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

Pre-recession signals lurk in UK jobs data: research

Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London
Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London, August 16, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

March 11, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Beneath the headline figures showing a strong British labor market, the ebb and flow of jobs and businesses being created and destroyed is showing a pattern associated with the onset of recession, research suggested on Monday.

Employers in Britain created almost 400,000 jobs last year, pushing the jobs rate to a new record high – a bright spot in a slowing economy weighed down by Brexit worries and weakening global trade.

But academics at the Enterprise Research Centre, a research network, said there were some unpromising signals when looking at the jobs data split between new and existing firms.

Start-up businesses contributed roughly 1 million jobs in 2018, cancelling out a net 613,000 drop in employment across established companies.

This looks unlikely to be sustained, with the rates of business “births” and “deaths” now converging – often a poor omen for the economy, particularly if the death rate overtakes the birth rate.

The authors of the report said this trend should be viewed in a longer-term context, rather than as a result of temporary Brexit uncertainty sweeping the economy.

Mark Hart, professor of entrepreneurship at Aston Business School, said the official data showing record employment could lull policymakers into a false sense of security.

“Even if our headline employment figures are being propped up by start-ups creating new jobs, we are already witnessing a severe slowdown in hiring by the established firms that are vital to the health of our economy,” Hart said.

Recent short-term business surveys have pointed to a fall in employment, although most attribute this to uncertainty ahead of Brexit.

Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29, although Prime Minister Theresa May has opened up the possibility of a delay given her inability to secure parliamentary ratification of the deal so far.

Amid the uncertainty, the world’s fifth-biggest economy has shown signs of slowing and the Bank of England expects the weakest growth in 2019 since the global financial crisis, even if May manages to clinch a Brexit transition deal.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

0 0

Man pleads guilty to kidnapping Jayme Closs, killing parents

A Wisconsin man pleaded guilty Wednesday to kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs, killing her parents and holding her captive in a remote cabin for three months, in a move that spares the girl and her family from the possible trauma of having to testify at his trial.

Jake Patterson, 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped a count of armed burglary. Patterson faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced May 24; Wisconsin does not have the death penalty.

Patterson had said he would plead guilty in a letter sent earlier this month to a Minneapolis TV station, saying he didn't want the Closs family "to worry about a trial."

Patterson admitted kidnapping Jayme after killing her parents, James and Denise Closs, on Oct. 15 at the family's home near Barron, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Minneapolis. Jayme escaped in January, after 88 days in Patterson's cabin in near the small, isolated town of Gordon, some 60 miles (97 kilometers) from her home.

Patterson stoically answered "yes" and "yeah" to repeated questions from Barron County Judge James Gabler about whether he understood what he was doing. Later, as he responded "guilty," to each count, he could be heard sniffling. He paused for several seconds after the judge asked him about the kidnapping charge before stuttering, "guilty."

Defense attorney Richard Jones told Gabler that Patterson "wanted to enter a plea from the day we met him" and brushed off strategies presented to him, including trying to suppress his statements to investigators.

"He rejected all that and has decided this is what he wants to do," Jones said.

Members of the Closs family and Patterson's father and sister all left the courthouse without commenting.

According to a criminal complaint , Patterson told authorities he decided Jayme "was the girl he was going to take" after he saw her getting on a school bus near her home.

Jayme told police that the night of the abduction, the family dog's barking awoke her, and she went to wake up her parents as a car came up the driveway. While her father went to the front door, Jayme and her mother hid in the bathroom, clutching each other in the bathtub, with the shower curtain pulled shut.

They heard Jayme's father get shot. Patterson then found Jayme and her mother. He told detectives he wrapped tape around Jayme's mouth and head, taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, then shot her mother in the head. He told police he dragged Jayme outside, threw her in the trunk of his car, and took her to his cabin, the complaint said.

During Jayme's time in captivity, Patterson forced her to hide under a bed when he had friends over and penned her in with tote boxes and weights, warning that if she moved, "bad things could happen to her." He also turned up the radio so visitors couldn't hear her, according to the complaint.

