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Intruders at North Korea embassy in Spain urged official to defect: court

FILE PHOTO: A Spanish National Police car is seen outside the North Korea's embassy in Madrid
FILE PHOTO: A Spanish National Police car is seen outside the North Korea's embassy in Madrid, Spain February 28, 2019. REUTERS/Sergio Perez/File Photo

March 26, 2019

By Isla Binnie

MADRID (Reuters) – Intruders forced their way into North Korea’s embassy in Madrid last month, identified themselves as a human rights campaign group and tried to persuade an official there to defect, a court which specializes in organized crime said on Tuesday.

Spain’s Interior Ministry had previously said police were investigating an incident at the embassy on Feb. 22, but gave no details except to say that a North Korean citizen had been injured and that no one had filed a complaint.

A Mexican citizen who is a U.S. resident, named as Adrian Hong Chang, led the group of 10 intruders and contacted the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) days afterwards to pass on information about the raid, the Spanish High Court said in an official document based on an investigation of the incident.

The group stole computers, hard disks and pen drives, it said. It was not clear how the court knew that the man had contacted the FBI.

The FBI did not respond on Tuesday to requests for comment.

Three of the intruders took an embassy official into the basement and encouraged him to defect from North Korea. They identified themselves as members of a group who campaigned for the “liberation of North Korea”, the document said.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that a dissident organization called Cheollima Civil Defense had carried out the raid.

FAKE GUNS, BALACLAVA MASKS

The Spanish court document gave a detailed account of the intruders’ movements before as well as during the intrusion, including their stay in a hotel and purchases of knives, balaclava masks and fake guns.

The group included a U.S. citizen and South Korean citizens.

There was no immediate comment on the matter from the U.S. State Department or South Korea’s Foreign Ministry. Spain’s Interior Ministry declined to comment.

The embassy raid occurred shortly before the Feb. 27-28 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi.

The Mexican, Hong Chang, said he had carried out the raid voluntarily and he did not identify his companions, the court document said. The court identified the U.S. citizen as Sam Ryu.

The group kept embassy staff tied up for several hours and then searched the premises for arms before leaving, at which point they separated into four groups and headed to Portugal.

Hong Chang then flew from Lisbon to New York.

In Spain the High Court has the power to investigate criminal offences, after which formal accusations are launched.

(Additional reporting by Belen Carreno, Andres Gonzalez and Sabela Ojea in Madrid, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Hyonhee Shin in Seoul, editing by Axel Bugge and Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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Thousands flee Tripoli homes as battle rages on outskirts

A member of Misrata forces, under the protection of Tripoli's forces, takes his position near a military camp in Tripoli
A member of Misrata forces, under the protection of Tripoli's forces, takes his position near a military camp in Tripoli, Libya April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Hani Amara

April 10, 2019

By Ahmed Elumami

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Eastern forces and troops loyal to the Tripoli government fought on the outskirts of Libya’s capital on Wednesday as thousands of residents fled from the battle.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of eastern commander Khalifa Haftar held positions in the suburbs about 11 km (7 miles) south of the center, with steel containers and pickups with mounted machine-guns blocking their way into the city.

Residents reported LNA planes buzzing Tripoli and the sound of clashes in outskirts. Haftar’s forces were engaging Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj’s fighters at the former international airport, one soldier told Reuters.

The United Nations said at least 4,500 Tripoli residents had been displaced, most moving away from their homes in conflict areas to safer districts of the city. Many more were trapped, it said.

The LNA forces moved out of their stronghold in east Libya to take the sparsely-populated but oil-rich south earlier this year, before heading a week ago toward Tripoli, where the internationally-recognized government of sits.

Libya has been split into rival eastern and western administrations since the 2011 topping of former strongman Muammar Gaddafi. He ruled for more than four decades before falling in a Western-backed revolt.

Since then, political and armed factions have vied for power and control of Libya’s oil wealth, and the country split into rival eastern and western administrations linked to shifting military alliances after a battle for Tripoli in 2014.

The United Nations wants to bring both sides together to plan an election and way out of the chaos.

