[I listened to this on the scanner]
Suspect in weekend shootings pleads not guilty
UNION-TRIBUNE
6:36 p.m. November 21, 2007
SAN DIEGO – A 23-year-old man arrested for a weekend shooting that led to a police gunbattle on Interstate 805 pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder and conspiracy to commit robbery.
Prosecutors said Tri Vo drove the gunman to a 34th Street apartment in City Heights, where the gunman opened fire on the occupants, including his ex-wife.
Prosecutors said narcotics agents had been watching Vo, whom they suspected of gang involvement and drug and gun trafficking. The agents believed Vo was planning a robbery on Nov. 17.
Instead, Vo drove Cao Lam to a house where Lam picked up a gun and extra ammunition, and then to the apartment.
Prosecutors said Lam, 41, shot and killed Oeuth Saem, 47, who tried to keep Lam from the residence. Lam wounded five other people, including his ex-wife, who was shot in the chest. Acquaintances said that Saem was dating Lam’s ex-wife.
Lam shot and wounded a state drug agent while fleeing. As Lam ran across Interstate 805, police fatally shot him.
If convicted, Vo could be sent to prison for 31 years to life. San Diego Superior Court Judge David M. Szumowski ordered Vo held without bail.
– Dana Littlefield
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071121-1836-bn21trivo.html
[This does not say it, but you could hear it and the calls from the people on the freeway, as he ran down the middle island of the freeway, he kept firing shots at the police, and I would assume any of the passing cars............they had no choice to shoot him, at the point he was killed the call had already gone out that a Policeman had been shot............granny]
http://freedomfighterradio.net/
http://freedomfighterradio.net/
Freedom Fighter Radio show
For the Mexican Border fight.
The blog, it is too big for my computer, there was a page about a trial one of the owners beat, against the anti crowd, for attempting to rescue the young girls, being sold as whores in the mexican camps and I am not able to go back to it, should be on this link, is was dated August or September.
http://www.freedomfighterradioshow.blogspot.com/
http://www.americastruthforum.com/
Al Qaeda Mole Found at EPA?
WorldNetDaily
An alleged al-Qaeda operative infiltrated the Environmental Protection Agency, according to federal investigators and court documents obtained by WND. The case...involves Waheeda Tehseen, a Pakistani national who obtained a sensitive position with the EPA in Washington as a toxicologist even though she was not a US citizen. Like the Lebanese national suspected of passing secrets to Hezbollah, Tehseen lied about her citizenship on her government application, a falsehood that the government failed – in both cases – to catch in its security background investigation. In hiring Tehseen in 1998, the EPA also missed another red flag in her file – her husband’s ties to Pakistani intelligence, which has a long history of clandestine support for both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
http://www.americastruthforum.com/the_terrorism_update.htm
Al-Qaeda Plot to Kidnap India’s Gandhi Foiled
The Australian
A sensational plot by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists to kidnap Rahul Gandhi, scion of India’s leading political family, was disclosed last night as police said they had arrested three men trained at terror camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The men are said to be members of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, which has long been at the forefront of jihadist militancy in India and the disputed territory of Kashmir. The organization is closely allied to al-Qaeda. Indian newspapers said police had been tracking the men for six months and that when they were arrested on the weekend, they were found to have an arsenal of weapons, including grenades and AK-47 assault rifles and RDX explosives, as well as detonators. It was claimed the men also had a list of 42 jihadi terrorists being held in Indian prisons whose release they would demand in return for sparing the life of Mr. Gandhi - including Afzal Guru, who is on death row in New Delhi following his conviction for the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.