Prosecutors in Douglas County, where Jayme was held, announced soon after Patterson's arrest that they did not plan to bring charges in that county — a move seen as potentially sparing her from having details of her treatment becoming public. Patterson's plea Wednesday increases the chances that those details will remain private.

Authorities searched for Jayme for months and collected more than 3,500 tips. On Jan. 10, Jayme escaped from the cabin while Patterson was away. She then flagged down a woman who was out walking a dog and pleaded for help. Patterson was arrested minutes later.

___

Associated Press writer Amy Forliti contributed from Minneapolis.

___

Check out AP's complete coverage of Jayme Closs' abduction and her parents' deaths.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Democratic congressman Swalwell joins race for White House

FILE PHOTO - U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) holds his daughter Kathryn as the U.S. House of Representatives meets for the start of the 116th Congress in Washington
FILE PHOTO - U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) holds his daughter Kathryn as the U.S. House of Representatives meets for the start of the 116th Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

April 8, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell said on Monday he would seek the Democratic nomination for president, joining a crowded field seeking to take on Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Swalwell made the announcement during a taping of CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which airs later on Monday. The program tweeted a clip of Swalwell saying he was running for president.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by David Alexander)

Source: OANN

0 0

India says Pakistan hiding information by blocking access to bombing site

Pakistan's army soldier stands at the edge of a crater, after Indian military aircrafts struck on February 26, according to Pakistani officials, in Jaba village, near Balakot
Pakistan's army soldier stands at the edge of a crater, after Indian military aircrafts struck on February 26, according to Pakistani officials, in Jaba village, near Balakot, Pakistan, March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

March 9, 2019

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India said on Saturday Pakistan had “plenty to hide” by preventing journalists from accessing the site of an air strike by Indian fighter jets inside Pakistan.

Citing “security concerns”, Pakistani security officials on Thursday barred a Reuters team from climbing a hill in northeastern Pakistan to the site of a madrasa, or religious school, and a group of surrounding buildings that was targeted by Indian warplanes last week.

“The fact that Pakistan has now refused access to journalists from visiting the site means that they have plenty to hide,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar told reporters.

He reiterated the government’s stand that India’s air strikes were “successful and achieved the desired objectives”, after being asked about a Reuters report that said high-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters showed that the madrasa appeared to be still standing.

(Reporting by C.K. Nayak; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Source: OANN

0 0

China central bank likely to pause reserve cuts, but policy easing on track: sources

FILE PHOTO: Headquarters of the PBOC, the central bank, is pictured in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: Headquarters of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, is pictured in Beijing, China September 28, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

April 23, 2019

By Kevin Yao

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central bank is likely to pause to assess economic conditions before making any further moves to ease lenders’ reserve requirements, after better-than-expected growth data reduced the urgency for action, policy insiders said.

Although the central bank’s easing bias remains unchanged, it sees less room this year for cutting reserve requirement ratios (RRRs) – the share of cash banks must hold as reserves – as fiscal stimulus plays a bigger role in spurring growth, according to government advisers involved in internal policy discussions.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is also worried that pumping too much cash into the economy could reignite bubbles over time, the policy insiders said, and wants to save some of its policy ammunition.

“In the short term, it’s not necessary to use RRR cuts to boost economic growth,” one policy adviser told Reuters. “Monetary policy should leave some room – if economic uncertainties rise or economic conditions deteriorate, the central bank could ease policy.”

The chance of a cut in benchmark interest rates, meanwhile, has further diminished, as the central bank focuses on reforming its interest rate regime this year, the policy insiders said.

LESS ROOM FOR RRR CUTS

China’s economy grew a steady 6.4 percent in the first quarter, defying expectations of a further slowdown, with factory output, retail sales and investment in March all growing faster than expected following a raft of expansion-boosting measures in recent months.

Still, economists do not expect a sharp recovery in the world’s second-largest economy, as many private firms grapple with high funding costs, while external demand may weaken in the coming months as the world economy loses steam.

Optimism is rising, however, that China and the United States will reach a trade deal in coming weeks.

“The possibility of seeing big policy changes is not big. We may maintain the strength of policy support but it could become more structural,” said a second policy source.