“I JUST WANT TO SURVIVE”

Its humanitarian agency the OCHA said it was extremely concerned about the “disproportionate and indiscriminate use” of explosive weapons in densely-populated areas.

Half a million children were at risk, it added.

As well as the humanitarian consequences, renewed conflict in Libya threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, scupper the U.N. peace plan, and encourage militants to exploit the chaos.

Islamic State killed three people in a remote desert town under LNA control two days ago.

In Tripoli, nearly 50 people have died, mainly fighters but also some civilians including two doctors, according to latest U.N. casualty estimates. The toll is expected to rise.

Several thousand migrants, detained after trying to use Libya as a staging-point for crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, have also been caught up in the crisis.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday it had relocated more than 150 of them – among several thousand in total – from one detention center in south Tripoli to a facility of its own in a safe zone.

One official at that detention center said he flung open the doors on Wednesday and released another 150 migrants for their own safety due to the proximity of clashes.

The United Nations, United States, European Union and G7 bloc have appealed for a ceasefire, a return to the U.N. peace plan, and a halt to Haftar’s push.

Opponents cast him as a would-be dictator in the mould of Gaddafi, though Haftar projects himself as a champion against extremism pushing to restore order to Libya.

Haftar was among officers who helped Gaddafi rise to power in 1969 but fell out with him during a war with Chad in the 1980s. He was taken prisoner by the Chadians, rescued by the CIA, and lived for about 20 years in Virginia before returning in 2011 to join other rebels in the uprising against Gaddafi

Despite the flare-up in conflict, normal life was just about continuing in Tripoli, a city of roughly 1.2 million people, though prices were rising and businesses are closing earlier than usual, residents said.

“I don’t care who wins or loses, I just want to survive with my family,” said a teacher in Tripoli, who hoped to get out.

(Additional reporting by Aidan Lewis i Cairo; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Source: OANN

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Players comfortable in Augusta National’s cloak of secrecy

Security guards watch over the clubhouse during the second day of practice for the 2019 Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Security guards watch over the clubhouse during the second day of practice for the 2019 Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S., April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 10, 2019

By Frank Pingue

AUGUSTA, Ga. (Reuters) – Augusta National opens its hallowed grounds to the public for the Masters each year but anyone trying to learn about the finer details of the exclusive club can expect to be met with a CIA-level of secrecy.

Everything from revenue at the club’s massive merchandise store, where a seemingly never-ending line snakes through the doors all week, to the attendance figures at the year’s first major are considered classified information at Augusta National.

Even seemingly unobtrusive requests to interview the head groundskeeper of the immaculate course or the person who dry cleans the coveted Green Jackets worn by all Masters champions and club members are all politely declined.

“It’s Augusta, you just don’t ask too many questions,” former world number one Dustin Johnson, who is a favorite to win a maiden Green Jacket this week, told Reuters when asked about the club’s impenetrable cloak of secrecy.

Affectionately regarded as the ‘Cathedral of Pines’, the 7,475-yard Augusta National layout is one of the most famous golf courses in the world and the only permanent venue for any of the sport’s four majors.

From Magnolia Lane, a tree-lined drive that members use to enter the grounds, to Amen Corner, which may just be golf’s most famous stretch of holes, Augusta National has become a place all golfers dream of seeing once before they die.

Patrons at the Masters can easily find themselves walking the course alongside a member but they will be hard-pressed to get any of those wearing Green Jackets to open up about one of the more exclusive clubs on the planet.

“It’s just the way it’s always been,” said South Africa’s 2008 Masters champion Trevor Immelman.

“I think it’s the way (club founders) Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts wanted it and they had an idea in mind and they created it and they were very proud of it and that’s the way it stayed.

“That adds to the mystique of it and the fact that also the world’s best players throughout history absolutely love coming back here and with this event and this week in particular that’s what makes it a lot of fun.”

‘IT’S PRIVATE’

The club’s level of secrecy also extends to any plans it may or may not have to amend its grounds or the surrounding areas.

One local news station, which cited plans filed with the city, reported in February that Augusta National has begun a project to tunnel under a road that runs alongside the course, but for what purpose is anyone’s guess.

“This is Augusta National, the Masters is a tournament they host and give us the privilege to play,” said 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson. “This is a private institution. It’s private and they can do whatever the heck they want.”