http://www.americastruthforum.com/the_terrorism_update.htm
Algeria ‘Kills Senior Member of Al-Qaeda’
The Daily Star (LE)/AFP
Algerian soldiers killed the man believed to be the treasurer of Al-Qaeda’s North African branch, security officials announced Friday, the second slaying of a senior member in just over a month. Abdel-Hamid Sadaoui, also known as Abou al-Haythem, was killed and another Islamist wounded during clashes with the Algerian Army Wednesday night in the restive northeastern Kabylia region, officials said. The army also seized two assault rifles, two handguns, 19 mobile telephones, a laptop computer and fake administrative documents. Sadaoui was a former leader of Algeria’s Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), said Algeria’s Arabic-language daily An-Nahar, which first reported his death. He was behind most of the group’s attacks in northern Kabylia between 2000 and 2006, said the paper. The GSPC has since pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and renamed itself the Al-Qaeda Movement in the Maghreb.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3258
Islamist Ex-Principal Of Khalil Gibran International Academy, Dhabah Almontaser Sues New York School District (video)
November 20, 2007
Islamist Ex-Principal Of Khalil Gibran International Academy, Dhabah Almontaser Sues New York School District
By William Mayer and Beila Rabinowitz
November 20, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a long anticipated move, Dhabah Almontaser has brought a federal lawsuit against the New York Department of Education, its chancellor Joel Klein and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, alleging a conspiracy “to deny her the opportunity to regain her position as principal” at the institution she founded, Brooklyn’s embattled madrassah, the Khalil Gibran International Academy [KGIA].
Setting the stage for the lawsuit, during the week of October 14, Almontaser engaged in the kind of shrill, factually incorrect histrionics that have become the norm among supporters of KGIA:
“Leading the attack was the Stop the Madrassa Coalition run by Daniel Pipes, who has made his career fostering hatred of Arabs and Muslims...The coalition conducted a smear campaign against me and the school that was ferocious. Members of the coalition stalked me wherever I went and verbally assaulted me with vicious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments. They suggested that, as an observant Muslim, I was disqualified from leading KGIA, even though the school is rigorously secular, and its namesake, Khalil Gibran, was a Lebanese Christian. To stir up anti-Arab prejudice they constantly referred to me by my Arabic name, a name that I do not use professionally. They even created and circulated a YouTube clip depicting me as a radical Islamist.”
Dr. Daniel Pipes does not run the Stop the Madrassa Coalition; and the group, actually an ad-hoc committee of concerned parents and citizens who became alarmed at the prospect of a thinly disguised, publicly funded madrassah operating under the guise of a public school, has sought counsel from dozens of experts on Middle East affairs and related issues.
There has been no need to employ “smear tactics” against Almontaser, whose actions and long history of questionable public pronouncements are in themselves indicative of her unsuitability to serve as a principal anywhere in public education.
For example:
Almontaser has been honored by CAIR, recently named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas funding prosecution.
“At a 2005 fundraiser for The Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] Almontaser received an award together with Ghazi Khankan [former director of NY CAIR]. [source http://www.cair-net.org/asp/printthis.asp?id=1541&page=NR]
During a political rally Khankan shouted to the crowd “I bring you salaams and greetings from the Mujahideen of CAIR!”
Perhaps Mr. Khankan’s record of pro-Islamist statements might provide enlightenment on that question: [PLN source, C.W. Post Caves To CAIR, Hit With Multi-Million Dollar Discrimination Lawsuit, [PLN source, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cwpost21207%2Ehtm]
“Khankan has declared that “’Jihad’ is known in the West as waging holy war, which is utter nonsense.” Yet, at an anti-war rally held in Washington, D.C., where a previous speaker “called for the overthrow of the U.S. government,” Khankan addressed the protesters by stating, “I bring you salaams and greetings from the Mujahadeen at CAIR.” In Yossef Bodansky’s book, BIN LADEN: THE MAN WHO DECLARED WAR ON AMERICA, Mujahadeen is defined as “Those who wage the jihad; Islam’s holy warriors.” At another anti-war rally, Khankan was a featured speaker along with Sami Al Arian...After 9/11 he told ABC News that the attacks were America’s own fault stating: “I believe that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Look what our government has done overseas to other countries.” [source http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12246]
Almontaser is a 9/11 denier:
The Yemeni born Almontaser wears a hijab - a conspicuous outward sign of devotion to Islam - and has spent years acting as a Muslim apologist in the public schools. She began doing this immediately after 9/11 because she believes that Muslims were the real casualties of those attacks and have since suffered inordinate discrimination and fear because of it.
Almontaser’s statements post 9/11 reflect a Muslim-centric viewpoint of victimhood and resentment which will be the sentiment that will be the operative ethic of the Khalil Gibran school.
