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Mexico warns of ‘deep concern’ over armed groups on U.S. border

A general view shows a newly built section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at Sunland Park, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez
FILE PHOTO - A general view shows a newly built section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at Sunland Park, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in this picture taken from the Mexico side of the U.S.-Mexico border April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

April 20, 2019

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico said on Saturday it had “deep concern” about armed groups that intimidate and extort migrants on the border, shortly after the ACLU and Democratic senators called for a probe into such citizen efforts to block migrants from crossing.

“These types of practices can drive human rights abuses of people who migrate or request asylum or refuge in the United States,” Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry said in a statement, referring to “militia groups” in New Mexico.

It added that patrols “on the margins” of the law create risks for the safety of migrants.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico condemned the United Constitutional Patriots, which patrols the southern U.S. border in New Mexico, as a “fascist militia organization” operating outside the law.

The group has posted videos showing members dressed in camouflage and armed with semi-automatic rifles holding groups of migrants, many Central American families seeking asylum, until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive.

The small volunteer group says it is helping the Border Patrol deal with a surge in undocumented migrants at the southern border. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has toughened various policies and put pressure on Mexico in an attempt to discourage people from attempting to cross into the United States illegally.

Along with the ACLU, New Mexico Democratic senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall also called for an investigation into the border group.

“Threatening innocent children and families fleeing violence and seeking asylum is unacceptable and flies in the face of our values as a state and a nation,” they said in a joint statement on Twitter on Friday.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: OANN

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Alabama’s Roy Moore, undone by allegations, considers new Senate run

FILE PHOTO: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore pauses as he addresses supporters at his election night party in Montgomery
FILE PHOTO: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore pauses as he addresses supporters at his election night party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., December 12, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman/File Photo

March 9, 2019

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – Alabama Republican Roy Moore, whose unsuccessful 2017 campaign for the U.S. Senate was marred by allegations he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while in his 30s, said on Friday that he may again run for the Senate.

In an interview on the Christian program “Focal Point” on American Family Radio, host Bryan Fischer asked Moore about the 2020 race for the Senate in Alabama. “Tell me what you’re thinking about throwing your hat back into the ring,” Fischer said.

“I’m seriously considering it, I think that it (the 2017 Senate race) was stolen,” Moore responded, citing what he described as misinformation campaigns against him.

Senator Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor, defeated Moore by a narrow margin in a special election in December 2017 to fill the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions when he became U.S. attorney general. Jones was the first Democrat in a quarter-century to be elected to the U.S. Senate in conservative-leaning Alabama.

If Moore, a 72-year-old former chief judge in Alabama known for staunchly conservative views, does decide to run for the Senate in 2020 and secures the Republican nomination, he could find himself facing Jones again. The term that Jones was elected to fill expires at the end of 2020.

Moore’s 2017 campaign to fill Sessions’ seat was beset by allegations from women who told the Washington Post that he had sexually assaulted or pursued them while he was in his 30s and they were teenagers. Moore denied the misconduct allegations.

In January, Alabama’s Republican attorney general, Steve Marshall, asked federal elections officials to investigate allegations that the 2017 special election was tainted by use of a misleading social media campaign against Moore. [nL1N1Z71HV]

The New York Times has reported that Democratic operatives sought to undermine Moore by creating a Facebook page claiming his supporters wanted to ban alcohol in the state. The newspaper has also reported that Democrats created a separate “false flag” Facebook page to portray Moore as supported by Russian bot accounts.

U.S. Representative Bradley Byrne is the only Republican in Alabama so far, who has formally pledged to run for the Senate in 2020, according to a report from AL.com, the website of Alabama Media Group.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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BOJ signals readiness to combine steps if more stimulus needed

FILE PHOTO: A security guard walks past in front of the Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A security guard walks past in front of the Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo, Japan January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato

April 23, 2019

By Leika Kihara

TOKYO (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan is ready to ramp up stimulus, including through a combination of various steps, if the economy loses momentum for hitting its 2 percent inflation target, a senior central bank official said on Tuesday.

Eiji Maeda, the BOJ’s executive director overseeing monetary policy, added that any further step must take into account the impact it has not just on the economy but on the banking system.

“If the economy’s momentum for achieving our price target is threatened, we are ready to ease monetary policy as necessary,” Maeda told parliament.

The BOJ has various means available to ease, such as cutting interest rates, boosting asset purchases and accelerating the pace of money printing, he said.

“The BOJ has actively taken various unconventional steps. We’ll continue to take steps as needed, including a combination of them, with an eye on their effects and side-effects,” Maeda said.

At a two-day rate review ending on Thursday, the BOJ is widely expected to keep monetary policy steady even as its latest prediction will likely show inflation missing its target through the fiscal year that ends in March 2022.

The BOJ is in a bind. Years of heavy money printing have failed to fire up inflation to its 2 percent target and left it with little ammunition to fight the next recession.

Prolonged easing has also added to pains for regional banks, already facing slumping profits due to an ageing population and an exodus of borrowers to big cities.