When it comes to the Masters tradition is everything, and with that comes a strict list of rules that, if violated, could result in the offender being escorted from the course.

As much as Augusta National is renowned for its beauty, it is also known as a place where patrons are not allowed to run or take photos during the tournament. Perhaps the biggest no-no, one that is strictly enforced, is the use of mobile phones.

Spain’s twice Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal was very clear when asked about the club’s strict policies and desire to keep its dealings private from outsiders.

“I can say I feel comfortable with that. Period.”

Like all Masters champions, fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia became an honorary member with his triumph in 2017, a win that perhaps afforded him a sneak peak behind the mystique spawned by the secrecy that surrounds the club.

For Garcia, Augusta National’s combination of exclusivity and secrecy are easily part of what makes it so special.

“If you say or you show everything that you have obviously it’s not quite the same,” said Garcia. “But it’s amazing to be a part of this amazing family and this iconic club and I’m very thankful for it.”

(Reporting by Frank Pingue; editing by Ken Ferris)

Source: OANN

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Japan to extend sanctions against North Korea by two years: NHK

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi
FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sit down for a dinner during the second U.S.-North Korea summit at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

March 20, 2019

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan will extend unilateral sanctions against North Korea by two years, public broadcaster NHK said on Wednesday.

Japan will extend a trade embargo on North Korea and a ban on North Korean ships entering Japanese ports by two years, according to the report.

The government is expected to approve the extension at a cabinet meeting early next month, NHK said.

The decision would come after a second meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month collapsed over differences on U.S. demands for Pyongyang’s denuclearisation and North Korea’s demand for sanctions relief.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)

Source: OANN

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Clarence Thomas backs Trump's call for changing defamation law to ease suits against media

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion released Tuesday, called for reversing decades of jurisprudence that has made it harder for public figures to sue media outlets and other organizations for defamation -- restrictions that were premised, he said, on a series of "policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law."

Thomas' opinion comes against the backdrop of President Trump's repeated calls to make it easier to sue for defamation. Last weekend, Trump reacted to a "Saturday Night Live" skit about his southern-border emergency declaration by asking on Twitter, "How do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into."

And last December, Trump wrote on Twitter: "Isn’t it a shame that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost. Don’t know why Washington politicians don’t change libel laws?"

Trump has sought elimination of the high "actual malice" standard that politicians must meet in order to prove they have been defamed by media organizations and other entities. In his opinion, Thomas argued at length that Trump's burden in such cases is indeed unfair.

Ordinarily, to prove defamation has occurred, a private individual only has to to show that a defendant negligently failed to exercise reasonable care in spreading a provable falsehood that has harmed his reputation. But in 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that public officials must meet a higher "actual malice" burden. This means they must prove that the defendant spread a falsehood either intentionally or with reckless disregard for the truth.

The high court's ruling, which came amid a surge of politically motivated lawsuits by Southern political officials, unilaterally struck down the common law on defamation that was employed by each of the states and inherited from Britain.

"The common law of libel at the time the First and 14th Amendments were ratified did not require public figures to satisfy any kind of heightened liability standard as a condition of recovering damages," Thomas wrote.

In finding a constitutional basis for its ruling superseding that common law, the Sullivan court relied heavily on opposition by the founding fathers, including James Madison, to the Sedition Act of 1798, which would have prohibited any "false" or "scandalous" writings against government officers.

Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live." Trump has suggested liberal media portrayals of him constitute defamation and contain falsehoods.

Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live." Trump has suggested liberal media portrayals of him constitute defamation and contain falsehoods. (YouTube)

According to Thomas, though, the fact that the framers opposed criminal punishment for criticisms of public officials did not necessarily mean they opposed providing an accessible civil defamation remedy for those politicians. In fact, Thomas said, the founders consistently opposed using federal law to override state common law, which controlled defamation actions at the time.

TRUMP: OUR LIBEL LAWS ARE A 'SHAM'

"Far from increasing a public figure’s burden in a defamation action, the common law deemed libels against public figures to be, if anything, more serious and injurious than ordinary libels," Thomas wrote. "Libel of a public official was deemed an offense 'most dangerous to the people, and deserv[ing of] punishment, because the people may be deceived and reject the best citizens to their great injury, and it may be to the loss of their liberties.'"