Through her da’wa outreach work in the NY school system Almontaser has functioned as a 9/11 denier, having taken advantage of her created position as an authority figure to engage in a campaign of disinformation.
Speaking to a group of impressionable sixth grade children in Brooklyn’s PS 51 Almontaser stated, “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.” [source http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2002-06-10/584.asp]
The least one can expect from a professional educator is an approximation of truth and to allege that those who carried out and planned 9/11 were not Muslim Arabs is spectacularly untrue.”
[PLN source, Khalil Gibran School - A Jihad Grows in Brooklyn, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=jihadschool41207%2Ehtm]
Almontaser blames the United States for 9/11 and likens the political atmosphere in the U.S. to that of a Soviet gulag where a lawless FBI has invaded neighborhoods, using Arab speaking informants to facilitate the carting off of innocent Muslims.
Almontaser’s mindset is confrontational and preaches a cult of Arab/Muslim victimhood, all of which will be reflected in KGIA. She is also opposed to the use of Arab speaking informants to stop potential domestic terror plots before they happen, hence the Arabic speakers that KGIA might graduate will not be available, because of Almontaser’s philosophical predisposition - for legitimate national security operations.
Adding further to Almontaser’s leftist credentials is the above referenced, below excerpted interview published by the Norwegian branch of Amnesty International on October 10, 2002. Her statements in this interview are shockingly extreme, having more in common with the ideology of the 9/11 hijackers than not.
The complete interview may be viewed at [http://www.amnesty.no/web.nsf/ac1a1a01ea7194a3c1256a07004fad10/ffac5a3601aba908c1256c3d004ef7c5?OpenDocument].
“President Bush is trying to destroy the United States that I love and of which I am a result. He has abandoned our forefather’s ideals of a society of freedom; democracy and pluralism build by immigrants. He is a nightmare.”
“We are in favor of combating terror, but that cannot be done by violating fundamental human rights, says Debbie Almontaser (37). - After the terror attacks last year our government has put aside our civil rights and it is particularly Muslim, Arab-American and South Asian families that suffer under this.”
“I would love to see a peace-loving country as Norway calling the USA to the carpet, telling that enough is enough. I would like to see Norway taking the risk demanding that USA stops the killings, spreading suffering, emergency and fear in countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela and Sudan, she says. - I would like to see Norway show its guts in the Security Council and protest against unfair and racist policies. Stop the sanctions against Iraq; can’t you see that it is the civil population that suffers?”
“This is my South Asian neighborhood; Debbie says proud and continues in a more serious manner. - About 80 people were arrested here just after September 11 last year, no one knows why. And they still observe us, a little while ago the FBI infiltrated our community, people speaking Arabic were spying on us. That has lead to new detentions.”
“The harassment has decreased. - The tendency in New York is that people embrace their Muslim and Arab neighbors. However, the same cannot be said about the American government’s policy, that fuels up under prejudice and mistrust towards every person with origin in the Middle East or Southeast Asia, Debbie thinks.”
“Earlier you could be arrested for being black and driving a car, now it has become a crime to fly when you are brown. I believe a lot of Arab Americans have realized that we are in the same boat as the black Americans; we must learn from their experiences and struggle against racism. I have realized that our foreign policy is racist; in the “war against terror” people of color are the target.”
Why do you think terrorists attacked the USA?
“A year ago I could not answer such a question. To me it was just impossible to comprehend how someone could do such terrible, totally sick atrocities. Many said they were not surprised that terrorists attacked the US. That hurt me deeply. Today I believe that the terrorist attacks can have been triggered by the way the USA breaks its promises with countries across the world, especially in the Middle East and the fact that it has not been a fair mediator with its foreign policy. It is not true that the people in the Middle East and Southeast Asia hate our lifestyle, our freedom and our democracy. What disturbs them is that we in order to secure our own well being, deprive them of the possibility of achieving the same high living standard and freedom of choice that we have in the western world. Terror is the last resource of a desperate and oppressed people, but that does not mean that it is acceptable. People who do terrorist acts have lost the sense of right and wrong, each individual committing such acts should be punished with the maximum extent of the law. Only Allah is entitled to take lives.
