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

Some British ministers tell May: delay Brexit if no deal or face rebellion: The Sun

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside Downing Street in London
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen outside Downing Street in London, Britain, February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Toby Melville

February 21, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Some senior British ministers have warned Prime Minister Theresa May she must agree to delay Brexit if there is no European Union divorce deal or face a rebellion in parliament next week, The Sun newspaper reported.

Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd, Justice Secretary David Gauke, Business Secretary Greg Clark and Scotland Secretary David Mundell said she must take no deal off the table by extending Article 50, the newspaper said.

If May refuses, the senior ministers said they and 20 other members of the government would back Labour lawmaker Yvette Cooper’s plan for parliament to seize control of the Brexit process.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)

Source: OANN

0 0

Divide: AOC Calls For Trump Impeachment Despite Pelosi Order Not To Bring Up

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called for President Trump’s impeachment despite repeated pleas by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to bring up that subject ahead of the 2020 election.

“I think you could reach in a bag and pull so many things out that are impeachable of this President,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a Sunday interview. “I support impeaching this President.”

The remarks came the same day Pelosi appeared on “60 Minutes” to downplay Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist influence on the Democrat Party after her leadership was called into question, saying the socialist wing of the party comprises of “like five people.”


(Start at 8:00 min)

Lesley Stahl: “So you are contending with a group in Congress: Over here on the left flank are these self-described socialists, on the right, these moderates. And you yourself said that you’re the only one who can unify everybody. And the question is can you?”

Nancy Pelosi: “By and large, whatever orientation they came to Congress with, they know that we have to hold the center. That we have to be m– go down the mainstream.”

Stahl: “They know that –”

Pelosi: “They do.”

Stahl: “But it doesn’t look like that. It looks as if it – you’re – it’s fractured.”

Stahl: “You have these wings — AOC, and her group on one side –”

Pelosi: “That’s like five people.”

Stahl: “No, it’s– the progressive group is more than five.”

Pelosi: “Well, the progressive– I’m a progressive. Yeah.”

Stahl then pointed out several policies being championed by socialists, such as Medicare For All, that Pelosi had either dismissed or criticized.

Stahl: “Well, as I understand it the progressives want radical change. They wanna get rid of Obamacare and replace it with Medicare for all. I was under the impression that you had said that you do not favor Medicare for all, that– ACA, Obamacare is better.”

Pelosi last month tried to get the far-left wing of her caucus to pivot from impeachment talks after Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) submitted an impeachment resolution to Congress.

“I’ve made it really clear on impeachment,” Pelosi said. “Everybody can do whatever they want to do but that’s not a place where we are right now. Right now, we are talking about health care, we are talking about climate and building the infrastructure of America in a green way. Just like we promised in the campaign. That is what we are spending our time on.”

The fact is, Pelosi has almost no practical power over her liberal base compared to Ocasio-Cortez when it comes to setting the far-left agenda like the Green New Deal, as several Democrat presidential contenders have come out in support of the far-left’s socialist platform.

In addition to AOC, several prominent Democrats and the media are still calling for Trump’s impeachment.

“What more do we need to know? Impeachment is the only answer,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) last month.


Twitter: 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now being criticized for changing her tone while speaking to a group of African Americans. Alex Jones calls in from the road to break down the condescending attitude now common on the left.

Source: InfoWars

0 0

Venezuela’s opposition-run congress says lawmaker was detained

Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro is seen delivering a speech at a forum on human rights in Caracas
Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro is seen delivering a speech at a forum on human rights in Caracas, Venezuela June 12, 2018 in this still image taken from a video. REUTERS TV/ via REUTERS

April 26, 2019

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition-run National Assembly said on Friday that opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro was detained, which it described in a Twitter post as a violation of diplomatic immunity.

Caro had previously spend a year and a half in jail, before being freed in June 2018. The arrest comes as Juan Guaido, the National Assembly’s leader, mounts a challenge to President Nicolas Maduro, arguing his 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Guaido in January invoked the country’s constitution to assume an interim presidency.

(Reporting by Caracas newsroom; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

0 0

Jussie Smollett lawyers sued by alleged hoax accomplices

FILE PHOTO: Actor Jussie Smollett leaves court after charges against him were dropped by state prosecutors in Chicago
FILE PHOTO: Actor Jussie Smollett leaves court after charges against him were dropped by state prosecutors in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski/File Photo

April 23, 2019

(Reuters) – Two Nigerian-American brothers wrapped up in Jussie Smollett’s Chicago hate-crime hoax sued the “Empire” actor’s lawyers on Tuesday, accusing them of defamation for insisting they had “criminally attacked” the actor even after police concluded otherwise.

Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo were briefly taken into custody as Chicago police investigated the alleged January incident in which Smollett, who is black and gay, said he was assaulted by two men who shouted racist and homophobic slurs and wrapped a noose around his neck.

Police later concluded that Smollett staged the attack for publicity. Prosecutors brought and then abruptly dropped hoax charges against the actor on March 26, a stunning move that drew the fury of the city’s police superintendent and mayor.

