australia will go to the polls on May 18.

Morrison's conservative coalition is seeking a third three-year term. But Morrison is the third prime minister to lead a divided government in that time and only took the helm in late August.

Opinion polls suggest his reign will become one of the shortest in the 118-year history of Australian prime ministers on election day. The polls suggest center-left opposition leader Bill Shorten will become the eighth prime minister since the country plunged into an extraordinary period of political instability in 2007.

The election pits Shorten, a former labor union leader who has presented himself as the alternative prime minister for the past six years, and Morrison, a leader who the Australian public is still getting to know.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Pavlich on Kamala Harris’ gun control push: ‘She’s going after the Second Amendment rights of everyday Americans’

Katie Pavlich has weighed in on Sen. Kamala Harris’ pledge that, if elected president, she will sign a series of executive orders on gun control if Congress fails to pass comprehensive legislation in her first 100 days in the Oval Office.

On “Fox & Friends” Wednesday, Pavlich said Harris should be more concerned with fixing the problems "that are already in the system of government not doing its job," not with going after legal gun owners who are obeying the law.

During a town hall hosted by CNN Monday night, Harris, D-Calif, said that if a bill from Congress did not make it to her desk, she would unilaterally mandate background checks for customers purchasing a firearm from any dealer who sells more than five guns a year.

KAMALA HARRIS PLEDGES EXECUTIVE ORDER ON GUN CONTROL IF CONGRESS DOESN'T ACT IN HER FIRST 100 DAYS

Dealers who violate the law, she said, would have their licenses revoked. The other executive orders would prohibit fugitives from purchasing a firearm or weapon, as well as close the loophole that allows some domestic abusers to purchase a firearm if their victim is an unwedded partner.

“As we’ve seen in the past with Democrats and a number of other Democrats on the campaign trail now, when they say ‘common sense’ or ‘reasonable gun safety laws,’ they're actually talking about gun bans,” Pavlich said.

“It was interesting to me to watch Kamala Harris speak more harshly of Second Amendment rights than she did about the Boston bomber voting and about felons who are in prison now. She was more willing to convict gun owners in saying ‘you don't have the courage to actually pass gun safety laws,’ when the fact is, that it’s actually pro-gun groups and regular everyday Americans who have been at the forefront of making sure that felons don't have guns, putting safety into their communities through education in different programs, training programs for children, to make sure that they're not around guns.”

Pavlich added: “So when she’s proposing universal background checks, what she’s really doing is saying, that if you're a father who wants to pass down a gun to your son you can't do that unless you go through some kind of bureaucratic process or get a license to do so from the federal government."

KAMALA HARRIS ADMITS 'UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES' IN ANTI-TRUANCY LAW WHILE SHE WAS CALIFORNIA AG

"And when she talks about gun safety laws, she’s really talking about a ban on assault weapons, which, if you look at the data, according to the Clinton Justice Department, that didn't actually have an effect on crime, and the majority of crimes in this country that are committed with guns are committed with handguns. And so when it comes to actually addressing the issue of violent crime and firearms, she’s going after the Second Amendment rights of regular, everyday Americans. She’s not actually addressing the issue.”

Pavlich said she doesn’t think Harris’ pledge would be popular in several states.

“Gun confiscation, gun control by executive fiat, taking away the Second Amendment rights of Americans through tyrannical executive orders without any kind of due process. That doesn't play well in places like Ohio and Michigan, even Wisconsin,” she said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“The reason why we're talking about gun control in a political sense is because we have seen these mass shootings which are absolutely horrific and awful but if you actually look at the facts of these cases, it is the federal government and the local government failing and they’re using Second Amendment rights and law-abiding Americans as a scapegoat for it,” said Pavlich.

“Parkland is the perfect example of that. Government failed at every single level, the local school district level, the local sheriff level, and the federal government level. When you saw the church shooting in South Carolina, Dylann Roof, he wasn’t supposed to be able to pass a background check and yet he did, he slipped through the cracks in the FBI background check system.”

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Beijing city targets raising $1.5 billion fund in tech push: sources

FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a mask makes his way at a financial district during a heavily polluted day in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a mask makes his way at a financial district during a heavily polluted day in Beijing, November 30, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

February 26, 2019

By Julie Zhu and Kane Wu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – An investment firm backed by the Beijing city government is in talks with prospective investors to raise over 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in its first fund aimed mainly at cutting-edge tech investments, said two people with direct knowledge.

