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Boy, 3, killed in Waffle House parking lot after father accidentally ran him over, police say

A 3-year-old boy was killed in the parking lot of a Florida Waffle House after his father accidentally ran over him with the family’s SUV, police said.

Both parents of Jeremiah Rios mistakenly believed the other parent placed him in the vehicle when they pulled away from the restaurant in Brandon on Tuesday night, according to a Hillsborough County Police report.

"It’s too late for this family and had the most tragic outcome but if in the future, if we could just ask parents, slow down, make sure you’ve got everybody," Danny Alvarez, the department’s public information officer, said in an interview with WTSP. "We know we get caught up in our day but slow down and we can prevent a tragedy."

Jeremiah’s father, Guillermo Junior Montoya Rios, hit the child with his right front tire, causing severe head injuries, the police report said. The boy later was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The tragic event, described by Hillsborough County police as an accident, comes following the death of a 1-year-old Florida child who was run over by a neighbor while playing with a dog outside his Ruskin home in January.

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In that incident, police say the child was hit as the neighbor was trying to leave the residence to drive to her home next door.

Police told Fox News that no charges have been filed against Rios’ parents at this time and neither alcohol or drugs are believed to be involved in the incident.

Fox News' Michael Sinkewicz contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Lyft pulls electric bikes in three U.S. cities after complaints about braking

FILE PHOTO: A Lyft bicycle is shown at the Lyft listing on the Nasdaq during an IPO event in Los Angeles
FILE PHOTO: A Lyft bicycle is shown at the Lyft listing on the Nasdaq during an IPO event in Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 14, 2019

By Imani Moise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lyft Inc is recalling several thousand electric bikes in its bike-share program in New York, Washington and San Francisco because of a braking problem, the ride-hailing company said on Sunday.

“We recently received a small number of reports from riders who experienced stronger than expected braking force on the front wheel,” Lyft said in a blog post emailed to customers on Sunday.

Too much force while braking can cause a fall.

The company’s Citi Bike division is working to replace about 3,000 pedal assist-bikes in New York, Washington and San Francisco with traditional bikes to prevent service interruptions. The company already operates about 17,000 traditional bikes in those cities. Some of the electric bikes are still on docks but customers will no longer be able to rent them.

“After a small number of reports and out of an abundance of caution, we are proactively pausing our electric bikes from service, said Citi Bike spokeswoman Julie Wood. “Safety always comes first.”

The company said it had been working on a new electric bike model that would be ready to deploy soon.

Lyft, which went public in March, bought Citi Bike operator Motivate last year in a move to fend off competition arising from rival Uber Technologies Inc’s purchase of electric cycle-sharing startup JUMP Bikes months before.

(Reporting by Imani Moise; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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China needs tax cuts to relieve pressure on economy: vice premier

A man cycles outside the construction sites in Beijing's central business area
FILE PHOTO: A man cycles outside the construction sites in Beijing's central business area, China January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

February 19, 2019

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s decision to cut company taxes and fees is an important part of fiscal policy and is a hard-hitting measure needed to cope with pressure on the economy, state media reported Vice Premier Han Zheng as saying.

He made the comments on Tuesday during a visit to the State Administration of Taxation, the official People’s Daily newspaper reported.

Officials have pledged more aggressive reductions in 2019, after cutting about 1.3 trillion yuan ($192.82 billion) in taxes and fees last year.

Some analysts expect the changes will be announced during the annual session of parliament in early March, along with other measures to boost economic growth and ease financial strains on struggling companies.

“It is necessary to implement the tax and fee reduction policies so that companies and the people can have a real sense of gain,” Han said.

Chinese authorities plan to set a lower economic growth target of 6 to 6.5 percent in 2019, sources have told Reuters, as weakening domestic demand and a damaging trade war with the United States drag on business activity and consumer confidence.

China’s economy grew by 6.6. percent in 2018, the slowest annual pace since 1990.

(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Australian man blocks bow and arrow attack with his phone: police

An Australian man was able to shield himself with his phone after he came under attack from a bow and arrow-wielding man, police said Wednesday.

The 43-year-old from Nimbin was getting out of his car Wednesday when a man he knew was standing outside his residence holding a bow and arrow, New South Wales Police said. The man picked up his phone to take a picture of the scene when the armed man “was ready to fire,” police said.

AUSTRALIAN COUPLE SURVIVED DAYS LOST ON MOUNTAIN DRINKING 'TRICKLE OF WATER,' MUESLI BARS, CALLED SAGA 'LOVELY'

Police say the suspect fired the arrow at the resident which punctured the man’s cell phone. The phone hit him in the chin which gave him a small laceration “that didn’t require medical treatment,” police said.

A 39-year-old man was charged with “armed with intent to commit an indictable offence, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage," police said.

A 39-year-old man was charged with “armed with intent to commit an indictable offence, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage," police said. (NSW Police Force)

AUSTRALIAN TOWN LEFT DEVASTATED AFTER BELOVED 15FT, 80-YEAR-OLD CROCODILE IS FOUND DEAD

A 39-year-old man was arrested and charged with “armed with intent to commit an indictable offense, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage,” police said.

He is set to appear in court on Monday.

Source: Fox News World

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Trump Has Huge Lead Over Democrat Rivals Among White Working-class Voters

As Democrats are beginning to throw their hats into the 2020 election ring, a new poll indicates that they are going to have to do a lot of work to reach the level of support that President Trump has, particularly among white working-class Americans.

The poll, released by CNN, shows that a majority, 54 percent, of non-college educated white Americans have a favorable opinion of Trump.

However, within the same demographic, only 40 percent have a favorable view of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and a paltry 20 percent like former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke.