[PLN source, The Dangerous Leftism Of Dhabah Almontaser, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=almontaser41907%2Ehtm]
Almontaser opposes use of Arabic speaking informants in domestic terror cases.
As head of KGIA Ms. Almontaser will oppose using the Arabic language skill acquired there to inform on and break up domestic terror plots and staff key national security institutions.
“a little while ago the FBI infiltrated our community, people speaking Arabic were spying on us. That has lead to new detentions.”
Ms. Almontaser decried the prosecution and conviction of domestic terrorist Shahawar Matin Siraj in a plot to bomb the 34th Street Subway station in New York, on the grounds of it reeking of “FBI tactics,” her code phrase for using Arabic speaking undercover agents. [PLN source, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=jihadschool41807%2Ehtm]";
The origin of video clip to which Ms. Almontaser refers had nothing to do with the Stop the Madrassa Coalition or Dr. Pipes; it was created expressly for PipeLineNews.org LLC, and, far from engaging in verbal assaults and “vicious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments,” it merely airs Almontaser’s controversial views on matters of public importance. If they are considered damning, then it’s hardly fair to blame the messenger.
We believe that Ms. Almontaser’s actions and statements attest to the fact that she is unqualified to serve in any capacity of leadership in New York’s public schools. If there was any remaining doubt, Almontaser’s most recent action, bringing this tainted federal lawsuit against her current employer, should remove it because it proves she is far more interested in serving as a part of the Islamist stealth jihad, than educating New York City’s children.
MIM: To see the Almontaser video go to Pipeline News:
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=almontaser11.20.07.htm
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3258
Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Almontaser Mounts First Amendment Case Against NY School District -link to complaint
Almontaser Mounts First Amendment Case Against NY School District -link to complaint
November 21, 2007
Almontaser Mounts First Amendment Case Against NY School District
November 21, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a wide reaching and at times rambling presentation - Debbie Almontaser v New York Department of Public Education, et al. attorneys for the ex-principal of Brooklyn’s controversial Khalil Gibran International Academy, Dhabah Almontaser, allege that their client was unlawfully fired by the New York Department of Education because she exercised “speech protected by the First Amendment.”
Additional allegations include that Ms. Almontaser was denied due process of law, suffered breach of contract and was subjected to emotional distress due to damage done to her reputation.
The filing presents a sanitized version of Almontaser’s long history as a practitioner of da’wa, characterizing her as ceaselessly working to promote understanding and religious diversity.
This case will obviously be followed with great interest by supporters of KGIA as well as its critics. What is clear at this early juncture is that Almontaser’s attorney’s strategy in filing this case in federal court indicates that they feel that their clients best case is represented in a constitutional challenge to her firing, given the expansive definition and broad application that federal courts have given to the First and Fourteenth Amendments. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=almontaser11.21.07.htm
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3237
Islamist groups use lawsuit in attempt to silence critic Joe Kaufman of Americans Against Hate
October 30, 2007
Joe Kaufman, the chairman of Americans Against Hate is being sued by several Saudi funded Muslim organisations who are attempting to deny him the right of free speech.One of the groups suing is the Muslim Legal Fund, whose head Khalid Meek is a board member of the Dallas/Ft.Worth chapter of CAIR Texas.Mahdi Bray Executive Director - MAS Freedom Foundation - Washington, DC is a MLF advisor. The Muslim groups attorney is Donalt Fulton who defended jihadi wannabe Syed Maaz Shah on firearms charges last year.Fulton referred to Shah (a student and president of the Muslim Student Association) as just being a “young kid”.
FBI agents testified and presented photographic evidence that Shah, a 19-year-old Pakistan native, was participating in combat and firearms training at a campground in Willis, Texas - just outside of Houston. Houston FBI agent John McKinley testified that the exercises were designed to “prepare participants in combat operations as they would apply to jihad (holy war) overseas.”
