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Kenyan who gave earnings to poor wins $1M teacher prize

A Kenyan teacher from a remote village who gave away most of his earnings to poor students has won a highly competitive $1 million global prize that honors one exceptional educator a year.

Peter Tabichi is a science teacher who gives away 80 percent of his income to help the poor in the remote village of Pwani where almost a third of children are orphans or have only one parent, and where droughts and famine are frequent.

He was selected out of some 10,000 applicants and awarded the Global Teacher Prize on Sunday during a ceremony in Dubai hosted by actor Hugh Jackman.

He's the first African and male teacher to win the prize, which is awarded by the Varkey Foundation, whose founder established the for-profit GEMS Education company.

Source: Fox News World

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Sterling to rise three percent if Brexit deal looks likely: Reuters poll

FILE PHOTO: A shop cash register is seen with both Sterling and Euro currency in the till at the border town of Pettigo
FILE PHOTO: A shop cash register is seen with both Sterling and Euro currency in the till at the border town of Pettigo, Ireland October 14, 2016. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

April 5, 2019

By Jonathan Cable

LONDON (Reuters) – Sterling will rally 3 percent if the Brexit gridlock is resolved and Britain looks likely to leave the European Union with a deal but the currency will tumble 5 percent if negotiations fail, a Reuters poll found.

The pound tanked after the June 2016 referendum result — as predicted by Reuters polls beforehand — and was trading at around $1.31 on Thursday, far weaker than it was ahead of the vote.

Since the decision to leave, the pound has gyrated wildly on any Brexit news and largely shrugged off economic data, including recent private surveys which suggested Britain’s economy is likely to shrink in coming months. [GB/PMIS]

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would seek another Brexit delay to agree an EU divorce deal with the opposition Labour Party leader, a last-ditch gambit to break an impasse over Britain’s departure.

Nearly three years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a shock referendum result, it is still unclear how, when or even if it will ever quit the European club it joined in 1973.

May secured a Withdrawal Agreement with the EU in November but has failed to get the support of British lawmakers, leaving the country’s road out of the EU unclear.

If that road is smooth and Britain leaves with a deal, sterling will gain around 3 percent, the April 1-4 poll predicted. If the road is blocked and no deal is made, the pound will fall 5 percent.

“Looser fiscal policy and a Brexit deal could lead to higher interest rates and push up the pound,” said Thomas Pugh at Capital Economics.

Another option is that Britain asks for a long delay to Brexit which would prolong the uncertainty. But if it looks like the road out will be extended, the pound will edge up around 1.75 percent, according to the poll.

“Political clouds could be darkening the skies over the outlook for GBP for a long time yet,” said Jane Foley at Rabobank. Foley was the most accurate forecaster for major currencies in Reuters polls last year. 

The wider poll of nearly 70 foreign exchange strategists said the pound would be trading at $1.32 in a month, $1.35 in six months and have strengthened to $1.38 in a year, indicating respondents do not expect a disorderly Brexit.

But highlighting the uncertainty, the 12-month forecast range was wide, going from $1.27 to $1.56.

A Reuters poll of economists last month found the vast majority of them saying the two sides would settle eventually on a free-trade deal, as they have in all Reuters polls since late 2016. [ECILT/GB]

That poll also predicted the Bank of England would raise borrowing costs towards the end of this year and then again in the latter half of 2020.

In contrast, the European Central Bank will not be raising interest rates until at least July next year, another Reuters poll predicted, but that differential won’t give the pound any support against the common currency. [ECILT/EU]

Across all four touch points in the forecast horizon — one, three, six and 12 months — one euro was predicted to be worth 85.0 pence. It was valued at around 85.3p on Thursday.

(Reporting by Jonathan Cable; Polling by Indradip Ghosh and Mumal Rathore; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Source: OANN

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Trump says he will have to call up more military at U.S.-Mexico border

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Trump visits U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico, California
FILE PHOTO - People stand on the other side of the fence in Mexico as President Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico, California, U.S., April 5, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

April 10, 2019

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would have to mobilize more of the military at the U.S. border with Mexico after listening to stories from people attending a Republican fundraiser about migrants crossing the border.

“I’m going to have to call up more military,” Trump said.

The president said some of the people crossing the border were ending up dead from the journey on Americans’ ranches.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Australia, Holland, Russia start talks over downed MH17

The Netherlands and Australia have confirmed three-way talks with Russia have begun over the ongoing criminal investigation into the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.

The two countries announced last year they were holding Russia responsible for providing the missile fired by pro-Russian forces in war-torn Ukraine that hit the jet, causing the deaths of all 298 people aboard, including 196 Dutch and 38 Australians.

After diplomatic approaches were made earlier this year, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok and his Australian counterpart Marise Payne said Wednesday that the first trilateral talks about state responsibility for the incident took place earlier this month.

On his visit to Canberra, Blok told a news conference he could not reveal details about the meetings because of confidentiality issues.

Source: Fox News World

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Hong Kong pro-democracy ‘Occupy’ activists jailed for role in mass protests

Pro-democracy activists arrive at the court for sentencing on their involvement in the Occupy Central, in Hong Kong
(L-R) Pro-democracy activists Chan Kin-man, Benny Tai and Chu Yiu-ming arrive at the court for sentencing on their involvement in the Occupy Central, also known as "Umbrella Movement", in Hong Kong, China April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

April 24, 2019

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A Hong Kong court on Wednesday jailed key leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy “Occupy” movement in a move that highlights political divisions nearly five years after protests rocked the China-ruled city.

The sentences came after nine leaders of the Occupy movement were found guilty of public nuisance during the protest in a trial that critics said underscored the decline of political freedoms in the former British colony.

Law professor Benny Tai, 54, and retired sociologist Chan Kin-man, 60, were each jailed for 16 months for conspiracy to commit public nuisance. Retired pastor Chu Yiu-ming, 75, received a suspended sentence.

The trio were found guilty of conspiracy to commit public nuisance over their leading role in planning and mobilizing supporters during the 79-day protest. They had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

(Reporting By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: OANN

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Trump blasts New York Times reporting, says paper will be gone ‘in 6 years’

President Trump unleashed a barrage of criticism against the New York Times in a series of tweets Saturday, describing the newspaper as “phony” over its coverage of his immigration policies and predicting it would cease to exist within six years.

In his first Twitter post, the president blasted the paper for its story about his administration’s threats to release migrants into “sanctuary cities” as retaliation against Democrats.

"The New York Times Sanctuary Cities/Immigration story today was knowingly wrong on almost every fact," the president wrote. "They never call to check for truth. Their sources often don’t even exist, a fraud. They will lie & cheat anyway possible to make me look bad. In 6 years they will be gone........."

FORMER NY TIMES EDITOR RIPS TRUMP COVERAGE AS BIASED

Trump has repeatedly suggested releasing migrants into "sanctuary cities." A statement from the Department of Homeland Security to Fox News said the idea to release immigrant detainees onto the streets of sanctuary cities "was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion.”

PELOSI FUMES OVER WHITE HOUSE PLAN TO RELEASE IMMIGRANT DETAINEES IN SANCTUARY CITIES

A follow-up tweet said the Times “begged” its subscribers for forgiveness over its "pathetic" 2016 election coverage of him. The tweet referred to a November 2016 letter from Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger that promised readers it would “reflect” on its coverage and rededicate itself to reporting on America and the world honestly."

"....When I won the Election in 2016, the @nytimes had to beg their fleeing subscribers for forgiveness in that they covered the Election (and me) so badly. They didn’t have a clue, it was pathetic. They even apologized to me. But now they are even worse, really corrupt reporting!," Trump wrote.

The Times denied apologizing to Trump.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Trump ended by denying a Times report that claimed he directed acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan to close the U.S.-Mexico border and offered to pardon him if things went awry.

"I never offered Pardons to Homeland Security Officials, never ordered anyone to close our Southern Border (although I have the absolute right to do so, and may if Mexico does not apprehend the illegals coming to our Border), and am not “frustrated.” It is all Fake & Corrupt News!"

Source: Fox News Politics

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Police to allow transgender recruits in Pakistan province

Shahzadi Rai, 29, a transgender woman and activist, poses during an interview with Reuters in Karachi
Shahzadi Rai, 29, a transgender woman and activist, poses during an interview with Reuters at her home in Karachi, Pakistan April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

April 24, 2019

By Syed Raza Hassan

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – Transgender people in Pakistan’s Sindh province will be able to serve as regular duty police officers, the police chief said, adding it was time to offer more opportunities to a group relegated to menial jobs in government.

After years of sometimes brutal persecution, transgender Pakistanis gained recognition in 2009 when the Supreme Court granted them special status with rights equal to other citizens.

While discrimination still persists, the move to allow transgender police recruits would be a significant step for the community, activists say.

“We will make them part of Sindh police,” Syed Kaleem Imam, Inspector General of the Sindh police told Reuters in Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

“They are good God-gifted people. Citizens like us. We should stand by them,” said Imam, who as a junior officer became aware of the discrimination against the community.

As in neighboring India and Bangladesh, transgender Pakistanis have faced widespread discrimination for decades. Many live in secluded communities, earning a living as dancers or forced into sex work or begging.

A 2017 census counted 10,418 transgender people in the country of 207 million, but rights group Charity Trans Action Pakistan estimates there are at least 500,000.

‘TRANS-FRIENDLY’

In a major step forward in 2009, the Supreme Court ruled that transgender people could receive national identity cards as a “third sex” and in 2017, the government issued its first passport with a transgender category.

While some transgender people have achieved celebrity as news anchors or fashion models, entry into the police force would be a major development for the community.

“Police behavior and their complaint mechanism is not trans-friendly. I will try to make police trans-friendly and educate colleagues when I join the police,” said Shahzadi Rai, a 29-year-old transgender activist who hopes to join the force.

“When we go to lodge any report at the police station, their behavior and questions hurt us. They don’t ask questions about the case, but about our gender,” Rai said.

Zehrish Khan, a program manager at Gender Interactive Alliance, a transgender rights group, said the community had always sought inclusion and was now seeing the fruits of the 2009 Supreme Court ruling.

“If we are inducted into the police, we’ll show we can work harder compared to men and women,” Khan told Reuters.

It could be months before the first transgender police officers are hired, Imam said, but they will have the same opportunities as other recruits and perform regular duties in the field.

“We will give them space, facilitate them so that they can come into the mainstream,” the police chief said.

(Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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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

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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

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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

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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

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