Beijing Innovation Industry Investment Co’s fundraising move underscores the Chinese capital city’s push to catch up with other cities in the country, most notably Shenzhen, in pursuing innovative technology and industrial upgrading projects.

It comes as China aims to speed up development of its technology sector, including segments such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, amid a fierce trade stand-off with the United States that has demonstrated the country’s reliance on imported technology.

China’s State Council in 2016 approved a 200 billion yuan venture capital fund https://www.reuters.com/article/china-funds-idUSL3N1AZ1SX, financed by state controlled entities, to invest in new technologies.

Beijing Innovation could not be immediately reached for comment.

It was set up by Beijing’s municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees the city’s state-owned enterprises, and has been tasked with making investments in new-economy sectors on behalf of the local government.

Beijing Innovation has attracted the local SASAC and several local government-backed companies such as Shenzhen Capital Group, the venture investment vehicle of the Shenzhen government, as investors, according to domestic media reports and public corporate registry filings.

It will look for direct-equity investment opportunities in sectors ranging from information technology and integrated circuits to electric vehicles and new materials, according to domestic media reports.

As a major tech hub in China, Beijing, where ByteDance Technology, one of the world’s most valuable startups, online food delivery-to-ticketing services firm Meituan Dianping and e-commerce firm JD.com are headquartered, has for years lacked a consolidated investment arm under the local government for tech deals.

In contrast, Shenzhen which has bred companies such as online gaming-to-social media giant Tencent Holdings, telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies and drone maker DJI, has Shenzhen Capital Group investing in the tech sector for 20 years.

Shenzhen Capital Group has over 333 billion yuan of assets under management, its website shows, and holds a 15 percent stake in Beijing Innovation, according to public disclosures.

(Reporting by Julie Zhu and Kane Wu; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

0 0

Turkey’s Erdogan says he plans to change Hagia Sophia’s title from museum to mosque

An election banner of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, with the Byzantine-era monument of Hagia Sophia in the background, is pictured in Istanbul
An election banner of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, with the Byzantine-era monument of Hagia Sophia in the background, is pictured in Istanbul, Turkey, March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

March 29, 2019

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia should be re-titled as a mosque instead of a museum after Sunday’s elections, but did not say whether the status of the landmark site would be changed.

Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the foremost cathedral in Christendom for 900 years before becoming one of Islam’s greatest mosques for 500 years until 1935, when it was converted to a museum.

In 2014, amid rumors of a possible change, senior Erdogan adviser Ibrahim Kalin said there were no plans to alter the monument’s status.

In the lead-up to local elections on Sunday, Erdogan has appealed to religious sentiments to drum up support for his party, invoking the New Zealand mosque killings as examples of the threats faced by Turkey, and Islam.

He has also brought up the issue of Hagia Sophia several times.

“After elections, we will change Hagia Sophia’s name from museum to mosque,” he told a crowd in Istanbul at an election rally on Friday. “We have some plans and we are going to implement these plans.”

He did not expand on what those plans are.

On Thursday, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) condemned Erdogan’s comments earlier this week on the museum.

“Hagia Sophia bears profound historical and spiritual significance to Muslims and Christians alike, and its status as a museum must be maintained,” USCIRF Chair said in a statement https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases-statements/uscirf-condemns-erdogan-s-threats-change-status-hagia-sophia.

“President Erdogan’s comments are needlessly provocative and hurtful to Turkey’s minority religious communities. Additionally, the implications of such an action are compounded by the deteriorating landscape for religious freedom, democracy and human rights in Turkey.”

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf – Masters – Augusta National Golf Club – Augusta, Georgia, U.S. – April 14, 2019 – Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates on the 18th hole after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

April 26, 2019

Tiger Woods is sending a message that he thinks he still has enough left, emotionally and physically, to win three more major championships to tie Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 titles.

Speaking to GolfTV in his first sit-down interview since the Masters, Woods said he has taken some time off since his victory at Augusta National, which still doesn’t feel real.

“Honestly, it’s hard to believe,” Woods said. “I was texting one of my good friends last night … that I couldn’t believe that I won the tournament. That it really hasn’t sunk in. I haven’t started doing anything. I’ve just been laying there. And every now and again, I’ll look over there on the couch and there’s the jacket.”

That’s the fifth green jacket for the 43-year-old Woods, who hadn’t won a major tournament since the 2008 U.S. Open. Along the way, four back surgeries, a divorce and other personal issues derailed him.