Over half, 52 percent, said they have an unfavorable view of Sanders, while 34 percent do not like O’Rourke. Trump’s score on the unfavorable front was 42 percent.

Of course, Trump’s election in 2016 was down to key votes among white working-class voters in the Midwest. It was this very demographic that gave Trump the largest margin of victory in a general election since 1980.

Among non-college educated white Americans, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 67 percent to 28 percent.

By the look of this latest poll, history is set to repeat itself.

There has been a steady drop off in working class white Americans affiliating with and supporting the Democratic party for close to 50 years.

The poll also revealed that Joe Biden is the favorite candidate among Democratic voters, with 28 percent. Bernie Sanders scored 20 percent, while Beto languished with just 11 percent.

Beto will likely have to rethink some of his core policies if he is to stand any chance of attracting voters in this demographic.

Wednesday night, O’Rourke told a crowd in New Hampshire that he believes a woman’s “reproductive rights” are more important than a baby’s life, even if the child survives a late term abortion.

When asked “Would you support this bill that does not in any way limit abortion but simply seeks to keep babies alive that have been born alive?” Beto replied that he would “trust women to make their own decisions about their own bodies.”

Advocating a policy that allows babies to die probably isn’t going to win over middle America any time soon.

Source: InfoWars

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China’s Ant Financial amasses 50 million users, mostly low-income, in new health plan

The logo of Ant Financial Services Group is pictured at its headquarters in Hangzhou
The logo of Ant Financial Services Group, Alibaba's financial affiliate, is pictured at its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China January 24, 2018. REUTERS/Shu Zhang

April 12, 2019

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A mutual health aid plan launched by Ant Financial Services Group, the dominant fintech player in China, has amassed more than 50 million users and is aiming for 300 million within two years, the company said late on Thursday.

The plan, dubbed Xiang Hu Bao or literally “mutual protection”, is marketed on Ant Financial’s flagship mobile payment app Alipay and provides participants a basic medical coverage with the risks and expenses distributed across all members.

It has gained unexpected popularity among China’s “low-end population”, poorer sections of society, who struggle to afford medical services due to the government’s inadequate social healthcare system and are under-served by traditional commercial insurers as they cannot meet the premiums and advance payments required with commercial health insurance products.

About 47 percent of Xiang Hu Bao plan’s 50 million participants are migrant workers and 31 percent are from rural areas and county-level regions, Ant Financial said.

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial was spun off from e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Co Ltd, which went public in 2014, and has played a vital role in shaping the financial technology landscape in China, shaking up the state-controlled traditional banking, asset management and insurance sectors with disruptive new products.

The expansion of Xiang Hu Bao was even faster than Ant Financial’s blockbuster online spare cash management platform Yu’e Bao, which took more than six months to reach the 50 million user milestone after launching in 2013 and has grown to become the world’s largest money market fund with 1.13 trillion yuan ($168.2 billion) in net asset as of end-2018. China has a population of nearly 1.4 billion.

The Xiang Hu Bao health plan protects participants against 100 critical illnesses with a one-time payout of up to 300,000 yuan ($44,650). The cost is shared equally by all other participants, capped at 188 yuan per month for individual users in 2019, according to its description.

Despite its mutual insurance features, Ant Financial said the plan is “not a health insurance product”, indicating the product is not regulated by the country’s insurance regulator.

Ant Financial has obtained a range of licenses to operate financial services, including payments, online banking, insurance, micro lending, and fund management in China’s vast financial market. Its rapid expansion has propelled regulators to place it under increased scrutiny to prevent potential systematic financial risks.

(Reporting by Shu Zhang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: OANN

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Barr rules to keep asylum seekers in detention during deportation proceedings

Attorney General William Barr has ruled that asylum seekers facing removal who show they have a “credible fear” of being returned to their homeland will no longer be eligible for release on bond -- meaning they will have to remain in detention while their cases are pending.

The decision is Barr’s first immigration-related ruling since being confirmed as attorney general and comes as the Trump administration clamps down on illegal immigration amid a surge at the border. The attorney general has the authority to overturn prior rulings made by immigration courts, which fall under the Justice Department.

COURT TEMPORARILY BLOCKS HALT TO TRUMP POLICY FORCING ASYLUM-SEEKERS TO STAY IN MEXICO 

"The question presented is whether aliens who are originally placed in expedited proceedings and then transferred to full proceedings after establishing a credible fear become eligible for bond upon transfer. I conclude that such aliens remain ineligible for bond, whether they are arriving at the border or are apprehended in the United States," the decision states.

The ruling was almost immediately panned by civil rights and immigration rights groups, with the American Civil Liberties Union calling it unconstitutional and vowing to sue.

"This is the Trump administration’s latest assault on people fleeing persecution and seeking refuge in the United States,” Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “Our Constitution does not allow the government to lock up asylum seekers without basic due process. We'll see the administration in court."

Barr's ruling pertains to those who clear a "credible fear" interview and are facing removal.

The decision doesn't affect asylum-seeking families because they generally can't be held for longer than 20 days. It also doesn't apply to unaccompanied minors.

Barr's ruling takes effect in 90 days and comes amid a frustrating time for the administration as the number of border crossers has skyrocketed. Most of them are families from Central America who are fleeing violence and poverty. Many seek asylum.

There were a total of 161,000 asylum applications filed in the last fiscal year and 46,000 in the first quarter of 2019, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.

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Sarah Pierce, policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, said the number of decisions by immigration judges that the administration of President Trump has referred to itself for review is unprecedented. The administration — under both Barr and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions — has reviewed a total of 10 immigration rulings. That's compared to four under all of President Barack Obama's tenure and nine during George W. Bush's.

"This has been a really unprecedented use of power to influence the immigration system," Pierce said.

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

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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