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Dollar holds modest gains, Aussie finds footing after plunge

U.S. 100 dollar notes are seen at a bank in this picture illustration in Seoul
U.S. 100 dollar notes are seen at a bank in this picture illustration in Seoul September 20, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won/File Photo

February 22, 2019

By Shinichi Saoshiro

TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar held gains against its peers early on Friday, bolstered by a rise in U.S. yields, while the Aussie clawed back some of its recent plunge on upbeat central bank comments and easing concerns about China’s ban on Australian coal imports.

The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies was little changed at 96.582 after edging up about 0.15 percent overnight when long-term Treasury yields surged to a one-week high amid on news of progress in U.S.-China trade talks. [US/]

The rise by the greenback, however, had been limited after Thursday’s soft U.S. economic data, including an unexpected fall in core capital goods orders and weak existing home sales, which affirmed expectations that the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady.

“The currency market is entering a phase when it is becoming a little numb to political developments such as U.S.-China trade talks and Brexit,” said Takuya Kanda, general manager at Gaitame.Com Research.

“It’s back to fundamentals, particularly for the dollar, with each data release until next week’s non-farm payrolls report likely to slowly build directional cues.”

The euro was 0.05 percent higher at $1.1340 and on track to gain 0.4 percent on the week.

The dollar was effectively flat at 110.66 yen following modest overnight losses. It was headed for a gain of roughly 0.2 percent this week.

The Australian dollar was up 0.3 percent at $0.7109 after sliding more than 1 percent to a 10-day low the previous day on fears a ban on the country’s coal by a Chinese port would hurt Australia’s already slowing economy.

The Aussie’s bounce came after the government downplayed the ban on the country’s coal by a Chinese port, Rodrigo Catril, currency strategist at National Australia Bank said. In addition, upbeat remarks from the country’s central bank chief earlier in the day also boosted the currency.

The pound was steady at $1.3042 after inching lower overnight.

Sterling has swung wildly between a low of $1.2895 and a high of $1.3109 this week as British Prime Minister Theresa May tries to persuade European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker to modify her withdrawal deal and then get the tweaked agreement through the British parliament. [GBP/]

(Additional reporting by Swati Pandey in Sydney; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

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IMF team to visit Pakistan this month in final bailout push

The IMF logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington
FILE PHOTO: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

April 15, 2019

By Drazen Jorgic

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A mission team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will travel to Pakistan this month, the IMF said on Monday, amid growing expectation that talks on a long-delayed bailout are due to be wrapped up soon.

Pakistan was last year expected to sign up for its 13th IMF bailout program since the late 1980s but talks ground to a halt, with Pakistani officials saying the conditions attached to the proposed IMF loans could hurt economic growth.

Pakistan’s macroeconomic outlook has deteriorated in recent months, with the central bank lowering growth forecasts and raising rates at a time when inflation is at a five-year high. The rupee currency has also lost about 35 percent since December 2017.

“At the request of the authorities, an IMF mission will be going to Pakistan before the end of April to continue the discussions,” the IMF said in a statement.

Pakistani Finance Minister Asad Umar earlier this month visited Washington for talks with the IMF, which on Monday described those talks as “constructive discussions”.

The government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who took power in August, has obtained temporary relief from close allies such as China and Saudi Arabia with short-term loans worth more than $10 billion to buffer foreign currency reserves and ease pressures on the country’s current account.

But analysts have been saying an IMF bailout is inevitable, with Pakistan also facing an increasing fiscal crunch ahead of the annual budget spending review for the next financial year starting July 1.

“After today’s IMF statement, the expectation is that the bailout is pretty much there,” said Saad Hashemy, Chief Economist for Pakistani brokerage house Topline Securities.

But he added that there are questions regarding the time frame of when Pakistan would start receiving the money and the exact contours of the assistance program.

“There are questions if there will be any further devaluations, how much interest rates will be hiked, what taxation measures are expected of Pakistan, and will there be any further increase in electricity or gas prices?” Hashemy added.

Khan’s government is facing increasing anger from the population on the back of rising utility prices, many of which have been subsidized by successive cash-strapped governments.

Inflation was over 9.4 percent in March, its highest since November 2013, with strong increases in food and energy, the two most sensitive items for most consumers.

The central bank forecasts growth at 3.5 to 4 percent in the 12 months to end-June, well off a government target of 6.2 percent.

