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Local TV journalist killed in eastern Afghanistan

Police say a local TV journalist was shot and killed in eastern Afghanistan, less than a week after a journalist in the southern Helmand province was wounded by a sticky bomb attached to his car.

Abdul Rahman, a police officer in the eastern Khost province, says Sultan Mahmoud Khirkhowa, a journalist with the local Zhman TV and radio, was killed Friday by two men on a motorcycle who opened fire on his vehicle.

No one immediately claimed responsibility. Both the Taliban and the Islamic State group are active in the area. IS has targeted journalists in the past and publicly threatened to kill them.

Last year 17 journalists and media workers were killed in Afghanistan.

Source: Fox News World

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Indian police detain 10 teens for playing ‘violent’ PUBG

Cosplayer with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds character helmet seen at Gamescom in Cologne
A cosplayer wears a self-made helmet of a character from the computer game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a survival-shooter game of South Korean game developer Bluehole Studio Inc., while testing Ubisoft Montreal's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany August 23, 2017. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

March 14, 2019

(Reuters) – Police in the western Indian state of Gujarat detained 10 teenagers for breaking a newly announced ban on playing videogame “PUBG,” the forerunner of global smash “Fortnite,” officials said on Thursday.

The ban was announced last week by local authorities to combat what they called the spread of “violent traits” in kids playing PUBG and “Momo challenge,” a so-called suicide game.

The detained teenagers were taken into custody but later released with a warning, said Manoj Agrawal, police commissioner of Rajkot city in Gujarat.

“Due to these games, the education of children and youth are being affected and it affects the behaviour, manners, speech and development of the youth and children,” an order by local police dated March 6, said.

Police in Gujarat have not banned Fortnite, a popular rival to PUBG developed by U.S.-based Epic Games.

PUBG, or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, made by South Korean firm Bluehole Inc, is a survival-themed battle game that drops dozens of online players on an island to try and eliminate each other.

Asked in a public debate in January about the negative effects of videogames on kids, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Was he playing PUBG? Like everything else, technology too comes with its positives and negatives”.

“As parents, we must guide our children to get the most from technology. We should encourage their curiosity to learn new things”.

Fortnite and PUBG, each backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent, are credited with helping take videogames to new audiences.

Bluehole and Epic Games did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka, Arjun Panchadar, Kanika Sikka and Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)

Source: OANN

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NFL to enforce ban on certain helmets, including Brady’s

FILE PHOTO: NFL: Super Bowl LIII-New England Patriots vs Los Angeles Rams
FILE PHOTO: Feb 3, 2019; Atlanta, GA, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) celebrates after a Patriots touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIII at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

April 12, 2019

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will be wearing a different helmet for the 2019 season, although it will have nothing to do with finding a new team.

Brady’s model of helmet was banned from the NFL because it did not meet necessary safety standards in laboratory testing, according to ESPN. In total, 32 players from 2018 were wearing a helmet that no longer met NFL standards, the league announced Friday.

Brady’s model was actually deemed inadequate before last season, but players using substandard models were given a one-year grace period to make a change.

The NFL and the NFL players Association announced 11 new helmets that were added to the approved equipment list. There were no additions to the banned list this time around.

Team equipment managers will be subject to discipline if they facilitate the use of a banned helmet, or know of a player using one, according to ESPN.

The NFL and the NFL Players Association have been putting helmets through new testing standards since 2015. The tests, conducted in Canada, include crash test dummies outfitted with helmets that are subjected to various impacts to record how much force is transferred.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Joy Reid: Mueller Report Conclusion ‘Feels Like The Seeds Of A Cover-Up’

Scott Morefield | Reporter

MSNBC host Joy Reid said the Mueller investigation conclusion “feels like the seeds of a cover-up” during a Saturday panel discussion on “AM Joy.”

WATCH:

Reid was responding to a panelist who contended that no Trump administration officials have “conducted themselves honorably through this entire process” and that Attorney General William Barr would be no different.

“That’s the challenge,” Reid responded before taking issue with the Mueller investigation taking place outside of Congress.

“The fact that this investigation takes place within the justice Department which Donald Trump essentially controls and that he got rid of the problem, Jeff Sessions, who the one decent thing that he did was just recuse himself, this guy is not recused, it feels like the seeds of a cover-up are here,” she said. (RELATED: Rachel Maddow Spends Opening Segment About Mueller Report On Verge Of Tears)

Malcolm Nance pushed back on the idea of an overt cover-up.