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Chris Gallagher & Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Ecuador Hacked After Julian Assange Arrest

Two days after the Thursday arrest of Julian Assange at Ecuador’s London embassy, several government websites were hacked; including Ecuador’s official website, the Central Bank of Ecuador, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ecuadorian Assembly in the UK, according to Gateway Pundit‘s Cassandra Fairbanks, who was in London last week and documented the run-up to Assange’s arrest. 

Concurrent with the breach, a hacking group operating under the name “AL1NE3737” released a database containing the full names and passwords for what appear to be 728 Ecuadorian government employees.

Furthermore, Ecuador’s sites were hit with Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. According to DefCon Lab.

Among those involved in these attacks stand out from the groups / hacker DeathLaw , 5UB5, Cyb3r C0nven Security and Al1ne ( Pryzraky ).

DoS actions has consistently been against the Ecuadorian government targets, the country that gave Julian Assange to the UK police.” –DefCon Lab


Norm Pattis joins Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson to give his take on the recent arrest of Julian Assange.

The hacker Al1ne ( Pryzraky ) performed page defacements against and released a list of vulnerable targets related to the government of Ecuador

As noted by Fairbanks, “The cyber attack was reminiscent of 2010’s “Operation Avenge Assange” which was launched by the broader “Operation Payback” effort. The movement lead to hacktivists hitting companies such as PayPal, PostFinance, Mastercard, Visa, and others who had blocked services to WikiLeaks with a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack. This is when a website is flooded with fake traffic until it crashes and goes offline.”

Following Assange’s Thursday arrest, more than 70 MPs and peers signed a letter urging the UK home secretary to ensure that the WikiLeaks founder is extradited to Sweden if Swedish authorities request it.

Sweden is considering whether to open a previously-dropped investigation into allegations of rape and sexual assault against Assange.

The United States, meanwhile, wants to try Assange for the largest-ever leak of government secrets in 2010.  On Thursday, the Justice Department hit him with an indictment that claims the WikiLeaks founder helped former US Army intelligence analyst crack DoD password using Linux.

“The indictment alleges that in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet), a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications,” reads a DOJ press release.

Materials Manning released included videos of various US airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the “Iraq War Logs” and “Afghan War Diary.”

Assange faces five years in prison if convicted in the Manning case.

Source: InfoWars

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Trump agrees with AOC that VA ‘isn’t broken,’ but only because of his administration

President Trump on Wednesday said he agreed with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., that the Department of Veteran Affairs doesn’t need fixing, but insisted that it was his administration that made it better.

The freshman lawmaker said during a recent town hall event in New York that the VA isn’t broken and is actually providing “some of the highest quality” care to veterans.

“All I can think of is that classic refrain that my parents always taught me growing up, is that: ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it,’" she added, as part of her argument against privatizing aspects of the scandal-scarred agency's work.

Trump tweeted on Wednesday that Ocasio-Cortez was “correct” that the VA is not broken, but only because his administration had passed the “Veterans Choice & Accountability.”

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Ocasio-Cortez is the latest big name on the left to espouse a position that, intentionally or not, matches with Trump’s policies. Earlier this month, Cher questioned Los Angeles’ ability to handle a large influx of illegal immigrants when it has 50,000 homeless on its streets.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Australia government to boost rural spending in pre-election budget

Prime Minister Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra
Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, March 20, 2019. AAP Image/Andrew Taylor/via REUTERS

April 1, 2019

By Colin Packham

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia’s conservative government said on Monday it will increase spending on rural infrastructure by nearly 30 percent in its last budget before an election next month.

Speaking a day before the presentation of the annual budget for the year beginning on July 1, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said spending on rural roads will increase to A$4.5 billion ($3.20 billion) from the A$3.5 billion it promised last year.

Morrison denied the extra funding was motivated by the election, saying it formed part of the government’s strategy of decentralization.

“We are committed to the satellite cities approach,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra. “We’ve made investments of tens of millions of dollars in supporting our communities to grow together, not grow apart.”

The spending increase was seen by analysts as a pitch to voters in rural areas – a key voter base for the National Party of Australia, the junior partner in the coalition government.

“The state election in New South Wales (NSW) showed the Nationals are hemorrhaging support so the government is throwing money at their weak-link,” said Peter Chen, professor of political science, University of Sydney.

While NSW, Australia’s most populous state, returned Morrison’s Liberal Party to power last month, the Nationals lost several seats to the right-wing, Shooters Fishers and Farmers party.

There are strong expectations that the budget will increase overall spending substantially, although Morrison has promised earlier that the government’s finances would show its first fiscal surplus since 2007/2008.

In recent days the government also confirmed the budget will include a one-off cash rebate to elderly Australians, another key voter demographic for the coalition.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said elderly voters will receive A$75 for an individual or A$125 for couples — to help cover their next energy bills.

(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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Thai parties hold final campaign rallies before election

Thailand's main political parties have held their final major rallies ahead of Sunday's general election, urging their supporters on and highlighting policies they hope will bring them victory.

The polls follow five years of military rule that began with a coup during a long-running battle for power between supporters and opponents of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by an earlier coup in 2006.

The main parties' prime ministerial candidates spoke at rallies held in stadiums in Bangkok. They included Prayuth Chan-ocha, who heads the current military regime, and Sudarat Keyuraphan, representing Thaksin's political machine, the army's main antagonist.

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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