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Pelosi says Trump using 9/11 images for ‘political attack’

President Donald Trump has weighed in on the most recent controversy involving Rep. Ilhan Omar, retweeting video edited to suggest that the Minnesota Democrat was dismissive of the significance of the Sept. 11 attacks.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the president "shouldn't use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack."

The video pulls a snippet of Omar's speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in which she described the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center as "some people did something," as well as news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the towers. Trump on Friday tweeted, "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!"

Omar's remark has drawn criticism largely from political opponents and conservatives. They say Omar, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, offered a flippant description of the assailants and the attacks on American soil that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Neither Trump's tweet nor the video includes her full quote or the context of her comments.

Omar told CAIR in Los Angeles that many Muslims saw their civil liberties eroded after the attacks, and she advocated for activism.

"For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said in the March 23 speech, according to video posted online. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

CAIR was founded in 1994, according to its website, but its membership increased dramatically after the attacks.

Many Republicans and conservative outlets expressed outrage at Omar's remarks.

"First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as 'some people who did something,'" tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. The retired Navy SEAL lost his right eye in 2012 in an explosion in Afghanistan.

"Here's your something," the New York Post blared on its cover beneath a photograph of the flaming towers.

Pelosi said in a statement released Saturday while she was in Germany visiting American troops that "the memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence." She said "it is wrong for the president, as commander-in-chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe."

Omar doesn't seem to be backing down.

She tweeted a quote from former President George W. Bush shortly after the attacks, when he said: "'The people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"

"Was Bush downplaying the terrorist attack?" Omar tweeted. "What if he was a Muslim."

Several of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates condemned Trump's tweet.

"Someone has already been charged with a serious threat on Congresswoman Omar's life. The video the president chose to send out today will only incite more hate," said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. "You can disagree with her words — as I have done before — but this video is wrong. Enough.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Omar "won't back down to Trump's racism and hate, and neither will we."

And Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts accused Trump "of inciting violence against a sitting congresswoman — and an entire group of Americans based on their religion."

Omar has repeatedly pushed fellow Democrats into uncomfortable territory over Israel and the power of the Jewish state's influence in Washington. She apologized for suggesting that lawmakers support Israel for pay and said she isn't criticizing Jews. But she refused to take back a tweet in which she suggested that American supporters of Israel "pledge allegiance" to a foreign country.

Her comments sparked an ugly episode among House Democrats when they responded with a resolution condemning anti-Semitism became a broader declaration against all forms of bigotry.

Source: Fox News National

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Pelosi Downplays AOC’s Success: ‘Glass of Water’ With a ‘D’ Could Win Her District

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says that a ‘glass of water’ could be elected in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) district if it ran as a Democrat.

The House Speaker seemed to downplay the young congresswoman’s success in toppling longtime incumbent Joe Crowley in what was regarded by many as one of the biggest upsets in the 2018 midterm elections.

“When we won this election, it wasn’t in districts like mine or Alexandria’s,” Pelosi told an audience at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “She’s a wonderful member of Congress, I think all of our colleagues would attest.”

“But those are districts that are solidly Democratic,” Pelosi said while picking up a water glass from the table. “This glass of water would win with a ‘D’ next to its name in those districts.”


Pelosi clarified that she didn’t mean to “diminish” the “exuberance and personality” of Ocasio-Cortez and her contemporaries, such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — all first-term congresswomen who represent an insurgency of radical socialists within the party.

Pelosi’s remarks came immediately following an interview with 60 Minutes in which she rejected the young revolutionaries as a threat to her power.

“You have these wings — AOC and her group on one side…” said host Lesley Stahl, in reference to new factions forming in the Democrat Party.

“That’s like five people,” Pelosi interjected.

And days before, in an interview with USA Today, Pelosi took a thinly-veiled shot at Ocasio-Cortez’s popularity on social media, saying, “While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what’s important is that we have a large number of votes on the floor of the House.”



Watch as the Democrats and MSM talking heads go into a death spiral now that they know their game is up.

