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Trump releases budget seeking billions for border wall, work requirements for welfare programs

President Trump kicked off a new battle with Congress on Monday by releasing his fiscal 2020 budget plan seeking billions more in funding for a border wall and controversial work requirements for Americans collecting a variety of welfare benefits.

Both proposals are sure to face resistance from Democrats, especially coming off a partial shutdown triggered by a border wall dispute that only ended when Trump declared a national emergency over immigration -- a step being litigated in the courts and challenged in Congress. The requests are part of the president's $4.7 trillion budget plan.

Escalating Trump's pursuit of wall funding, the White House in the new budget requested an additional $8.6 billion to build the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border—seeking $5 billion from Congress, plus $3.6 billion from the military construction budget, for fiscal 2020.

TRUMP TO REQUEST $8.6 BILLION IN WALL FUNDING IN 'TOUGH' BUDGET REQUEST, SETTING UP CONGRESSIONAL SHOWDOWN

Meanwhile, the budget aims to implement new welfare requirements -- namely, that Americans 18-65 years old work at least 20 hours a week in a job, a job training program or a community service program to secure a range of benefits and aid.

According to the administration, the work requirement would apply to federal programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and federal housing, but would come with a hardship exemption. Last year, the administration opened the door for states to impose work requirements for Medicaid recipients. This part of the budget proposal would bring those work requirements to the federal level.

The budget, meanwhile, projects a $1.1 trillion deficit for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, but also calls for deep cuts to domestic programs.

“In the last two years, President Trump and his Administration have prioritized reining in reckless Washington spending. The Budget that we have presented to Congress and the American people…embodies fiscal responsibility and takes aim at Washington’s waste, fraud, and abuse,” Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russ Vought said in a statement.

“Our national debt nearly doubled under the previous Administration and now stands at more than $22 trillion,” he continued. “This Budget shows that we can return to fiscal sanity without halting our economic resurgence while continuing to invest in critical priorities.”

The budget also includes a national paid family leave proposal and seeks money to establish the Space Force, as a new branch of the military, while sharply curbing spending on domestic safety-net programs. The outline includes a total of $2.7 trillion in nondefense spending cuts and the administration says the proposal would put the federal government on track to balance the budget by 2034.

The White House’s request for billions of dollars in additional funding for a wall comes as senior Homeland Security officials told Fox News that the administration is preparing for an estimated 180,000 migrants traveling as families to cross the border—either illegally, or claiming asylum—marking a record in family units crossing.

“We want to strengthen legal immigration and welcome more individuals through a merit-based system that enhances our economic vitality and vibrancy of our diverse nation. We also will continue to uphold our humanitarian ideals,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last week during a House hearing. “But illegal immigration is simply spiraling out of control and threatening public safety and national security.”

NIELSEN DECLARES MIGRATION CRISIS 'SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL,' WARNS IT WILL GET 'EVEN WORSE'

The $8.6 billion would allow the administration to complete more than the promised 722 miles of wall along the border, according to White House officials. The funding comes on top of the billions Trump is working to shift from military accounts after declaring a national emergency last month. The emergency declaration came after Congress blocked Trump’s original request for $5.7 billion for construction of the wall. That denial sparked the longest partial shutdown of the federal government in U.S. history.

Democrats, though, continue to argue that an emergency at the border is “non-existent,” and promised to block the proposal to build the wall again.

“President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall, which he promised would be paid for by Mexico,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.

“Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson,” they said, adding that the funding would be better put to use toward domestic programs like “education and workforce development.”

The administration is expecting pushback on this “tough” budget, according to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.

“I would just say that the whole issue of the wall, of border security, is of paramount importance,” Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday. “We have a crisis down there. I think the president has made that case very effectively.”

Trump also proposed an additional $750 billion for defense, while cutting non-defense discretionary spending by 5 percent below the cap. The budget will also increase requests for some agencies, while reducing others to reflect those priorities. For example, the 2020 budget seeks to reduce funding for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Budgets are mainly seen as blueprints for the White House’s priorities and agenda, but are often debated and negotiated on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers craft the appropriation bills that eventually fund the government.

And while the budget will suggest it balances in future years, it is also expected to rely on projections for continued economic growth from the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017. But there's no guarantee that would cover the lost tax revenues.

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By proposing spending levels that don't raise the budget caps, the president is courting a debate with Congress. Lawmakers from both parties have routinely agreed to raise spending caps established by a previous deal years ago to fund the government.

Fox News’ Griff Jenkins, John Roberts, Chris Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.  

Source: Fox News Politics

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With shrouded faces, Islamic State fighters stand guard over final enclave

Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are pictured together near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are pictured together near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, in Syria March 9, 2019. Picture taken March 9, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

March 10, 2019

By Rodi Said

BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) – Armed with assault rifles and with faces wrapped in scarves, the Islamic State fighters visible at the boundary of their last enclave in eastern Syria are among the hardened jihadists who appear ready to fight to the death.

