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US WWII bomb detonated in Germany, causing widespread damage

The controlled detonation of an American World War II bomb in the southern German city of Regensburg has still caused widespread damage to nearby houses.

Some 4,500 residents had to be evacuated from the area before experts performed the detonation. A spokeswoman for the Bavarian city, Dagmar Obermeier-Kundel, said the 250-kilogram (550-pound) bomb still shattered windows in several surrounding buildings early Wednesday. Photos also showed damaged roofs.

Munitions expert Andreas Heil told The Associated Press that the bomb couldn't be safely defused because the type of detonator it contained was tamper-proof, very sensitive and could have triggered an explosion at any moment.

Thousands of unexploded relics of World War II's extensive aerial bombardment are found in Germany every year, even 74 years after the end of the war.

Source: Fox News World

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Al-Shabab says it executed 4 accused spies in Somalia

Somalia's al-Shabab Islamic extremist group says it has executed four men accused of spying for the British, Djibouti and Somali intelligence agencies.

Al-Shabab announced the killings on its Andalus radio station on Sunday, saying they were carried out by a firing squad in a public square in Kamsuma, a town in the Lower Jubba region.

The group's spokesman said its recent spate of attacks on hotels in the capital, Mogadishu, have been part of its drive against Somali intelligence agents and other government officials who he said were staying at the hotels.

"We don't attack every hotel in Mogadishu, but those specific ones (hotels) attacked by Mujahideen fighters have got specific features meriting them for attacks," said Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, on the rebels' radio station.

"A standard public hotel that civilians stay in is not protected by blast walls and soldiers. These apostates have got no distinct offices, and most of those men were killed at hotels they use as their offices," he said, apparently referring to Somali government officials.

Mogadishu has seen series of attacks by al-Shabab in recent weeks, highlighting challenges facing the Somali government, which said recently that it is considering imposing a state of emergency in Mogadishu to try to contain the attacks.

Rage also said that the recent withdrawal of Kenyan forces, who are part of the multinational African Union forces in Somalia, from villages were made as result of increased attacks and deaths and budget constraints faced by the Kenyan government.

Al-Shabab, which is al-Qaida's East Africa affiliate, has fought for years to impose a strict version of Islam in the Horn of Africa nation. Despite losing territory in recent years, the extremist group continues to carry out deadly attacks in many parts of the country, especially in Mogadishu. A truck bomb there in October 2017 killed more than 500 people.

Source: Fox News World

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India Inc’s earnings lag in Modi era, but optimism remains

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses an election campaign rally in Junagadh
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses an election campaign rally in Junagadh, Gujarat, India, April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave

April 10, 2019

By Tanvi Mehta and Gaurav Dogra

MUMBAI/BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s moves to cut red tape and streamline the tax system have won him plaudits, but data shows that the Modi government’s pro-business agenda has failed to translate into earnings growth for most Indian corporations.

As India’s top software services companies Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Infosys Ltd get set to kick-start another earnings season – the last under Modi’s current tenure – expectations remain muted. Yet, Indian stock markets trade near record highs and many investors remain upbeat.

“Interest rates have fallen quite drastically and retail investors are left with less choice,” says Krish Subramanyam, co-head, equity advisory at Altamount Capital. “Equities have been a preferred investment, and having Modi has kept markets buoyant.”

Hopes of Modi returning as prime minister after elections that get under way on Thursday have kept foreign investors bullish on India, while the domestic audience rides a wave of patriotism after tensions with arch-rival Pakistan spiked in February. Local markets rose after the tensions eased in March.

Foreign inflows into Indian equities were a net $6.7 billion in January-March, more than reversing outflows of $4.4 billion in 2018.

The NSE index has risen about 7 percent this year, and about 63 percent since Modi took office in 2014.

Recent opinion polls suggest Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) alliance will win a thin parliamentary majority in the elections.

If opinion polls suggest Modi will not return, that “could cause some nervousness”, said Gautam Chhaochharia, head of India research and a managing director at UBS.

The stock market has rallied without support from earnings. Aggregate data on 399 of India’s largest listed companies for which comparable data is available shows earnings have fallen in four of the five years of Modi’s tenure, whereas they rose in four out of the five years his predecessor Manmohan Singh was prime minister.

The data, sourced from Refinitiv, also shows that on average, earnings rose 11.94 percent annually under the prior government, while they fell 3.72 percent during Modi’s time.

For a graphic on Corporate India’s earnings lag under Modi government, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2D7eato

For an interactive graphic on annual earnings, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2Ic7YV9

“The underlying earnings trajectory is not even average, it’s one of the worst,” said Chhaochharia.

Big structural changes such as the ban on high currency notes and the launch of a nationwide goods and services tax have hurt growth in the Indian economy, say analysts.

The ratio of corporate profit to gross domestic product (GDP) for companies in the Nifty 500 Index was 2.8 percent in 2018, the lowest in 15 years, according to a report by Motilal Oswal Securities.

For a graphic on Profit – GDP ratio has plunged to 15-year low, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Ibt7ig

For an interactive graphic on profit-GDP ratio, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WSn5Xk

MARKETS STILL BULLISH

Modi took office on a wave of optimism he would change India’s economic fortunes. Although India has not grown at the anticipated pace, investors remain hopeful his reforms will pay off eventually.

The nearly 75 percent rise in the Nifty 500 index during Modi’s tenure also reflects a flight of money from traditional investments such as real estate and gold into shares following his shock 2016 ban on high-value bank notes.

Still, the performance lags that during each term of Congress-led coalitions, when the Nifty 500 rose nearly 100 percent.