He said he has been spending time with his children – daughter Sam, 11, and son Charlie, 10 – who weren’t born when their father was the most dominant golfer on the planet.

“They never knew golf to be a good thing in my life and only the only thing they remember is that it brought this incredible amount of pain to their dad and they don’t want to ever want to see their dad in pain,” Woods said. “And so to now have them see this side of it, the side that I’ve experienced for so many years of my life, but I had a battle to get back to this point, it feels good.”

He said he hopes – maybe expects — they’ll see this side again.

And no one will take Woods for granted at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black Course on Long Island, N.Y., which starts May 16.

Woods said he’ll be ready for a course he already conquered once in a major: the 2002 U.S. Open.

“I’m doing all the visual stuff, but I haven’t put in the physical work yet. But it’s probably coming this weekend,” he said.

Before Woods encountered health and personal problems, it was expected that topping Nicklaus’ major mark was “when” and not “if.” Then the certainty went away, but Woods thought he still had a chance.

“I always thought it was possible, if I had everything go my way. It took him an entire career to get to 18, so now that I’ve had another extension to my career – one that I didn’t think I had a couple of years ago – if I do things correctly and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’m never going to say it’s not.

“Now I just need to have a lot of things go my way, and who’s to say that it will or will not happen? That’s what the future holds, I don’t know. The only thing I can promise you is this: that I will be prepared.”

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Maria Butina, the Russian woman who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russian government, was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday by a federal judge in Washington after pleading guilty last year to a conspiracy charge.

Butina, who has already served nine months behind bars, will get credit for time served and can possibly get credit for good behavior, the judge said. She will be removed from the U.S. promptly on completion of her time, the judge added, and returned to Russia.

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

An emotional and apologetic Butina said in court Friday she is “truly sorry” and regrets not registering as a foreign agent.

“I feel ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, adding that her “reputation is ruined.”

Butina has been jailed since her arrest in July 2018. She entered the court Friday wearing a dark green prison jumpsuit and spoke in clear English, with a slight Russian accent.

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said after the sentencing they had hoped for a “better outcome,” but expressed a desire for Butina to be released to her family by the fall.

Prosecutors had claimed Butina used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with U.S. politicians and gather information for Russia.

Prosecutors also have said that Butina’s boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, identified in court papers as “U.S. Person 1,” helped her establish ties with the NRA.

WHO IS MARIA BUTINA, THE RUSSIAN WOMAN ACCUSED OF SPYING ON US?

In their filings, prosecutors claim federal agents found Butina had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. Inside her home, they found notes referring to a potential job offer from the FSB, according to the documents.

Investigators recovered several emails and Twitter direct message conversations in which Butina referred to the need to keep her work secret and, in one instance, said it should be “incognito.” Prosecutors said Butina had contact with Russian intelligence officials and that the FBI photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent.

Fox News’ Jason Donner, Bill Mears, Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

An official Sri Lankan police Twitter account was deleted after it misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspect in the country’s Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, police posted the names and photos of six people that they said were at-large suspects in the bombings that killed more than 250 people.

However, one of the names on the list was Muslim U.S. activist Amara Majeed, who quickly tweeted that she had been falsely identified.

“I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS terrorists that committed the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka. What a thing to wake up to!” she wrote.

SRI LANKA AUTHORITIES SAY EASTER ATTACK LEADER KILLED IN ONE OF NINE HOTEL BOMBINGS

She wrote in a follow-up tweet that the claim was “obviously completely false” and asked social media users to “please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks.”

“And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone’s family and community,” she continued.

Later, she wrote an update saying police apologized for wrongly mistaking her as a suspect.

Police said in a statement: “However, although one of the released images was identified as one Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya in the information provided by the CID, the CID has now informed that a) the individual whose image was labeled as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya is not in fact Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya b) the individual pictured is not wanted for questioning c) Abdul Cader Fathima is the correct name of the suspect wanted by the CID.”

On Friday, the account, @SriLankaPolice2 was deleted with no explanation. Police did not release more information regarding the mistake.

Majeed, who founded “The Hijab Project” when she was 16 years old, told the Baltimore Sun that it was hurtful to be linked to the attacks.