Dan Lyman:

Source: InfoWars

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Marine Raider killed in Camp Pendleton crash ID’d

A 29-year-old Marine Raider has been identified as the victim of a deadly crash during training at a Southern California base over the weekend.

Staff Sgt. Joshua Braica was injured Saturday when an MRZR tactical vehicle he was driving rolled over during an exercise at Camp Pendleton. He died at a local hospital the following day. Two other Marines suffered minor injuries.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Joshua Braica.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Joshua Braica. (United States Marine Corps)

Braica, of Sacramento, Calif., was a critical skills operator with the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and was an eight-year veteran. He is survived by his wife and son.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

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Braica's death was the second tragedy at Camp Pendleton in less than a week. On April 11, the Marine Corps announced that 1st Lt. Matthew Kraft, who failed to return from a ski trip in the Sierra Nevada mountain range more than a month ago, had likely died of exposure.

Fox News' Travis Fedschun and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Citigroup to refund retail customers for investment losses: Australian regulator

FILE PHOTO: The Citigroup Inc logo is seen at the SIBOS banking and financial conference in Toronto
FILE PHOTO: The Citigroup Inc (Citi) logo is seen at the SIBOS banking and financial conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

April 15, 2019

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Citigroup will refund more than A$3 million ($2.2 million) to retail customers in Australia who suffered losses from complex investments sold by the bank, the country’s corporate watchdog said on Monday.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said Citi would refund 114 customers who invested in complex fixed-income products between 2013 and 2017 and lost money.

The bank has also agreed to give customers with remaining investments in the products an opportunity to exit “without cost,” the regulator said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Citi, which is also defending a lawsuit brought by the regulator over a 2015 capital raising, did not immediately return a request for comment.

(Reporting by Paulina Duran; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

Source: OANN

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India’s Hindu groups quietly put controversial temple plan on backburner

FILE PHOTO: People look at a model of a proposed Ram temple that Hindu groups want to build at a disputed religious site in Ayodhya
FILE PHOTO: People look at a model of a proposed Ram temple that Hindu groups want to build at a disputed religious site in Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, November 9, 2018. REUTERS/Pawan Kumar/File Photo

April 3, 2019

By Mayank Bhardwaj, Neha Dasgupta and Rupam Jain

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Millions of Hindus will wake up at the crack of dawn this Saturday, five days before the start of India’s general election, and march to nearby temples to chant a sacred hymn and renew a pledge to build a temple on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque.

Hardline Hindu allies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) say they will mobilize more than 10 million people on April 6 – the start of the Hindu New Year – to shore up support for the contentious plan to build a temple in the northern town of Ayodhya.

But while the event will keep the focus on a core demand of India’s Hindu nationalists, it will not overtly be part of the BJP’s election campaign, signaling a softer approach by the ruling party, multiple sources familiar with discussions said.

The commitment to construct a grand temple in Ayodhya to the Hindu god-king Ram has been part of the BJP’s election manifesto since the 1990s and has helped the party garner Hindu votes in state and federal elections since then.

However, the BJP and its allies are concerned that focusing on the temple issue could be too hot to handle, especially since it is now the party in power. It could worsen communal tensions and trigger religious riots in the country, said a senior BJP leader.

“We cannot underestimate the power of Hindu fringe groups, and it’s best not to ignite these issues,” said a BJP leader who is overseeing the party’s election strategy.

The BJP leader and two other senior party members, two federal ministers and four members of hardline Hindu groups, who didn’t wish to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said they reached a consensus to fold the temple issue into a broader religious and cultural discourse, without being too vocal about it.

Following a meeting between senior religious leaders and BJP politicians in January, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or the World Hindu Council, which is leading the movement for building the Ayodhya temple, put its agitation on hold in February.

Details of the meeting have not been published previously.

The VHP, which shares ideological ties with the BJP, would renew its demand only after the general election, its leaders said.

“While we remain committed to the cause that is so close to the hearts of Hindus, we’re unanimous in our view that it’s not the right time to amplify the temple issue,” said Alok Kumar, international working president of the VHP. “Politicization leads to controversies.”

