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Watch: Heavily-Armed Men Escort Migrants Across US Border

Video showing heavily-armed men escorting illegal migrants across the U.S. southern border was shared by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

At least five men appearing to be wearing tactical gear and toting rifles can be observed bringing a Guatemalan woman and her child to a border fence near Lukeville, Arizona, under cover of darkness.

One of the men can be seen crossing the barrier with the two migrants and walking a short distance with them before rejoining his comrades.

“Border Patrol cameras observed armed men escorting a mother and her 8-year-old son to the int’l boundary west of Lukeville, AZ,” CBP tweeted.

“The armed men dropped off the pair in an area commonly used by smugglers to bring large groups of Central Americans into the country illegally.”


“Roughly a dozen agents responded when camera operators noticed the incursion Saturday night,” Fox News reports. “The mother and son remain in government custody.”

“Border officials said the incident represents how criminal organizations are behind the lucrative surge of Central American immigrants. Guatemalans are paying roughly $7,000 to smugglers for transport from their home to the U.S. border.”

A border official expressed their concern about the organized and militant nature of the operation.

“This is highly unusual and highly concerning to the agency,” the official told Fox News. “These armed individuals along the border represent an escalation of tactics. This is not mom and dad and kids deciding to head to the border. This is a no kidding, orchestrated effort to bring individuals to the US. It is not just the numbers. It’s who is running this enterprise.”


Alex Jones breaks down the globalists’ plan to destroy borders worldwide before bringing in their New World Order under complete totalitarian rule, and the United States is the biggest, strongest bordered nation that stands in the way of the globalists bringing all the people of the world into domesticated submission under their race-based communist system.

Dan Lyman:

Source: InfoWars

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Racism Found in Starbucks Toilets to Blame?

Starbucks Will be Closing So They Can Talk about their Racial Toilets Starbucks now will close more than 8,000 company-owned stores across the U.S. Tuesday to conduct “racial bias training” for its employees  The move by Starbucks all comes following an outcry over the arrest of two black men at one of its stores in Philadelphia […]

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Evangelical group says 3 US volunteers detained in Laos

A U.S.-based Christian evangelical organization says three of its American volunteers have been detained in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos.

The group, Vision Beyond Borders, based in Casper, Wyoming, said in a statement late Friday that the three, whom it identified only by the names Wayne, Autumn and Joseph, were detained by police while visiting villages in the northern province of Luang Namtha.

Eric Blievernicht, the group's operations manager, said the three carried Gospel tracts and MP3 players with Scripture and other Christian material to share with villagers.

Laotian authorities could not immediately be contacted on Saturday, as celebrations of the extended traditional New Year's holiday began. An emailed inquiry to the U.S. Embassy in Laos was not immediately answered.

Source: Fox News World

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Global growth fears clip analysts’ bullish calls on loonie: Reuters Poll

FILE PHOTO: A Canadian dollar coin, commonly known as the
FILE PHOTO: A Canadian dollar coin, commonly known as the "Loonie", is pictured in this illustration picture taken in Toronto January 23, 2015. REUTERS/Mark Blinch/File Photo

April 5, 2019

By Fergal Smith

TORONTO (Reuters) – Strategists see little upside for the Canadian dollar over the coming months, cutting their bullish forecasts for the currency as worries about the global economy boost demand for higher-yielding U.S. dollars, a Reuters poll showed.

The loonie has climbed more than 2 percent since the start of the year even as it has lost ground since February, making it the second best performing currency in the G10 after sterling.

According to the poll of nearly 50 currency analysts, the loonie will strengthen slightly to 1.33 per U.S. dollar in three months, or 75.19 U.S. cents, from about 1.335 on Thursday. That is a weaker forecast than the 1.31 level seen in March’s poll.

Strategists were more upbeat about the currency over a one-year horizon, expecting it to climb about 2.7 percent to 1.30.

“We still remain optimistic on the loonie but our (U.S.) dollar forecasts as a whole reflect a longer period of dollar strength and uncertainty over global growth in the short run,” said Ranko Berich, head of market analysis at Monex Europe.