“Sri Lanka is my motherland,” the Brown University student said. “It’s very painful to be associated with [the bombings].”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

DNA Force Plus

Limited Advanced Release

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

DNA Force Plus is finally here! Now you can support optimal energy levels while adapting your body to handle the daily bombardment of toxins to overhaul your body’s cellular engines with a fan-favorite formula.

https://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dna-210.jpg

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

https://www.infowarsstore.com/dna-force-plus.html?ims=jbdoh&utm_campaign=IWL-DNAForcePlus-20%25off-Widget&utm_source=Infowars+Widget&utm_medium=Banner&utm_content=Widget-DNFP-20%25off

Source: InfoWars

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran was 12 years old when he began his studies at the Jamiathul Falah Arabic College. He was a nobody, with no claim to scholarship other than ambition.

Zahran and his four brothers and sisters squeezed into a two-room house with their parents in a small seaside town in eastern Sri Lanka; their father was a poor man who sold packets of food on the street and had a reputation for being a petty thief.

“His father didn’t do much,” recalled the school’s vice principal, S.M. Aliyar, laughing out loud.

The boy surprised the school with his sharp mind. For three years, Zahran practiced memorizing the Koran. Next came his studies in Islamic law. But the more he learned, the more Zahran argued that his teachers were too liberal in their reading of the holy book.

“He was against our teaching and the way we interpreted the Koran – he wanted his radical Islam,” said Aliyar. “So we kicked him out.”

Aliyar, now 73 with a long white beard, remembers the day Zahran left in 2005. “His father came and asked, ‘Where can he go?’.”

The school would hear again of Mohamed Zahran. And the world now knows his name. The Sri Lankan government has identified him as the ringleader of a group that carried out a series of Easter Sunday suicide bombings in the country on April 21.

The blasts killed more than 250 people in churches and luxury hotels, one of the deadliest-ever such attacks in South Asia. There were nine suicide bombers who blew apart men, women and children as they sat to pray or ate breakfast.

Most of the attackers were well-educated and from wealthy families, with some having been abroad to study, according to Sri Lankan officials.

That description does not, however, fit their alleged leader, a man said to be in his early 30s, who authorities say died in the slaughter. Zahran was different.

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

Sri Lanka’s national leadership has come under heavy criticism for failing to heed warnings from Indian intelligence services – at least three in April alone – that an attack was pending. But Zahran’s path from provincial troublemaker to alleged jihadist mastermind was marked by years of missed or ignored signals that the man with a thick beard and paunch was dangerous.

His increasingly militant brand of Islam was allowed to grow inside a marginalized minority community – barely 10 percent of the country’s roughly 20 million people are Muslim – against a backdrop of a dysfunctional developing nation.

The top official at the nation’s defense ministry resigned on Thursday, saying that some institutions under his charge had failed.

For much of his adult life, Zahran, 33, courted controversy inside the Muslim community itself.

In the internet age, that problem did not stay local. Zahran released online videos calling for jihad and threatening bloodshed.

After the blasts, Islamic State claimed credit and posted a video of Zahran, clutching an assault rifle, standing before the group’s black flag and pledging allegiance to its leader.

The precise relationship between Zahran and Islamic State is not yet known. An official with India’s security services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that during a raid on a suspected Islamic State cell by the National Investigation Agency earlier this year officers found copies of Zahran’s videos. The operation was in the state of Tamil Nadu, just across a thin strait of ocean from Sri Lanka.

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

Back in 2005, Zahran was looking to make his way in the world. His hometown of Kattankudy is some seven hours’ drive from Colombo on the other side of the island nation, past the countless palm trees, roadside Buddha statues, cashew hawkers and an occasional lumbering elephant in the bush. It is a town of about 40,000 people, a dot on the eastern coast with no clear future for an impoverished young man who’d just been expelled.

Zahran joined a mosque in 2006, the Dharul Athar, and gained a place on its management committee. But within three years they’d had a falling out.

“He wanted to speak more independently, without taking advice from elders,” said the mosque’s imam, or spiritual leader, M.T.M. Fawaz.

Also, the young man was more conservative, Fawaz said, objecting, for instance, to women wearing bangles or earrings.

“The rest of us come together as community leaders but Zahran wanted to speak for himself,” said Fawaz, a man with broad shoulders lounging with a group of friends in a back office of the mosque after evening prayers. “He was a black sheep who broke free.”

Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed Thaufeek, a friend who met Zahran at school and later became an adherent of his, said the problems revolved around Zahran’s habit of misquoting Islamic scriptures.

The mosque’s committee banned him from preaching for three months in 2009. Zahran stormed off.

“We treated him like a spoiled child, a very narrow-minded person who was always causing some trouble,” said the head of the committee, Mohamed Ismail Mohamed Naushad, a timber supplier who shook his head at the memory.