Shah’s Nov. 28 arrest in Waterview Park Apartments by Houston FBI agents on federal firearms charges came one day after the arrest of two Houston men that federal agents claim were associated with Shah. Kobie Williams, 33, and Adnan Mirza, 29, were arrested Nov. 28 in Houston on charges of conspiring to aid the Afghanistan-based Taliban.
“Mr. Shah spoke of the benefits of jihad and martyrdom,” McKinley said. “He provided a lecture he described as ‘pretty radical,’ and it dealt with jihad.”
McKinley said photos show Shah dressed in camouflage and holding an AR-15 rifle and Remington 870 shotgun. He was also photographed at the campground with Williams and Mirza. http://media.www.utdmercury.com/media/storage/paper691/news/2006/11/27/WebExclusive/Shah-To.Be.Jailed.Until.Federal.Weapons.Trial.Judge.Rules-2518327.shtml (complete article below)
MIM: The Muslim Legal Fund’s slogan ‘justice in motion” could be a reference to their constant pursuit of ways to shake down non Muslims with threats of lawsuits for discrimination and defend the the interests of terrorists. No wonder that Mahdi Bray, the head of the Muslim American Society (whose name reveals it’s Islamist agenda), announced that that MAS would be working with the MFLA and by extension the Islamic Circle of North America.
For more on the :”Muslim Legal Fund of America - Muslim Law For Allah - MAS /ICNA - ACLU & AI work to replace the Constitution with the Koran”.http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/701
Kaufman appeared in court yesterday in Texas where a restraining order against him was extended. Last month he held a protest against the ICNA sponsored Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Over Texas which was described by the local paper :
” Ten to 15 people held signs and stood outside the entrance to Six Flags Over Texas on Sunday afternoon to protest a family day organized by the North Texas Islamic community. A group of three to nine other people showed up, possibly to counter protest, but the two-hour protest was peaceful, police said.
Inside the park, hundreds of families celebrated with halal food and prayers during an event sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America and other area Muslim groups.
Some of the groups were granted a temporary restraining order Friday against the organizer of the protest, Joe Kaufman, chairman of Americans Against Hate. The order prohibited him from threatening, harming or inciting violence against anyone associated with the outing, according to court records.
Kaufman contends that the Islamic Circle supports terrorist organizations overseas. He gave a short speech in which he said the Islamic Circle of North America has ties to the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan and has donated thousands of dollars to Hamas...
Kaufman said he was served with the temporary restraining order shortly after the protest began, about 12:30 p.m...”http://www.star-telegram.com/arlington_news/story/268340.html
MIM: The lawsuit charges Kaufman with libel and the Islamist groups are seeking damages:
” Islamic organizations in North Texas are seeking libel damages in a lawsuit against Joe Kaufman, leader of the Florida-based Americans Against Hate.
Kaufman visited Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington on Oct. 14 to lead a protest against Muslim Family Day, an event celebrating the end of Ramadan, a period of holy days on the Islamic calendar marked by fasts and prayer.
The lawsuit, filed Oct. 12, asked a judge to prohibit Kaufman from threatening, harming or inciting violence against anyone associated with the outing, in addition to libel damages, according to court records.
Area Islamic organizations were granted the temporary restraining order against Kaufman. They have also asked a judge to make a determination of libel against Kaufman. The organizations charge that Kaufman’s Web site was used to paint all Muslims participating in Muslim Family Day as radical fanatics who used the event to spread anti-American hatred.http://www.star-telegram.com/arlington_news/story/282152.html
MIM: The Muslim Legal fund Board of directors and advisors includes Michael Linz of the ACLU.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND ADVISORS
Board of Directors:
Waseem Nasrallah
Khalil Meek
Ali Khan
Ghassan Hitto
Ziad Al-Ramahi
Advisors:
Michael Linz (ACLU Lawyer)
Sajeel Khaleel (Lawyer)
Hussien Abdelhadi (Lawyer)
Br. Mahdi Bray (Executive Director - MAS Freedom Foundation - Washington, DC)
Dr. Inayat Lalani
Sheikh Moujahed Bakhach (Imam of Tarrant County, Ft. Worth, Texas)
MIM: Articles about the case. Efforts were made to dismiss a city councilman who participated in the protest.