For a graphic on Nifty 500 index rise during govt tenures, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2D6w0Nr

For an interactive graphic on the Nifty 500 index, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WZoNGw

A market rally without an earnings recovery has meant that, based on price-to-earnings ratios, Indian companies are at record high valuations.

On average, the Nifty 500 index has traded at a P-E ratio of 18 in the past five years, much higher than the 14.22 level during the prior government.

For a graphic on Valuations most expensive since at least 2004, see – https://tmsnrt.rs/2D4xUhy

For an interactive graphic on valuations, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2I86dZj

As earnings reports for the year ended in March begin on Friday, some brokerage firms are somewhat upbeat on a pick-up in earnings.

Deutsche Bank, in a note this week, said it expects median annual growth for firms it follows to be 8 percent.

(Additional reporting by Arnab Paul; Editing by Euan Rocha and Richard Borsuk)

Source: OANN

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Australia says Sri Lankan allegations should be investigated

Australia says its armed forces have no qualms about working with Sri Lankan security forces accused of grave human rights violations during the country's civil war, but those allegations must be taken seriously and investigated.

Acting Ambassador John Philp said Friday that Australia wants to look to the future following the end of the war 10 years ago.

Government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels were both accused of grave violations during the war.

Philp was speaking abroad the HMAS Canberra, one of four Royal Australian Navy ships visiting Sri Lanka as part of defense corporation between the two countries.

Air Commodore Richard Owen said the two sides are exploring ways of combating common threats in the region. He said Australian defense industry representatives also made a presentation on their products.

Source: Fox News World

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MLB notebook: Kershaw set for Monday debut

MLB: Spring Training-Chicago Cubs at Los Angeles Dodgers
FILE PHOTO: Feb 25, 2019; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw (22) looks on prior to facing the Chicago Cubs at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

April 12, 2019

Los Angeles ace Clayton Kershaw will make his first major league start of 2019 at home Monday against the Cincinnati Reds, the Dodgers announced Thursday.

The three-time Cy Young Award winner, working his way back after dealing with left shoulder inflammation during spring training, threw six innings on Tuesday night for Double-A Tulsa. He gave up five hits and two runs — both on home runs. He struck out six and walked none.

His first rehab start came on April 4 with Triple-A Oklahoma City, when he tossed 4 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on four hits, including a home run, with two walks and six strikeouts.

Last season, Kershaw finished with a 9-5 record and a 2.73 ERA in 26 starts for the Dodgers. In his 11-year career, the left-hander is 153-69 with a 2.39 ERA.

–The Atlanta Braves and 22-year-old second baseman Ozzie Albies agreed to a contract extension before an afternoon press conference officially announcing the deal.

The contract could be worth up to $35 million, per reports, and begins with the current season. Albies had been playing this season on a one-year deal worth $575,000.

Albies made the National League All-Star team in his first full season in 2018, when he batted .261 with 24 homers, 72 RBIs and 105 runs in 158 games. Albies entered Thursday night’s game against the New York Mets with a .364 average through 11 games.

–The Detroit Tigers activated outfielder JaCoby Jones from the injured list. Jones missed the start of the season after spraining an AC joint in his shoulder diving for a ball during a spring training game last month.

Jones, 26, one of the top defensive outfielders in the major leagues, appeared in 129 games for the Tigers last season and hit .207 with 11 home runs and 34 RBIs. He also collected 22 doubles.

The Tigers designated outfielder Mikie Mahtook for assignment. Mahtook was hitless in 23 at-bats this season.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Iranians prepare for holiday of Nowruz, or Persian New Year

Iranians are preparing for the annual Nowruz holiday that marks the Persian New Year and the arrival of spring.

The holiday, dating back to at least 1700 B.C. and ancient Zoroastrian traditions, is the most important event in the Iranian calendar and is widely celebrated forms across the territories of the old Persian empire, from the Mideast to Central Asia.

Many Tehran residents were busy on Wednesday shopping and preparing to host family and friends over Nowruz. Street vendors pop up every year in crowded city areas, offering lower prices.

Iran is facing an economic crisis in the wake the U.S. pullout from the nuclear deal with Tehran and re-imposed sanctions. Iran's currency, the rial, has plummeted, sending prices skyrocketing and wiping out many people's life savings.

Source: Fox News World

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Britain’s 5G network security review ongoing: PM May’s spokesman

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A 5G sign is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
FILE PHOTO: A 5G sign is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

February 18, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s review of its 5G network resilience is still ongoing, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday after the Financial Times reported that security chiefs had concluded they could manage any risks arising from Huawei’s involvement.

The FT said on Sunday that Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre had found that the risks arising from the use of China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in 5G networks could be mitigated, citing two sources.

“Our review of the right policy approach to 5G security and resilience is still ongoing. The review is looking at a range of options and no decisions have been taken,” the spokesman said.

(Reporting by William James, writing by Alistair Smout, editing by Paul Sandle)

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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

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

MARIA BUTINA, ACCUSED RUSSIAN SPY, PLEADS GUILTY TO CONSPIRACY

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

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

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

“Please accept my apologies,” Butina said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Fox News Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

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

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday, in Colombo
FILE PHOTO: Sri Lankan Special Task Force soldiers stand guard in front of a mosque as a Muslim man walks past him during the Friday prayers at a mosque, five days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on Catholic churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Lasseter and Shri Navaratnam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTELLIGENCE FAILINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“LIKE A SPOILED CHILD”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONLINE RADICAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“HARD TO TAKE”

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

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

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

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

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

Zahran went into hiding once more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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