Thomas added: "Madison seemed to contemplate that 'those who administer [the federal government]' retain “a remedy, for their injured reputations, under the same laws, and in the same tribunals, which protect their lives, their liberties, and their properties. ... In short, there appears to be little historical evidence suggesting that The New York Times actual-malice rule flows from the original understanding of the First or 14th Amendment."

In the absence of a compelling constitutional basis to override common law, Thomas said, the Supreme Court had no business getting involved in state-level defamation law in the first place.

Thomas' opinion came in an unrelated case in which the high court rejected an appeal from actress Kathrine McKee, who said comic icon Bill Cosby raped her in 1974. McKee sued Cosby for damaging her reputation after a lawyer for the comedian allegedly leaked a letter attacking McKee. Two lower courts ruled against her and dismissed the case, based largely on McKee's role as a public figure.

No other justice joined Thomas' opinion on Tuesday, and it appeared unlikely that the Supreme Court would agree to hear a challenge to the case.

But Thomas' opinion may have been an effort to signal to other groups to bring a lawsuit based on Sullivan, amid an increasingly changed media landscape in which information travels more quickly than ever, legal experts said. One of the key rationales for setting a higher bar for public officials to sue for defamation relates to their perceived ability to quickly quash misinformation on their own -- an ability that some observers say is fading in the age of blogs and around-the-clock news coverage.

Thomas is not the only prominent conservative justice to voice disdain for the Sullivan decision. The late Justice Antonin Scalia publicly railed against the court's ruling in that case, saying it was abhorrent and constitutionally baseless.

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Thomas has issued striking opinions in other cases that seemingly also served as signals. In support of Trump's reinstated travel ban, Thomas wrote that nationwide injunctions issued by individual federal judges “take a toll on the federal court system — preventing legal questions from percolating through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every case a national emergency for the courts and for the executive branch.”

In Tuesday's opinion, Thomas suggested federal judges should similarly butt out of defamation cases.

Fox News' Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Tiger closes with 69 at The Players

PGA: THE PLAYERS Championship - Final Round
Mar 17, 2019; Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, USA; Tiger Woods on the ninth green during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass - Stadium Course. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

March 17, 2019

Finishing his round just as the leaders were teeing off, Tiger Woods closed with a 3-under-par 69 at The Players Championship on Sunday.

It was Woods’ only sub-70 round of the week, and he finished the tournament 6-under par following rounds of 70, 71 and 72 the first three days.

Woods got his final round started in the right direction with a birdie on the par-5 second hole. He added two more birdies on Nos. 4 and 7, making the turn in 3-under 33. He picked up one more on the par-5 11th hole, but gave the shot back with a bogey on No. 14.

He avoided another potential blowup on the famed 17th hole when his tee shot stopped on the front fringe of the island green. Woods, who put two balls in the water in posting a quadruple-bogey seven on the hole Friday, was able to get up and down to save par.

Woods also parred the final hole to close out his tournament.

Woods said this week that the neck injury that forced him to skip the Arnold Palmer Invitational is no longer an issue, but he has yet to commit to either of the lead-up tournaments to The Masters — next week’s Valspar Championship or the WGC-Match Play event the following week.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Haiti parliament ousts prime minister in no-confidence vote

Haitian Prime Minister Henry Ceant has been thrown out of office by a no-confidence vote prompted by government dysfunction and inability to quash inflation, blackouts and frequent opposition protests that have paralyzed the country.

The Chamber of Deputies voted 93-6, with three abstaining, on Monday to replace Ceant as soon as President Jovenel Moise and the heads of parliament's two houses agree on a replacement. Until then, Ceant and his Cabinet will remain in place with limited powers, raising the prospect of even rockier government performance.

Moise and Ceant have had frequent disagreements that have hampered Ceant's ability to carry out his constitutional duty to run the state.

Ceant has held office since July, when his predecessor was removed for mismanagement of the end of subsidized oil aid from Venezuela.

Source: Fox News World

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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].”

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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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