Thousands of people – many of them the wives of Islamic State fighters and their children – have been streaming out of the besieged enclave at Baghouz for weeks, forcing the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to delay an assault on the last vestige of the jihadists’ territorial rule.

Reuters TV footage of the Islamic State-controlled frontline shows armed militants, most with only their eyes visible, supervising the evacuations from a scrubby patch of agricultural land scattered with vehicles and a few buildings.

The SDF has said the fighters staying put through waves of evacuations are the most hardened foreign militants, wanted by governments around the world, who are likely to fight to the death.

On Saturday, a Reuters witness saw dozens of mostly men cross from Islamic State territory into SDF-controlled lines. The SDF said these were wounded Islamic State fighters.

A few women in full face-covering black robes and children carrying bags could be seen among the people milling at the frontline. A man on crutches was also visible.

A no-man’s land of about 200m separates SDF positions from the Islamic State frontline at Baghouz, a collection of hamlets and farmland near the border with Iraq.

Evacuees are screened by the SDF as they emerge and are sent north to the al-Hol camp, already overcrowded with uprooted Syrians and Iraqis from years of war and struggling to cope with the influx.

After suddenly seizing swathes of land straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2014 and declaring it their caliphate, Islamic State was beaten back by numerous local and foreign forces in both countries, suffering major defeats in 2017.

However, the jihadists remain a threat. In Iraq they have gone to ground, staging waves of killings and kidnappings. In Syria, their comrades hold out in remote desert areas and have carried out bombings in areas controlled by the SDF.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Baghouz, Syria; Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: OANN

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Newmont shareholders OK $10 billion Goldcorp takeover, creating biggest gold producer

FILE PHOTO: Visitors pass the Newmont Mining Corporation booth during the PDAC convention in Toronto
FILE PHOTO: Visitors pass the Newmont Mining Corporation booth during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo

April 11, 2019

By Nichola Saminather

TORONTO (Reuters) – Newmont Mining shareholders on Thursday approved the company’s $10 billion takeover of Goldcorp Inc which is set to create the world’s biggest gold producer with assets across the Americas, Africa and Australia.

About 98 percent of votes at a special meeting were in support of Newmont’s proposal to issue new stock to fund its takeover of Goldcorp, the Denver-based company said in a statement. Goldcorp’s investors voted to approve the acquisition last week.

The deal, the biggest takeover in the gold sector’s history according to Refinitiv data, faced some initial opposition from Newmont investors who said it overly favored Goldcorp shareholders. But they rallied behind the proposal on the promise of a special dividend.

The 88-cent-per-share special dividend will be paid on May 1 to those who hold Newmont shares as of April 17, according to the statement.

Newmont shares were 0.7 percent lower at $36.01 in morning trading in New York, in line with the benchmark S&P/TSX Global Gold Index. Goldcorp shares slipped 0.26 percent to C$15.41 in Toronto.

“We thank Newmont’s shareholders for their overwhelming support for this compelling value creation opportunity as we build the world’s leading gold company,” Newmont Chief Executive Gary Goldberg said in the statement.

The new company, to be called Newmont Goldcorp, will overtake current market leader Barrick Gold Corp in annual production, churning out 6 million to 7 million ounces of gold annually over the next 10 years, compared with Barrick’s forecast of 5.1 million to 5.6 million ounces for 2019.

Newmont Goldcorp expects to shed between $1 billion and $1.5 billion of assets to focus on its most promising operations. This, combined with mines Barrick plans to sell in the wake of its acquisition of Randgold Resources, is expected by analysts to fuel a flurry of deals in a sector that has been focused on cutting costs rather than pursuing growth for several years.

Newmont’s acquisition of Goldcorp had faced several hurdles, beginning with Barrick’s hostile takeover bid for Newmont in February, which required it to abandon its deal with Goldcorp.

That was resolved through the creation of a joint venture of Newmont and Barrick’s operations in Nevada, which was estimated to create $4.7 billion in synergies.

(Reporting By Nichola Saminather; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Source: OANN

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Officer accused of making hit list pleads not guilty

A Coast Guard officer accused of stockpiling guns and compiling a hit list of prominent Democrats and network TV journalists has pleaded not guilty to drug and firearms charges.

A lawyer for 49-year-old Christopher Paul Hasson entered the plea on his behalf Monday at an arraignment on charges of illegal possession of firearm silencers, possession of firearms by a drug addict and unlawful user, and possession of a controlled substance. Defense attorney Liz Oyer didn't ask for bond.

Federal prosecutors say Hasson is a self-described white nationalist and "domestic terrorist" who "intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country."

Hasson has been detained since his Feb. 15 arrest. Prosecutors say investigators found 15 firearms and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition at Hasson's Silver Spring apartment.

Source: Fox News National

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Prayers offered around the world for Notre Dame Cathedral

The world reacted with shock, horror and prayers to the massive fire Monday at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, united in grief and in solidarity with the people of France.