Canada is running a current account deficit and exports many commodities, including oil, which has rallied nearly 50 percent since December, so its economy could be hurt by a global slowdown.

Data last month showed Canada’s economy barely grew in the fourth quarter due to plunging Canadian crude oil export prices, while the Bank of Canada has signaled it is in no hurry to raise interest rates again after tightening its benchmark rate by 125 basis points since July 2017 to 1.75 percent.

The U.S. Federal Reserve could also be on hold, with the fed funds rate set to stay in a range of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent, according to economists in a Reuters poll.

Both the U.S. and Canadian yield curves inverted in March, with rates on long-term bonds trading below short-term rates for the first time in more than a decade. But inversion of Canada’s curve has not always led to a recession.

“Our scenario calls for the Canadian economy to improve this spring, which could help the loonie,” said Hendrix Vachon, a senior economist at Desjardins. “The gains should be limited by ongoing concerns, particularly regarding developments in the housing market and business investment.”

Canadians have taken on record amounts of debt in recent years, which helped fuel a rapid rise in real estate prices. But the housing market has softened since the start of 2018, weighed by tighter mortgage rules and Bank of Canada rate hikes.

The prospect of limited movement for the loonie is reflected in the volatility used to price FX options. At an annualized 5.65 percent, 3-month implied volatility for the Canadian dollar is trading near its lowest since September 2014.

“Our view is that dollar-Canada is one of the few G10 currencies which the option market has correct, in the sense that it really shouldn’t have big moves from here,” said Daniel Katzive, head of FX strategy North America at BNP Paribas in New York.

“We think Bank of Canada and Fed policy settings are not going to diverge too much further … we don’t really see oil making enough of a move to justify a big adjustment in dollar-Canada either,” Katzive said.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith; Polling by Mumal Rathore and Indradip Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: OANN

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US Judge in Washington State Blocks New Trump Abortion Rule

A U.S. judge in Washington state Thursday blocked new Trump administration rules that would provide additional hurdles for women seeking abortions, including by banning taxpayer-funded clinics from making abortion referrals.

Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima granted the preliminary injunction in cases brought by the state and abortion rights groups, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said. The new rules were due to take effect May 3.

"Today's ruling ensures that clinics across the nation can remain open and continue to provide quality, unbiased healthcare to women," Ferguson, a Democrat, said in an emailed statement.

The ruling came two days after a federal judge in Oregon, hearing a separate challenge by 20 states, said he intended to at least partially block the rules. That judge, Michael McShane, suggested he was reluctant to issue a nationwide injunction, but said the administration's new policy was motivated by "an arrogant assumption that the government is better suited to direct women's health care than their providers."

Title X is a 1970 law designed to improve access to family planning services, especially for low-income women and those in rural areas, but abortion opponents and religious conservatives say it has long been used to indirectly subsidize abortion providers.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of Title X or other taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman.

Clinics that receive money under Title X provide a wide array of services, including birth control and screening for diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases and cancer. The program serves 4 million patients, about 1.6 million of whom obtain services through Planned Parenthood.

In addition to banning abortion referrals by taxpayer-funded clinics, the changes would prohibit clinics that receive federal money from sharing office space with abortion providers — a rule critics said would force many to find new locations, undergo expensive remodels or shut down.

"All over the country, there are Title X providers looking at their patient schedules and wondering what they were going to do," said Clare Coleman, president of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, which sued. "Now we know that everyone can continue to do their care as they have been doing for the past 50 years."

The judge made his ruling from the bench and said he would issue a written opinion early next week, Coleman said.

The Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment, citing a policy of not commenting on litigation.

While the new rules would permit clinic staff to discuss abortion with clients, they would no longer be required to do so. If patients ask for an abortion referral, staff would be required to give a list of primary care providers with no indication as to which provide abortions.

The list would have to include providers who do not offer abortions, and it could not include clinics or organizations that aren't primary care providers, such as Planned Parenthood.

Supporters of the changes say they return Title X's regulations back to their original legislative intent that "none of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning."