(Reporting by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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USC students who may be linked to college admissions scandal can't register for classes, get transcripts, school says

Students at the University of Southern California who may be linked to the massive college bribery scheme will be limited in what they do next while their cases are under review, school officials said Monday.

The school said in a statement posted to Twitter that holds have been placed on the accounts of students who may be associated with the alleged admissions scheme, meaning that they can't register for classes or obtain their transcripts pending review of their cases.

"Following the review, we will take the proper action related to their status, up to revoking admission or expulsion," the school said.

The school did not disclose the number of students potentially affected by the review.

LORI LOUGHLIN'S DAUGHTER, OLIVIA JADE, REPORTEDLY DIDN'T FILL OUT HER OWN COLLEGE APPLICATION

USC has previously said that it has determined which applications in the current admissions cycle for Fall 2019 are connected to the bribery scheme, and they will be denied admission.

The University of Southern California says a review of students possibly connected to a college admissions bribery scandal could lead to expulsions.

The University of Southern California says a review of students possibly connected to a college admissions bribery scandal could lead to expulsions. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

"A case-by-case review of current students who may be connected to the alleged scheme is also underway," the school said. "We will make informed decisions about those cases as the reviews are completed."

More than 30 parents have been charged in the scheme in which prosecutors said college admissions consultant William "Rick" Singer took roughly $25 million in bribes from dozens of individuals to assure their children's entry into top colleges by getting them recruited for sports they didn't play and by arranging for standardized tests to be rigged.

Before his arrest, Singer actively worked on coaching students about their college applications and worked with parents who were stressed about the admissions process.

LORI LOUGHLIN'S DAUGHTER OLIVIA JADE'S CLASSMATE 'NOT SURPRISED' BY COLLEGE CHEATING SCANDAL

More than half the parents charged were trying to bribe their children's way into USC, including actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, who allegedly paid $500,000 to have their two daughters labeled as crew team recruits. Loughlin and Giannulli were each arrested and released on a $1 million bond. They've been ordered to appear in federal court in Boston on March 29 for a preliminary hearing.

Loughlin's daughter, 19-year-old Olivia Jade Giannulli, could possibly face expulsion from the school. The USC freshman is a YouTube star who goes by "Olivia Jade" on the video sharing platform as well as Instagram and Twitter, where she boasts more than 1 million Instagram followers and nearly 200,000 Twitter followers.

A spokesperson for USC confirmed to Fox News last week that Loughlin and Giannulli’s other daughter, Isabella, 20, is currently enrolled at the university.

WILL LORI LOUGHLIN'S DAUGHTER OLIVIA JADE BE EXPELLED FROM USC?

Several other schools said they are still considering what to do about students who may be tainted by the scandal.

At Yale, the president declined to comment on specific cases but said it's a "longstanding policy to rescind the admission of students who falsified their Yale College applications." Stanford similarly noted that students could be "disenrolled" or have offers of admission rescinded.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Georgetown University said it was examining its records and "will be taking appropriate action," while Wake Forest University said a student mentioned in the indictment remains enrolled.

School officials there said they have no reason to believe the student was aware of the alleged crimes. The university said Tuesday it was redirecting $50,000 from a California foundation connected to the scheme to help first-generation college students.

The University of Southern California said in a statement it has placed holds on the accounts of those students, which prevents them from registering for classes or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review.

The University of Southern California said in a statement it has placed holds on the accounts of those students, which prevents them from registering for classes or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Federal prosecutors said last Tuesday that some students never knew about the bribes and fraudulent entrance exams that got them into some of the nation's top universities. But some students did and were even involved in submitting false information about athletic feats in their applications, according to officials.

"The parents, the other defendants, are clearly the prime movers of this fraud. It remains to be seen whether we charge any students," U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling in Boston said last week.

Fox News'  Madeline Farber, Jessica Sager, Katherine Lam, Jennifer Earl, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Figure skating: Chinese pair take crown, Russians second and third

ISU World Figure Skating Championships
ISU World Figure Skating Championships - Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan - March 21, 2019. China's Sui Wenjing and Han Cong in action during the Pairs Free Skating. REUTERS/Issei Kato

March 21, 2019

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – China’s Olympic silver medalists Sui Wenjing and Han Cong took the pairs skating crown at the World Championships on Thursday after a breathtaking free skate at the Saitama Super Arena.