HINDU-MUSLIM RIOTS

The VHP has distributed pamphlets and issued appeals on social media to participate in a chanting ceremony aimed at renewing the pledge to build the temple on the spot where many Hindus believe Ram was born, where the mosque stood.

Sanjay Mayukh, a BJP spokesman in New Delhi, declined comment on the April 6 event being organized by the VHP.

“We wish them (VHP) a success and we will celebrate the Hindu New Year too,” said Mayukh.

A militant Hindu mob tore down the mosque in 1992, sparking riots that killed about 2,000 people in one of the worst instances of sectarian violence in India since independence in 1947.

The mosque, built by a Muslim ruler in 1528, has been one of the prime causes of conflict between India’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims, who constitute 14 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people.

India’s Supreme Court is now in control of the site in Uttar Pradesh state and has been weighing petitions from both communities on what should be built there.

In March, the country’s top court appointed an arbitration panel to mediate in the dispute. It’s verdict is yet to come.

BJP election candidates confirmed they are avoiding the temple issue in their campaigns.

Former government minister and BJP lawmaker Sanjeev Baliyan, who is contesting the election from a constituency in Uttar Pradesh, said he has instructed supporters to “refrain from using the Ayodhya issue in any political rally.”

At least 65 people were killed in clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Baliyan’s constituency in 2013.

“The danger of any religious tension spilling out of our control would change the election mood. Best to keep religious issues away from politics for now,” he told Reuters.

Instead, Baliyan said, his campaign would focus on the BJP’s achievements during its last five years in power and national security issues.

Most pollsters expect the BJP to emerge to win the highest number of seats in the election after recent military exchanges between India and arch enemy Pakistan led to a wave of nationalist fervor that has helped Modi.

But the pollsters say the BJP is unlikely to repeat its sweeping victory of 2014 because of the government’s inability to provide jobs to the millions of youngsters coming into the job market each year and depressed rural incomes.

The BJP is also under fire from small business owners, traditional supporters of the party, who say they have suffered because of a rocky start to the Goods and Services Tax, India’s biggest tax reform, and Modi’s shock move to ban high-value banknotes in 2016.

The big question may be whether the BJP gets enough seats in the 544-member lower house of parliament to govern without having to form a coalition with other parties.

India begins voting on April 11 and the staggered election is scheduled to end on May 19. Results will be declared on May 23.

Ambuj Nigam, the leader of the Vishwa Hindu Dal, a Hindu hardline Hindu group that came into existence in 2018, said the demand for a temple would again gain momentum after the general election.

“We have put all our controversial works on hold,” said Nigam. “But as soon as election results are out, we will bring Hindu nationalism back to the forefront.”

(Additional reporting Zeba Siddiqui,; Editing by Martin Howell and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: OANN

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Venezuela national soccer coach offers to resign after meeting Guaido envoy

International Friendly - Argentina v Venezuela
Soccer Football - International Friendly - Argentina v Venezuela - Wanda Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain - March 22, 2019 Venezuela coach Rafael Dudamel REUTERS/Juan Medina

March 23, 2019

(Reuters) – The coach of Venezuela’s national soccer team said on Friday he had offered to resign after meeting with opposition leader Juan Guaido’s envoy to Spain, in the midst of a power struggle between Guaido and socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

After a 3-1 victory over Argentina in Spain, the coach, Rafael Dudamel, said he had spoken with officials from Venezuela’s soccer federation and “put my role up for review” following his meeting with Antonio Ecarri, designated by Guaido as his ambassador to Spain, before the game in Madrid.

Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, invoked Venezuela’s constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, arguing Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent. Most Western nations, including Spain, have recognized Guaido as the country’s rightful leader.

He has designated representatives to a number of countries that have disavowed Maduro’s government. Maduro calls Guaido a puppet of the United States, and says he is the victim of an attempted U.S.-led coup.

“We have been living through very complicated times, and we are very politicized,” Dudamel told reporters after the game. “We respectfully received the visit of the ambassador, Mr. Antonio Ecarri … just as we have [in the past] received the ambassador of President Maduro.”