In a lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court, the Osundairo brothers charged that Smollett’s attorneys Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian falsely accused them of attacking Smollett, even after the investigation was over.

It rejected the idea that the brothers, who are also black, attacked Smollett because of his race, asserting that the actor staged the incident. It also noted that the pair served as the actor’s trainers and sometime extras on his Fox hip-hop TV drama.

“He wanted his employer and the public to notice and appreciate him as a successful black, openly gay actor,” it said. “Smollett directed every aspect of the attack, including the location and the noose.”

Smollett’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 36-year-old actor has said he had always been truthful about the incident, which sparked extensive outrage on social media, drawing the attention of both Republican President Donald Trump and some of the Democrats who hope to challenge him in 2020.

“They’ve realized that it was wrong. They’ve apologized for it,” Gloria Schmidt, one of the brothers’ lawyers, told reporters on Tuesday. “But make no mistake: they had no role in calling the police and they had no role in defrauding the police department,” Schmidt also said.

Glandian insisted in a television interview after police closed the investigation that Smollett had not made a false report and that the brothers attacked him, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages.

The city of Chicago earlier this month sued Smollett, seeking three times the damages it said it incurred in the investigation of the incident. Smollett had previously refused a demand by the city for $130,000 to cover police overtime costs to investigate his claims.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

0 0

World Bank puts Mozambique’s economic losses from Cyclone Idai at up to $773 million

FILE PHOTO: A general view of houses seen from the air near Nhamatanda village following Cyclone Idai
FILE PHOTO: A general view of houses seen from the air near Nhamatanda village, Beira, Mozambique, following Cyclone Idai, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo

April 11, 2019

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The World Bank estimates the direct economic losses from Cyclone Idai in Mozambique to range from $656 million-$773 million, covering damage to buildings, infrastructure and agriculture, a note sent out via the United Nations said on Thursday.

In the note, dated April 4, the World Bank said its approach does not capture indirect losses such as reduced productivity or business interruptions, and could only provide a certain degree of accuracy.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: OANN

0 0

U.N. Court sentences Karadzic to life in prison on appeal

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appears before the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appears before the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals ("Mechanism") ruling on a appeal of his 40 year sentence for war crimes in The Hague, Netherlands, March 20, 2019. Peter Dejong/Pool via REUTERS

March 20, 2019

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – U.N. appeals judges on Wednesday sentenced former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic to life in prison for genocide.

The appeals judges upheld Karadzic’s conviction for genocide over the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 during the Bosnian War and said the 40-year sentence ordered by trial judges was too light given the gravity of his crimes and the weight of his responsibility.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Source: OANN

0 0

Kenneth Starr concerned Mueller report may not be ‘written in a fair and balanced way’

Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr said Wednesday he was concerned Special Counsel Robert Mueller's upcoming redacted report may not be "written in a fair and balanced way."

“The concern that I think is a fair concern is, is the report going to be written in a fair and balanced way? It is a concern,” Starr said on “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday. “Now why the concern? Because of Bob Mueller, who I hold in very high regard, his choice of staff. So many questions have been raised about that staff and their leanings and so forth. And they've had the opportunity without any kind of cross examination, any kind of check, any kind of balance to write whatever they want to write. And that I think legitimately raises concern of fairness and balance.”

KENNETH STARR 'VERY PROUD' OF WILLIAM BARR'S HANDLING OF MUELLER REPORT 

Last month, Mueller submitted his almost 400-page report to the Justice Department for review by the attorney general and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Bill Barr relayed some of the primary findings of the report, stating the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election. Democrats blasted Barr for what they called his "unacceptable" handling of the initial summary of that document.

Barr said he identified four areas of the report that he believed should be redacted, including grand jury material and information the intelligence community believes would reveal intelligence sources and methods.

MUELLER PROBE HAS COST TAXPAYERS MORE THAN $25 MILLION, SPENDING REPORT REVEALS

“The frustration will be, we don't have it all. Why don't we have it all? I think Bill Barr, the Attorney General, has very ably and responsibly answered that. There are restrictions on law. Grand jury testimony being the primary example,” Starr said Wednesday. “And then the acrimony will be this cherry picking. I think it is inevitable. ‘A-ha, do you see this sentence, see that and what that means is,’ and then a lot of interpretation and extrapolation.”

He added, “It would be good if we could call a national time-out and actually review what we have and then come to a more sober judgment. But politics is politics.”

Starr recommended Barr explain why he did what he did in the report once it is released.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I'm speaking as a citizen who has served in the justice department. This would build, I think, public confidence in what he has done, if he stands and explains it rather than waiting for a Congressional hearing, which will be a week or who knows how long and then all of the spinning goes on in the meantime. Let's hear from the attorney general of the United States. That's my hope,” said Starr.

Starr conducted an investigation into former President Bill Clinton and released his report in 1998.

Source: Fox News Politics

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