Despite a season blighted by injury, the 2017 world champions skated a lyrical, moving program for a season’s best 155.60 (234.84 combined), drawing a packed crowd to its feet with their clean jumps and gorgeous lifts.

“This has been a difficult year for us, we’ve had injuries and other issues,” said Sui, who laughed as Han pumped his fists at the end of the routine.

“But our coaches and team gave us support that we were able to turn into strength.”

Russians filled out the rest of the podium with second place going to Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov after a regal but mistake-marred program that included the latter putting his hand to the ice in the wake of their Triple toe loop.

“In the free program it was tough and we had to fight for every single element,” Morozov said after their routine, which garnered a season’s best 147.26 for a total of 228.47.

“It was totally different to yesterday, we were struggling to get everything right.”

Third place went to Natalia Zabiiako and Alexander Enbert, whose dynamic program earned them 144.02 and a combined total of 217.98.

European champions Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres, favorites going into the worlds after an undefeated season, were only able to manage fifth.

Frenchwoman James collided with Italian skater Matteo Guarise during warm ups for the short program on Wednesday and fell after a botched landing in their routine.

“Worlds hasn’t been our best friend, I fell on the twist in the short program once and I fell on the triple Salchow before, but we know that each time we are getting stronger,” said Canadian-born James.

Cipres echoed her determination.

“I think we did our job today and we are never giving up. We won’t give up until we get the world title.”

The World Championships continue at the arena north of Tokyo until March 23, with the most-watched contest – the men’s singles – beginning later on Thursday.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by Nick Mulvenney)

Source: OANN

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Nigeria's opposition urges military to stay away from vote

Nigeria's top opposition candidate is urging the military not to be involved in the upcoming presidential election, saying the army "has no role to play in the conduct" of the poll.

Speaking on national television Tuesday, Atiku Abubakar criticized President Muhammadu Buhari's earlier remarks in which he ordered Nigeria's security forces to be "ruthless" with those found interfering with the voting process.

Nigeria's presidential election, initially scheduled for Feb. 16, was at the last minute postponed for a week to Feb. 23, raising political tensions. The electoral commission said it needed more time to organize a credible election.

Both the ruling party and the opposition have criticized the delay.

The race between Buhari and Abubakar appears to be tight.

Source: Fox News World

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NC school's slavery role-playing game prompts investigation

A slavery-themed game played at a North Carolina elementary school during Black History Month has prompted an investigation.

News outlets report the New Hanover County Board of Education released a statement Monday saying that using a game to teach about slavery was inappropriate. A fourth-grade teacher had students at Codington Elementary play a role-playing game called "Escaping Slavery," revolving around the Underground Railroad.

According to WECT-TV , the game included a "Freedom Punch Card" that would send teams that had accrued too many penalties "back to the plantation to work as a slave."

The statement says the board understands the lesson's purpose and teachers didn't intend to "downplay or trivialize slavery." Schools spokeswoman Valita Quattlebaum says no personnel have been penalized.

Nonetheless, the board has requested a report from the superintendent.

Source: Fox News National

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South Korea economy unexpectedly contracts in first quarter, worst since global financial crisis

A man walks in a park at a business district in Seoul
FILE PHOTO: A man walks in a park at a business district in Seoul, South Korea, March 23, 2016. Picture taken on March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 24, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s economy unexpectedly shrank in the first quarter, marking its worst performance since the global financial crisis, as government spending failed to keep up the previous quarter’s strong pace and as companies slashed investment.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter declined a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent from the previous quarter, the worst contraction since a 3.3 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2008 and sliding from 1 percent growth in Oct-Dec, the Bank of Korea said on Thursday.

None of the economists surveyed in a Reuters poll had expected growth to contract. The median forecast was for a rise of 0.3 percent.

From a year earlier, Asia’s fourth-largest economy grew 1.8 percent in the January-March quarter, compared with 2.5 percent growth in the poll and 3.1 percent in the final quarter of 2018.

Exports fell 2.6 percent quarter-on-quarter, a sharper drop than the 1.5 percent decline in the previous three months.

Capital investment tumbled 10.8 percent to a 21-year low, while construction investment inched down 0.1 percent, according to the central bank.

(Reporting by Joori Roh, Cynthia Kim; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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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