Dudamel said he would remain as coach for now and planned to be on hand for the national team’s next game on Monday against Catalonia.

Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Guaido could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera, Deisy Buitrago and Luc Cohen in Caracas, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Source: OANN

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U.S. fund Elliott battles the odds in latest showdown with Hyundai

FILE PHOTO: Paul Singer, founder and president of Elliott Management Corporation, speaks at WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach
FILE PHOTO: Paul Singer, founder and president of Elliott Management Corporation, speaks at WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., October 25, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

March 20, 2019

By Hyunjoo Jin

SEOUL (Reuters) – The showdown between U.S. activist hedge fund Elliott Management and Hyundai Motor Group is set to come to a head on Friday when shareholders gather to vote on the fund’s demands for a hefty special dividend and a board shake-up.

Elliott’s challenge to South Korea’s second-biggest family-run conglomerate is the latest example of shareholder activism in Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, long dominated by powerful cliques that took minority investors for granted.

The activist fund founded by billionaire Paul Singer tasted success last year when it and other investors opposed Hyundai’s ownership restructuring plan on the basis that it would favor family members rather than minority shareholders.

While it looks likely to fail on most counts on Friday, even if it manages to gain a single seat at Hyundai it would be a major victory for shareholder empowerment in the country.

Elliott is trying to rally shareholder support for dividend payouts from Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Mobis for 2018 worth a combined 7 trillion won ($6.2 billion), saying the group should dispose of its excess capital.

That is more than six times higher than the $1 billion payouts proposed by the Hyundai affiliates, which say Elliott’s proposals would hamper future investments and acquisitions.

Elliott has also proposed five board nominees combined at Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Mobis to address “governance shortcomings”.

The campaign received a potentially fatal blow last week when South Korea’s National Pension Service, the second-biggest shareholder in the two firms, said Elliott’s demands were “excessive” and would cause “conflicts of interest”.

“I cannot help but think that Elliott is trying to make quick bucks and leave rather than enhancing long-term shareholder value,” said Kim Woo-chang, one of the members of the NPS panel which made the decision to vote against the proposals.

“Elliott’s strategy has failed. It was shortsighted,” Kim told Reuters.

The NPS holds stakes of 8.7 percent and 9.45 percent in Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Mobis, respectively. About 30 percent of the two firms are owned by Hyundai affiliates and family members. Resolutions require approval from a majority of the votes of shareholders present at the meetings.

As of November, Elliott held more than 2.5 percent of common stock in Hyundai Mobis, 3 percent in Hyundai Motor and 2.1 percent in affiliate Kia Motors.    

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

Questions about Hyundai Motor Group grew in 2014 when it paid $10 billion to buy land for a new headquarters in Seoul, three times the appraised value.

Some investors remain deeply troubled by that decision and want to see change at the conglomerate, even if they are not ready to support Elliott’s proposals.

“It is not that Elliott’s demand is nonsense. Hyundai has accumulated cash, and it has a poor track record of using cash,” said Park Yoo-kyung, a Hong Kong-based director of Dutch pension fund APG Asset Management, which holds shares in Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Mobis.

    “But we decided to give (the newly created board) the benefit of the doubt,” Park told Reuters.

Leading proxy advisor ISS has recommended investors vote for Elliott’s proposal to expand the board to 11 directors from nine at Hyundai Mobis to make room for director nominees from both the activist fund and management.

Seven out of nine funds which disclosed their proxy votes ahead of the meetings said they would back Elliott’s proposals for board changes at Hyundai Mobis, according to the website of Korea Corporate Governance Service.

The proponents include funds run by California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund.

For Hyundai Motor, five out of six funds said they would vote against Elliott’s three director nominees, who will compete with Hyundai’s nominees to win board seats.

Once this battle is over Hyundai still faces the bigger challenge of revamping the group’s ownership structure, a process which is attracting close scrutiny from Elliott, NPS and other investors.

Elliott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

($1 = 1,131.8200 won)

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Source: OANN

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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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