Now on his own, Zahran began to collect a group of followers who met in what Fawaz described as “a hut”.

At about that time, Zahran, then 23, married a young girl from a small town outside the capital of Colombo and brought his bride back to Kattankudy, according to his sister, Mathaniya.

“I didn’t have much of a connection with her – she was 14,” she said.

Despite being “a bit rough-edged”, Zahran was a skilled speaker and others his age were drawn to his speeches and Koranic lessons, said Thaufeek. He traveled the countryside at times, giving his version of religious instruction as he went.

Also, Zahran had found a popular target: the town’s Sufi population, who practice a form of Islam often described a mystical, but which to conservatives is heresy.

Tensions in the area went back some years. In 2004, there was a grenade attack on a Sufi mosque and in 2006 several homes of Sufis were set afire. Announcements boomed from surrounding mosques at the time calling for a Sufi spiritual leader to be killed, said Sahlan Khalil Rahman, secretary of a trust that oversees a group of Sufi mosques.

He blamed followers of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that some locals say became more popular after funding from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabism, flowed to mosques in Kattankudy.

It was, Rahman said, an effort “to convert Sufis into Wahhabis through this terrorism”. Rahman handed over a photograph album showing charred homes, bullet holes sprayed across an office wall and a shrine’s casket upended.

ONLINE RADICAL

It was an ideal backdrop for Zahran’s bellicose delivery and apparent sense of religious destiny.

He began holding rallies, bellowing insults through loudspeakers that reverberated inside the Sufis’ house of worship as they tried to pray.

In 2012, Zahran started a mosque of his own. The Sufis were alarmed and, Rahman said, passed on complaints to both local law enforcement and eventually national government offices. No action was taken.

The then-officer in charge of Kattankudy police, Ariyabandhu Wedagedara, said in a telephone interview that he couldn’t arrest people simply because of theological differences.

     “The problem at the time was between followers of different Islamic sects – Zahran was not a major troublemaker, but he and followers of other sects, including the Sufis, were at loggerheads,” Wedagedara said.

Zahran found another megaphone: the internet. His Facebook page was taken down after the bombings, but Muslims in the area said his video clips had previously achieved notoriety.

His speeches went from denouncing Sufis to “kafirs”, or non-believers, in general. Zahran’s sister, Mathaniya, said in an interview that she thought “his ideas became more radical from listening to Islamic State views on the Internet”.

In one undated video, Zahran, in a white tunic and standing in front of an image of flames, boomed in a loud voice: “You will not have time to pick up the remains of blown-up bodies. We’ll keep sending those insulting Allah to hell.”

“HARD TO TAKE”

Zahran spoke in Tamil, making his words available to young Muslims clicking on their cellphones in Kattankudy and other towns like it during a period when, in both 2014 and 2018, reports and images spread of Sinhalese Buddhists rioting against Muslims in Sri Lanka.

In 2017, Zahran’s confrontations boiled over. At a rally near a Sufi community, his followers came wielding swords. At least one man was hacked and hospitalized. The police arrested several people connected to Zahran, including his father and one of his brothers. Zahran slipped away from public view.

That December, the mosque Zahran founded released a public notice disowning him. Thaufeek, his friend from school, is now the head. He counted the places that Zahran had been driven away from – his school, the Dharul Athar mosque and then, “we ourselves kicked him out, which would have been hard for him to take”.

The next year, a group of Buddha statues was vandalized in the town of Mawanella, about five hours drive from Kattankudy. There, in the lush mountains of Sri Lanka’s interior, Zahran had taken up temporary residence.

“He was preaching to kill people,” said A.G.M. Anees, who has served as an imam at a small mosque in the area for a decade. “This is not Islam, this is violence.”

Zahran went into hiding once more.

On the Thursday morning before the Easter Sunday bombings, Zahran’s sister-in-law knocked on the door of a neighbor who did seamstress work near Kattankudy. She handed over a parcel of fabric and asked for it to be sewn into a tunic by the end of the day.

“She said she was going on a family trip,” said the neighbor, M.H. Sithi Nazlya.

Zahran’s sister says that her parents turned off their cellphones on the Friday. On Sunday, when she visited their home, they were gone.

She does not know if Zahran arranged for them to be taken somewhere safe. Or why he would have carried out the bombing.

But now in Kattankudy, and in many other places, people are talking about Mohamed Hashim Mohamed Zahran.

(Reporting by Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam; Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Shihar Aneez and Alasdair Pal; Editing by John Chalmers and Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist