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

Brazil police arrest author of American missionary’s murder

Police in Brazil have again arrested a farmer convicted of ordering the 2005 assassination of American missionary Dorothy Stang.

Regivaldo Pereira Galvão's was detained this week after Brazil's supreme court overruled a May 2018 injunction that had blocked him from serving his sentence in the killing. He was taken to prison Thursday.

Back and forth rulings in the judiciary have mostly kept Galvão out of prison since he was convicted in 2010 of hiring two ranch hands to kill Stang.

She worked as an environmental activist throughout Brazil, often in opposition to powerful agricultural and ranching interests.

The two men shot Stang to death as she was walking to a community meeting to discuss protections for the Amazon. Prosecutors alleged Galvão ordered the killing because of Stang's activism.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Thousands march in Madrid supporting separatists on trial

Tens of thousands are marching in Madrid to support Catalan politicians and activists standing trial for their attempt to secede from Spain.

The nine defendants face decades in prison on rebellion and other charges for staging a banned referendum in October 2017 and declaring Catalan independence, although they took no action to implement that.

Many supporters believe the defendants are "political prisoners."

Large pro-independence protests have been staged in Spain's northeastern region and in some European cities, but Saturday's is the first major separatist march in the Spanish capital.

Organizers expect 50,000 protesters, most of them traveling from Catalonia in some 500 buses.

A banner reading "self-determination is not a crime" opened the march.

Authorities in Madrid have deployed more than 500 police officers including riot police.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Shares of Lululemon soar as its deft moves into menswear challenge Nike, Adidas

Clothes are displayed in a Lululemon Athletica retail store in New York
Clothes are displayed in a Lululemon Athletica retail store in New York, U.S., March 30, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 28, 2019

By Arundhati Sarkar and Uday Sampath Kumar

(Reuters) – Shares of yoga-pants specialists Lululemon Athletica Inc surged 20 percent on Thursday, with several Wall Street analysts raising their price targets for the company after a blockbuster fourth quarter.

Wednesday’s results showed the Vancouver-based athleisure wear maker moving strongly into menswear, improving online sales and potentially challenging bigger rival Nike Inc on its home turf.

Its success in North America, which contributes close to 90 percent of its business, stood out in a quarter where Nike, which introduced yogawear at the end of last year, fell short of Wall Street estimates for U.S. sales the first time in a year.

Shares of the company climbed 20 percent to $167.60 in early trade.

“There’s a lot of runway for us to continue to grow our men’s business,” Chief Operating Officer Stuart Haselden said in a post earnings conference call with analysts.

“We really believe that Lululemon can be a dual-gender brand, and that our men’s business can ultimately be as big as our women’s.”

Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy firm Metaforce, said that Lululemon’s expansion into menswear and fitness will add to headaches for Nike and Adidas, already in a brutal war over market share in their core markets.

“They play in the same neighborhood but not on the same block,” he said. “Lululemon has one foot in the fashion world and one foot in athletics while Nike has both feet in athletics.”

Adamson said Lululemon could pose more of a threat to Nike in newer markets like China where consumers’ definitions of the circumstances in which they can wear fitness, athletics and sports clothing are shifting quickly.

Lululemon forecast a strong 2019, said North America was doing well and reported a 37 percent jump in direct-to-consumer net revenue for the three months ended Feb. 3.

At least 11 brokerages have raised their price targets on Lululemon’s stock, with Stifel raising it the most by $35 to $187. JP Morgan held the highest target price of $197.

“We expect Lululemon to continue to rise above others who sell active wear, through targeted and nuanced customer engagement both online and in stores,” Susquehanna analyst Sam Poser said.

(Reporting by Arundhati Sarkar and Uday Sampath Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Source: OANN

0 0

Ex-Venezuelan intelligence chief jailed in Spain pending decision on U.S. extradition

Law enforcement van believed to be carrying former head of Venezuelan military intelligence, Carvajal, arrives in Madrid
A Civil Guard van believed to be carrying the former head of Venezuelan military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal arrives outside the high court, in Madrid, Spain April 13, 2019. REUTERS/Javier Barbancho

April 13, 2019

MADRID (Reuters) – Hugo Carvajal, a former Venezuelan military intelligence chief who Washington believes has valuable information on President Nicolas Maduro, was jailed on Saturday by Spain’s High Court pending a decision on an extradition request to the United States, a court spokesman said.

A former general and close ally of former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Carvajal was arrested by Spanish police on Friday on a U.S. warrant for drug trafficking charges.

During the hearing, Carvajal denied links with drug trafficking and Colombia’s FARC rebel group and challenged his potential extradition to the United States, the spokesman said.

The United States must now formalize its extradition request, which will be ruled upon by the High Court.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it had requested Carvajal’s extradition on cocaine smuggling charges filed in 2011 and unsealed in 2014.

Carvajal was previously sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2008 for “materially assisting the narcotics trafficking activities” of Colombia’s FARC rebel group.

A U.S. administration official told Reuters on Friday that Carvajal has valuable information on Maduro and is willing to cooperate.

(Reporting by Miguel Gutierrez, Editing by Jane Merriman and Angus MacSwan)

Source: OANN

0 0

Judge eases curfew for Georgia officer charged in shooting

A judge has agreed to ease the curfew imposed on a former Georgia police officer awaiting trial on manslaughter charges.

Zechariah Presley was on-duty as a Kingsland police officer June 22 when he fatally shot 33-year-old Tony Green in coastal Camden County near the Georgia-Florida line. Presley was fired from his police job and charged after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined Green was fleeing when the officer shot him multiple times.

Presley has been free on bond and working as a delivery truck driver. His attorney, Adrienne Browning, asked a judge Monday to roll back the hours of Presley's 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew so he could work more hours.

Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett granted the request. Prosecutors said Green's family opposed it.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

16 States Sue Trump Over Emergency Wall Declaration

A group of 16 states filed suit if federal court in California to stop President Donald Trump's emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, The Washington Post reported.

Earlier in the day, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" he planned to file California's lawsuit.. He didn't specify which other states would join, but officials in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada announced that they would challenge Trump.

Becerra says there is no emergency at the border and Trump doesn't have the authority to make the declaration.

Trump declared a national emergency to fulfill his promise of completing the wall.

The move allows the president to bypass Congress to use money from the Pentagon and other budgets.

California has repeatedly challenged Trump in court. Becerra has filed at least 45 lawsuits against the administration.

The suit seeks a preliminary injunction against Trump's play to move federal funding to pay for the wall. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

The Latest: Group calls for justice for Australian woman

The Latest on the trial of a Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman in 2017 (all times local):

3 p.m.

A group of Justine Ruszczyk Damond's neighbors and friends say they're glad the Minneapolis officer who killed her is being prosecuted.

But members of Justice for Justine said Monday they also wonder if Mohamed Noor is being prosecuted because he's Somali American and his victim was white.

Noor shot Damond in July 2017 after she called 911 about a possible crime behind her home. His trial began Monday with jury selection.

It's rare for police officers to be charged in on-duty shootings. Alana Ramadan says she feels Noor is being used as a "sacrificial lamb" because he's a minority.

Noor's trial is being held in one of the smallest courtrooms. Group members took issue with restricted public access and called on the judge to move the case to a larger venue and allow all evidence to be shown in court.

__

12:25 p.m.

The judge hearing the trial of a Minneapolis police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed Australian woman says threatening phone calls have been made to her chambers.

Mohamed Noor is going on trial this week in the July 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. Noor shot her when she approached his squad car just minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

Judge Kathryn Quaintance says the threatening phone calls came after she made rulings on what evidence may be presented at trial. Quaintance cited passionate public opinion about the case Monday in explaining why jurors won't be identified in court.

Jury selection began Monday for Noor. He was fired from the force after being charged with murder and manslaughter.

___

9:40 a.m.

A former Minneapolis police officer going to trial in the fatal 2017 shooting of an unarmed Australian woman had nothing to say to reporters as he entered a Minneapolis courthouse.

Mohamed Noor said nothing as reporters asked him whether he would testify at his trial, which began Monday with jury selection.

Noor faces murder and manslaughter charges in the death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. She had called 911 in July 2017 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home. Noor and another officer responded. Noor shot Damond after she approached the officers' squad car.

Noor was fired after he was charged in Damond's death. The judge has set aside several weeks for his trial.

___

Midnight

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Thirty-three-year-old Mohamed Noor is charged in the July 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. Noor is charged with murder and manslaughter.

Potential jurors will gather Monday morning to receive instructions as the selection process begins.

Prosecutors must prove Noor acted unreasonably when he shot Damond. The defense plans to argue that he used reasonable force in the situation and acted in self-defense.

Noor refused to speak to investigators about what happened. His attorneys haven't said whether he'll testify at the trial, which is expected to last weeks.

Source: Fox News National

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