'Black sheep' - The mastermind of Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday bombs

Mohamed Zahran (face uncovered) is seen with a group of men purported to be the the Sri Lanka bomb attackers at an unknown location in this still image taken from video uploaded by the Islamic State's AMAQ news agency April 23, 2019 and received by Reuters via SITE Intel Group. The AMAQ via SITE INTEL GROUP/Handout/File via REUTERS TV

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.