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

US-backed force says it's in control of IS Syria encampment

A spokesman for U.S.-backed forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria says his fighters are in control of an encampment in the village of Baghouz where IS militants have been besieged for months.

Mustafa Bali, of the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, says clashes however are continuing elsewhere in the village in eastern Syria as IS militants continue to fight back.

Bali says on Twitter on Tuesday that controlling the encampment in Baghouz marks "significant progress" in the fight but that it's "not a victory announcement."

The area held by IS in Baghouz is the last pocket of territory in Syria controlled by the extremist group, which once held a vast area of Syria and Iraq, calling it an Islamic "caliphate."

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Attack on US-backed Syrian fighters kills 7 in northern town

An official with the U.S.-backed force in Syria says gunmen have attacked one of their checkpoints in the northern town on Manbij, killing seven fighters.

Sharfan Darwish, of the Kurdish-led Manbij Military Council, told The Associated Press that the Tuesday morning attack hit a checkpoint at one the entrances of Manbij.

He says it's unclear who was behind the attack and added that the "martyrs were carrying out their mission of protecting Manbij."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said sleepers cells of the Islamic State group carried out the attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but in January, IS claimed a suicide attack in Manbij that killed 19 people, including two U.S. service members and two American civilians.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Wisconsin man arrested for allegedly throwing away 8 puppies in garbage bag

A Wisconsin man was arrested for allegedly throwing away eight puppies in a garbage bag.

Robert Wild, 56, was taken into custody after the Marshfield Police Department found the newborn pups in a trashcan on Feb. 28, the department wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Robert Wild, 56, was taken into custody after he allegedly admitted to "discarding the puppies," police said. 

Robert Wild, 56, was taken into custody after he allegedly admitted to "discarding the puppies," police said.  (Marshfield Police Department)

Authorities received a call about "the sound of kittens coming from a garbage can." But when investigators arrived at the scene, they discovered that "the sound was coming from 8 newborn puppies which had been discarded in a garbage bag and trash can."

The puppies were rescued and transported to the Marshfield Area Pet Shelter. Police said that Wild admitted to "discarding the puppies."

The animals "are safe and in foster care," but will not be up for adoption until they "grow up big and strong first," the shelter said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Police wrote that the department requested the Wood County District Attorney's Office file misdemeanor charges for the mistreatment and abandonment of animals against Wild.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

South Carolina man charged with kidnapping and murder of University of South Carolina student

A South Carolina man was charged Saturday with the kidnapping and murder of University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson; police say they believe he picked her up in a vehicle, killed her and dumped her body in a wooded area.

Chief William H. Holbrook, with the Columbia Police Department, said at a news conference on Saturday night that authorities had charged 24-year-old Nathaniel Rowland with killing Josephson, 21. A traffic stop reportedly found the victim's blood in his car.

“Our hearts are broken, they’re broken. There is nothing tougher than to stand before a family an explain how a loved one was murdered,” Holbrook said.

According to police, Josephson was out early Friday with friends at the Bird Dog bar on Harden Street when members of the group got separated. After not being able to contact her at all the following morning, Josephson’s roommates contacted law enforcement.

Police learned that after leaving the bar, Josephson requested a ride from Uber and was last seen getting into a black Chevy Impala.

According to police, Josephson was out early Friday with friends at the Bird Dog bar on Harden Street when the group's members became separated.

According to police, Josephson was out early Friday with friends at the Bird Dog bar on Harden Street when the group's members became separated. (Columbia Police Department)

While investigators with the Columbia Police Department began a missing-person inquiry, Clarendon County police responded to a call about 3:45 p.m. that a body had been discovered in a field.

“The body had been found by a couple of people hunting … in a field in what was described by the sheriff to us as a wooded area in a very rural part of the county off of a dirt road -- about 40 feet off of a dirt road -- in an area  that would be very difficult to get to unless you knew how to get there.”

Police say Rowland resided close to where the body was found.

SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE REPORTS DEATH OF STUDENT, 21, A DAY AFTER SHE CLIMBED INTO CAR SHE THOUGHT WAS HER RIDE-SHARE

About 3 a.m. Saturday, a canine officer with the Columbia Police Department detected a black Chevy Impala about two blocks from where the victim was last seen.

Holbrook said the officer initiated a traffic stop and asked the driver -- people have identified him as Rowland -- to step out of the vehicle.

The suspect took off but was taken into custody after a short pursuit.

Police discovered that after leaving the bar, Josephson had requested a ride from Uber and was last seen getting into this black Chevy Impala.