The PBOC did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

The PBOC has cut RRRs five times since the start of 2018, lowering the ratio to 13.5 percent for big banks and 11.5 percent for small-to medium-sized lenders.

Central bank Governor Yi Gang said in March that there was still some room to cut RRRs, but less so than a few years ago.

The PBOC is likely to cut RRRs for small banks to encourage more lending to small and private firms – which are vital for economic growth and job creation – said the policy insiders, who have penciled in at least one such “targeted” RRR cut this year.

“Monetary policy will maintain counter-cyclical adjustments and keep liquidity ample as interest rates should go lower for the real economy,” said one of the policy insiders.

A Reuters poll, conducted before the first-quarter data release on April 17, showed economists expected the central bank to deliver three more RRR cuts of 50 basis points in each of the remaining three quarters of 2019.

But the stronger-than-expected growth data compelled some economists to trim their forecasts for RRR cuts. UBS now expects another 100 bps cuts this year, with the next one likely in June-July, instead of the 200 bps it had forecast earlier.

ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTIES LINGER

A statement on Friday from the Politburo, a key decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, said China would maintain policy support for the economy, which still faced “downward pressure” and difficulties.

Authorities would strike a balance between stabilizing economic growth, promoting reforms, controlling risks and improving livelihoods, the Politburo said, adding that China would move forward with structural efforts to control debt levels and prevent speculation in the property market.

First-quarter economic growth was backed by record new bank loans of 5.81 trillion yuan ($865.61 billion) and local government special bond issuance of 717.2 billion yuan, which rocketed ninefold from a year earlier.

Beijing has ramped up fiscal stimulus, unveiling tax and fee cuts amounting to 2 trillion yuan to ease burdens on firms, while allowing local governments to issue 2.15 trillion yuan of special bonds to fund infrastructure projects.

Chinese leaders have pledged to ensure economic stability in a year that will mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, while vowing not to adopt “flood-like” stimulus that could worsen debt and structural risks.

The government’s target range for 2019 growth is 6-6.5 percent but growth of about 6.2 percent is seen needed this year and the next to meet the party’s longstanding goal of doubling GDP and incomes in the decade to 2020.

China’s growth slowed to a 28-year low of 6.6 percent last year, and further cooling is expected this year.

(Reporting by Kevin Yao; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: OANN

0 0

Georgia homeowner charged with murder in electrician's death

A Georgia homeowner accused of shooting two electricians working at his home has since been charged with murder.

News outlets report 68-year-old homeowner Larry Joel Epstein was charged with murder late last week after one of the electricians, 21-year-old Jake Horne, was taken off life support and died.

Police responded Wednesday afternoon to a reported shooting at the home and found Horne shot in the head and his boss, 37-year-old Gordon Montcalm, suffering multiple gunshot wounds.

Police say Epstein shot the men "as they attempted to leave his home after completing their work day." The motive is unclear.

Epstein was initially arrested on charges of aggravated assault and battery. He's being held without bail at the county adult detention center and is set to appear in court March 26.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

France to send aid to flood-hit Iran regions

FILE PHOTO: People are seen on a boat after a flooding in Golestan province
FILE PHOTO: People are seen on a boat after a flooding in Golestan province, Iran, March 24, 2019. Tasnim News Agency/via REUTERS

April 5, 2019

PARIS (Reuters) – France will airlift 12 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including 114 pumps, to flood-hit regions in Iran, the French foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Exceptionally heavy rains since March 19 have flooded some 1,900 cities and villages, killing 62 people and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to Iranian agriculture, leaving aid agencies struggling to cope.

France said the first shipments would start in coming days, adding that Iranian authorities had asked for assistance.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; editing by John Irish)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Alex Jones – Info Wars

12:00 pm 4:00 pm



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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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

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

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

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

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

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

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

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

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

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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

DNA Force Plus

Limited Advanced Release

149.95

119.96

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

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

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

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

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

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

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

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

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

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

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

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

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

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

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

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

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

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

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

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

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

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

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

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

DNA Force Plus

149.95

119.96

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

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

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

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

Source: InfoWars

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

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONLINE RADICAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“HARD TO TAKE”

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

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

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

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

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

Zahran went into hiding once more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

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

Title

Artist