“Well, I mean, theoretically it could happen, right?” said Nance. “These are humans. They are all fallible maybe he does feel some sort of loyalty to him. Bill Barr is one guy. There are secretaries. There are people who have to handle these documents. There are the FBI agents who did this themselves. I don’t think that there’s room for a cover-up because why cover up the greatest scandal in the history of the United States with the greatest scandal in the history of the United States, an attorney general trying to engineer that. I don’t believe that’s going to happen because if they do, then you can just see copies of this thing falling out by the palate load in front of The Washington Post.”

Nevertheless, Nance still went on to compare President Trump to Benedict Arnold.

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Source: The Daily Caller

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Pioneering Russian cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky dies at age 84

Russia's space agency says pioneering Soviet-era cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, who made the first of his three flights to space in 1963, has died at age 84.

Roscosmos said Bykovsky died Wednesday, but it didn't state a cause of death.

Bykovsky was one of 20 Soviet military pilots in the first group picked to prepare for space. He first flew to space in June 1963 as a member of the Vostok-5 crew.

He underwent training for a moon mission before the United States won the race to the moon and the Soviet Union canceled its plans to go there.

Bykovsky made his second space flight in 1976 and his third in 1978. He spent nearly 21 days in orbit in all.

Source: Fox News World

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Democrat 2020 candidates 'scare' Donald Trump, have bold, progressive ideas: DNC official

The Democratic field of candidates have President Donald Trump running scared -- or at least that's what the director of communications for the Democratic National Committee believes.

“I think Donald Trump has a lot of thoughts about the Democratic Party because frankly, he’s scared about who he is going to potentially face,” Xochitl Hinojosa told “America’s Newsroom” Friday.

Hinojosa defended the ideas expressed by the Democratic Party’s candidates and accused the president of trying to instill “fear in the communities.”

“It’s okay to come forward with bold progressive ideas and have the voters decide who they want as the Democratic nominee,” Hinojosa told co-host Sandra Smith. “So, we’re going to see this process play out but we’re out there talking about the issues while Donald Trump is out there trying to instill fear in the communities.”

SEN. GILLIBRAND PROPOSES GIVING SOCIAL SECURITY TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

President Donald Trump talks with reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 22, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump talks with reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 22, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

She added: “There will be other issues we bring up during the primary and it’ll be up to other voters to decide whether or not they like those ideas.”

The DNC communications director said Democrats were focused on the issues of healthcare and the economy.

Hinojosa also downplayed presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s, D-N.Y., comments this week calling for the expansion of Social Security payments to potentially include people living in the country illegally.

“If you are in this country now, you must have the right to pay into Social Security, to pay your taxes, to pay into your local school system, and to have a pathway to citizenship. That must happen,” Gillibrand said.

FAR-LEFT MOVEON.ORG ASKS 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO SKIP PRO-ISRAEL AIPAC CONFERENCE

“We know that our immigration system is broken, I think Republicans can agree with us on that. But they believe our solution is a border wall and we believe it’s comprehensive immigration reform,” Hinojosa said.

Hinojosa also emphasized Democratic support of Israel even as many Democratic candidates declined invitations to attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual Policy (AIPAC) conference next week.

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“I don’t speak for each of those candidates but I will say as a whole, as the Democratic Party we will never waver in our support for Israel,” Hinojosa said.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Vivendi asks for further investigation into TIM auditor’s report

FILE PHOTO: Telecom Italia new logo is seen at the headquarter in Rozzano neighbourhood of Milan
FILE PHOTO: Telecom Italia new logo is seen at the headquarter in Rozzano neighbourhood of Milan, Italy, May 25, 2016. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini//File Photo

March 15, 2019

MILAN (Reuters) – France’s Vivendi, which is Telecom Italia (TIM) top shareholder, urged Italian market watchdog and TIM’s auditors to further investigate what it called governance issues at the Italian group.

The French media group and activist investor Elliott, which owns just under 10 pct of TIM, are at loggerheads over the Italian group’s governance and management.

Vivendi is seeking the removal of TIM Chairman Fulvio Conti and four other board members and cites the fact that TIM’s auditors said in a report they found irregularities in the way information was shared with the company’s board members in the run-up to the ousting of Chief Executive Amos Genish.

TIM’s board on Thursday rejected the report issued by the group’s auditors.

(Reporting by Francesca Landini, editing by Louise Heavens)

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].”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Mohamed Zahran, the suspected leader of the attacks which targeted six hotels and churches, killed himself in a suicide bombing at the Shangri-La hotel. Police also said they had arrested the second-in-command of the group, called National Towheed Jamaat. Catholic churches in Sri Lanka canceled all Sunday Masses until further notice over concerns that they remain a top target of Islamic State-linked extremists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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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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