As the flames tore through the 12th-century cathedral, Spain's prime minister offered France the help of his country in the recovery.

The fire is a "catastrophe for France, for Spain and for Europe," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez tweeted, adding that the flames are destroying "850 years of history, architecture, painting and sculpture."

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters near the scene that he will seek international help, including from the "greatest talents" in the world, to rebuild Notre Dame.

U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking at the start of an appearance in Minnesota, spoke of the "terrible, terrible fire" that devastated "one of the great treasures of the world."

"It's a part of our growing up, it's a part of our culture, it's a part of our lives," Trump said of the landmark.

The Notre Dame Cathedral, situated on an island in the Seine River in the heart of Paris, is one of the world's most visited tourist destinations, drawing some 13 million people each year. The fire's emotional impact was widely felt. People from all over described in Facebook posts how they cried when they heard about the fire.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama posted an old photo of himself, his wife Michelle and their two daughters lighting candles in the cathedral.

"Notre Dame is one of the world's great treasures, and we're thinking of the people of France in your time of grief," Obama said on Twitter. Michelle Obama, who was in Paris on Monday on a book tour, said "my heart aches with the people of France."

"The majesty of Notre Dame - the history, artistry, and spirituality - took our breath away, lifting us to a higher understanding of who we are and who we can be," she tweeted. She predicted the cathedral would rise again.

The Vatican said Pope Francis "has seen with shock and sadness the news of the terrible fire."

As the flames spread, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, prayed at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan for intercession.

"God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze," Dolan said in a statement.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said many works of art and holy objects inside the church had been saved, but the art world was distressed about what might have been lost.

Barbara Drake Boehm, senior curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval Cloisters branch in New York, was desolate about damage to the cathedral, which she called "one of the great monuments to the best of civilization."

"Civilization is just so fragile," Boehm told a reporter in a trembling voice. "This great hulking monument of stone has been there since 1163. It's come through so many trials."

Jeff Ament, bass player for Pearl Jam, remembered spending hours at the cathedral in his first visit, in 1991, with record executive Michael Goldstone.

"Thinking about Paris," Ament tweeted, with photos of the cathedral.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted that he's "horrified," calling the cathedral "a unique example of world heritage."

In Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church's secretary for inter-Christian relations Hieromonk Stefan called the fire "a tragedy for the entire Christian world and for all who appreciate the cultural significance of this temple," the state news agency RIA-Novosti reported:

On Twitter, Trump suggested using planes to drop water on the flames. France's Civil Security agency said that wasn't feasible.

"All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral," the agency tweeted.

___

Associated Press reporters Jocelyn Noveck and Kiley Armstrong in New York, Jim Heintz in Moscow, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Samuel Petrequin in Paris contributed to this report.

___

Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky

Source: Fox News National

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“Allahu Akbar”: New Zealand Recognizes Muslim Call to Prayer as News Anchors Wear Hijabs

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IMF managing director says economy is at ‘delicate moment’

The head of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund said Tuesday the global economy is at a "delicate moment" with a hoped-for rebound in growth later this year being threatened by a variety of factors such as rising trade tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the IMF does not forecast a recession in its updated economic outlook to be released next week, but she called the current situation "precarious" and vulnerable to policy mistakes.

She said a hoped-for rebound later this year had been helped by the actions of central banks including the announcement of the Federal Reserve earlier this year that because of the economic slowdown, it was putting future interest rate hikes on hold.

"To be clear, we do not see a recession in the near term," Lagarde said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "In fact, we expect some pickup in growth in the second half of 2019 and into 2020."

The IMF next Tuesday will release an updated World Economic Outlook. In January, it had trimmed its forecast for global growth to around 3.5% for this year and next year, based on the headwinds caused by rising trade tensions, the uncertainty surrounding Britain's planned exit from the European Union and tighter financial conditions, including the Fed's four rate hikes last year.

Lagarde said that all of those factors had resulted in a dramatic reversal in prospects for many countries. Just two years ago, she said, 75% of the global economy was experiencing an upswing in growth. But this year, the IMF is forecasting that about 70% of the global economy will be experiencing a slowdown in growth.

Many private economists believe that the United States, the world's largest economy, will see growth slow from an annual gain of 2.9% in 2018 to just above 2% in 2019 as the stimulus from tax cuts and higher government spending begins to fade.

Lagarde said new IMF research shows that an increase in tariffs of 25 percentage points on all goods traded between the United States and China would reduce growth in the United States by up to 0.6% and trim growth in China by as much as 1.6%.

"Nobody wins a trade war," Lagarde said. "That is why we need to work together to reduce trade barriers and modernize the global trade system so that we all win."

Negotiators from the United States and China were scheduled to meet in Washington this week in an effort to resolve differences and avoid further penalty tariffs being imposed by both nations.

Lagarde's address was a preview of the issues expected to be addressed during the spring meetings of the IMF and its sister lending organization, the World Bank, taking place in Washington next week.

Source: Fox News National

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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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