Police discovered that after leaving the bar, Josephson had requested a ride from Uber and was last seen getting into this black Chevy Impala. (Columbia Police Department)

Upon returning to the vehicle, the officer observed what appeared to be large amounts of blood inside. Police got a search warrant and found similar samples in the trunk and passenger side of the car. Subsequent testing confirmed that the blood belonged to Josephson.

Police also discovered the victim’s cellphone in the vehicle, along with bleach, germicidal wipes and window cleaner. Holbrook said the child safety feature on the rear car doors had been activated, suggesting that Josephson might have been unable to escape.

Said Holbrook: “What we know now is that she had in fact summoned an Uber ride and was waiting for that Uber ride to come, we believe. We don't’ have a statement or any evidence that suggests this, other than our observations on the video. We believe that she simply mistakenly got into this particular car thinking it was an Uber ride.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division charged Rowland on Saturday with murder and kidnapping.

Holbrook concluded his press conference with condolences to Josephson’s family, calling the case simply “gut-wrenching.”

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Gregg Jarrett: Avenatti may need to get used to a jumpsuit

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Thursday that attorney Michael Avenatti may have to get used to wearing jumpsuits rather than an Armani suit and Jesse Watters accused the media of overlooking the real person in favor of his anti-Trump message.

“I've read through the 61 page, 36 indictment. If the feds can prove just a fraction of this then Avenatti better throw away the Armani suit and get used to a jumpsuit because the feds say he was essentially the Bernie Madoff of lawyers running a Ponzi scheme stealing from one client to pay another to pay his predators,” Jarrett said on “Hannity.”

MICHAEL AVENATTI LIVED LUXURY LIFE WHILE AVOIDING PAYING TAXES FOR A DECADE, SAYS FEDERAL TAX AUTHORITIES

“The lavish lifestyle and the jet that he had and then the pyramid eventually just came crashing around him. And the behavior in his victims, this is just unconscionable for a lawyer. And it's also, If proven, criminal.”

Avenatti  was charged on Thursday with an additional 36 indictments; he was accused of fraud, false statements, obstruction and nonpayment of taxes. In March, he was charged for attempting to extort Nike for $20 million.

Watters, the host of "Watters' World," criticized the media for not looking into Avenatti and pushing an anti-Trump narrative.

MICHAEL AVENATTI’S LATEST ACCUSATIONS OF EXTORTING NIKE MARK END OF HIS SHOT AT REDEMPTION AFTER SPECTACULAR FALL FROM GRACE

“He was a complete scam artist and the media never kick the tires. They never checked under the hood because they didn't want to know they put him right out in the middle of the showroom because they know what moves merchandise and what moves merchandise in the media is Trump hate and impeachment,” Watters said.

The Media Research Center Thursday released research that showed Avenatti made 254 TV appearances in the last year.

Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

War Room – 2019-Feb-06, Wednesday – America Responds To President Trump’s State Of The Union

On today’s War Room Roger Stone and Owen Shroyer respond to the State Of The Union Address and play all the explosive highlights. We also take calls in response to the State Of The Union. Leo Zagami joins us to talk about the latest news out of the Vatican and the John Of God story.

GUEST // (OTP/Skype) // TOPICS:
Leo Zagami//Skype

Source: The War Room

0 0

Dutch shell firms used to pay millions in Brazilian bribes: prosecutors

The corporate logo of the Odebrecht SA construction conglomerate is pictured on an electronic screen inside an elevator at its headquarters in Sao Paulo
The corporate logo of the Odebrecht SA construction conglomerate is pictured on an electronic screen inside an elevator at its headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil August 3, 2018. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

February 26, 2019

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Prosecutors raided locations across the Netherlands on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the alleged use of shell companies to distribute $100 million in bribes on behalf of Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA.

Data and financial records were seized from half a dozen homes and businesses, the Dutch financial prosecutors said. A 48-year-old man was detained near the town of Leiden. They did not name any of the businesses being investigated.

“It is suspected that Dutch corporate entities were used on a large scale to facilitate bribes,” they said. The bribes were paid by Odebrecht “and were most likely intended for foreign bureaucrats and political parties.”

At least $100 million was channeled through financial structures set up by trusts and tax advisors and believed to have used fake contracts and invoices to conceal the payments, prosecutors said.

The investigation follows Brazil’s “Car Wash” probe, a massive multi-year investigation into corruption, including money laundering and graft, linked to the oil and construction industries, that has implicated members of the country’s political and business elite.

In 2016, Odebrecht and Braskem SA, a Brazilian petrochemical company, agreed to pay $3.5 billion to resolve charges with authorities in the United States, Brazil and Switzerland arising from schemes to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to government officials.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; editing by John Stonestreet)

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