"We're extremely disappointed that a district judge made a ruling — a wrong ruling — that affects the entire nation," said Mark Miloscia, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, which was not involved in the case. "We support family planning, but not giving it through agencies that kill the unborn."

The legal challenges argue that the changes violate a requirement that patients receive pregnancy counseling that is not weighted for or against abortion, and that it violates the Affordable Care Act's prohibition on regulations that impose "unreasonable barriers to the ability of individuals to obtain appropriate medical care."

Some 98,000 patients in Washington were expected to receive care through Title X this year, Ferguson said.

Source: NewsMax America

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New Apple lab uses robots to rip apart devices for recycling materials

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Apple company is seen outside an Apple store in Bordeaux
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Apple company is seen outside an Apple store in Bordeaux, France, March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo

April 18, 2019

By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is notorious for keeping what happens in its laboratories a closely guarded secret. But the iPhone maker plans to share openly everything that happens in its newest lab in Austin, Texas.

Apple said Thursday that it will open a “Material Recovery” lab to investigate new techniques using robotics and machine learning to rip apart its devices and recover valuable materials such as copper, aluminum and cobalt. The 9,000-square-foot lab will be at the same Austin facility as “Daisy,” an Apple-built robot that can now tear apart iPhones at the rate of 1.2 million per year.

The lab is part of Apple’s broader goal to make all of its products from recycled or renewable materials. Apple has not set a date for when it will reach that goal, though some products such as the MacBook Air already feature aluminum made from melted down iPhones traded in to Apple.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social Initiatives, told Reuters the research will inform how Apple designs its products.

“I absolutely think that the learnings we make there will be for all of Apple, and hopefully for all of our sector, and of course will influence designers and engineers as we go forward,” Jackson said in an interview.

Apple has faced criticism in the past that its thin-and-light product designs make it hard to disassemble products so they can be recycled.

Kyle Wiens, chief executive of iFixit, which provides free repair instructions for electronics, said Apple deserves some credit for making the iPhone reasonable to recycle. But he said many other popular products in its lineup – such as its AirPods headphones – cannot be economically recycled because they are stuck together with glue.

Jackson pushed back against that notion, saying that smaller products reduce material use and that Apple focuses on making longer lasting products. The company for the first time released figures showing that 7.8 million devices brought to Apple as trade-ins last year ended up with new users.

“Durability matters,” Jackson said. “We know our products are used a long time.”

Apple also said Thursday that materials recovered by the Daisy robot are making their way into new products. For example, batteries recovered by Daisy will be sent to recyclers so the cobalt from them can be used in new Apple batteries.

“Cobalt is mined in horrific conditions,” Wiens of iFixit said. “Reducing cobalt consumption is a good thing across the board.”

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: OANN

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Sen. Rubio Objects to Trump's Revoking NKorea Sanctions

President Donald Trump's tweet on withdrawal of North Korea sanctions was unprecedented and "shouldn't have happened that way," according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

"I've never seen that before from this or any administration, so something happened here," Sen. Rubio told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Undoing sanctions requires "a long interagency process," Rubio told host Chuck Todd, adding President Trump acting unilaterally is "unusual" and unprecedented.

"Frankly, look, I think people around the world would look at it and say from now on, when they hear about sanctions, they're going to ask for a double confirmation from the White House," Rubio told Todd.

"So, look, I wish it hadn't happened that way, and it shouldn't have happened that way."

The Treasury Department announced large scale sanctions against North Korea for their nuclear weapons program, but President Trump quickly tweeted a revocation of them shortly after Friday:

"It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale sanctions would be added to those already existing sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional sanctions!"

Rubio's rejection of President Trump's work to denuclearize North Korea, negotiating with Kim Jong Un is based on skepticism on the part of Kim, not any doubt about Trump. 

"I would love for Kim Jong Un to give up his weapons and everything else," Rubio said. "And I don't criticize the president for trying. I just never believed he would. I don't believe he ever will.

"I'm not skeptical because I want it to fail; I'm skeptical because I believe it will fail."

Source: NewsMax 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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Source: InfoWars

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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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