October 30, 2007
Fallout over protest of Muslim Family Day at Six Flags persists
Injunction sought after Six Flags event; debate rages on Carrollton pick
12:00 AM CDT on Monday, October 29, 2007
By STEPHANIE SANDOVAL / The Dallas Morning News
The shockwaves continue from a small protest this month against a Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington.
A court hearing is set for today on a request for a preliminary injunction against the Florida man who organized the protest. And appointment of another of the protesters to a Carrollton board has ruffled feathers in that city.
Khalil Meek, board president of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, said the Muslim groups support the protesters’ right to voice their opinions. What they object to, he said, is their allegation that the Muslim organizations, and therefore Six Flags, support terrorism.
The groups have filed a lawsuit accusing the protest organizer, Joe Kaufman, of defamation and slander and have obtained a temporary restraining order that prohibits him from harming, threatening or inciting violence against them.
Mr. Kaufman, president of Americans Against Hate, didn’t return e-mail messages seeking comment, and no phone number could be found for him.
The city of Carrollton controversy focuses on the appointment of Paul Kramer to the city’s Construction Advisory and Appeals Board.
Some City Council members said they were frustrated that Mayor Becky Miller, who opposed the appointment, allowed council member Herb Weidinger to engage in a “personal attack” on Mr. Kramer during the Oct. 16 council meeting.
They hope to build enough council support to have a discussion next month on the city’s governance policies.
“I was really disappointed in how certain council members handled that in the open-session meeting,” council member Terry Simons said. “I just didn’t feel like it was right.”
Mr. Weidinger declined to comment.
Ms. Miller said council members should be free to state their views and the reasons for their decisions.
“I think people have the right to express how they feel,” she said. “I really don’t think Mr. Weidinger was out of line.”
The Kramer appointment was just one on a long list that the council was considering Oct. 16.
Controversy arose because he had just been pictured in The Dallas Morning News as one of 10 people who protested the Muslim day at Six Flags two days earlier. Ms. Miller wanted Mr. Kramer removed from the appointee list, saying she would be embarrassed to have him represent the city.
Mr. Weidinger branded the protest “bigotry” and called Mr. Kramer a racist, council members said.
But a move to delete Mr. Kramer’s name from the appointee list failed on a 4-3 vote, and the council then voted unanimously to approve the entire list of appointees.
Mr. Kramer didn’t return phone calls seeking comment.
Ms. Miller declined to comment on the council’s vote or to elaborate on her reasons for opposing the Kramer appointment. She said the council had made its decision and the matter was over.
Ms. Miller and Mr. Kramer have been at odds before. In April, he publicly criticized her and council member Pat Malone for participating in Dallas’ annual gay pride parade and circulated a petition opposing city officials’ involvement in the parade.
Some council members said that while they may not agree with Mr. Kramer’s personal political views, he has a right to express them. And they said his nearly 30 years of construction and engineering experience are needed on the construction advisory board.
Ms. Miller has long advocated diversity within the city. Council member Tim Hayden said her opposition to Mr. Kramer’s views goes against that.
“The last thing we should be doing is having personal attacks against an individual,” he said. “We want to be tolerant and compassionate to each other.”
Mr. Meek, whose Muslim Legal Fund of America has offices in Plano and Richardson, praised Ms. Miller and other council members who questioned the appointment of someone involved in the Six Flags protest.
“I think as a public official that you have to use judgment,” Mr. Meek said. “Even if you’re allowed as a person to do whatever you want, you should keep in mind that as a public official, the things you do still represent your capacity of a leader.”
http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=4498
MAS Freedom Applauds Ft. Worth District Court Decision to Extend Restraining Order Against Kaufman
Date Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2007
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Texas Muslim Community Stands in Solidarity Filling Court Room for Monday’s Hearing
WASHINGTON, D.C. (MASNET) Oct. 30, 2007 – MAS Freedom (MASF), as the civic and human rights advocacy entity of the Muslim American Society (MAS) announces and celebrates with the entire Muslim community, Monday’s U.S. District Court decision to extend the temporary restraining order against Joe Kaufman pending additional consideration of the request for a temporary injunction.
The Muslim American Society’s Dallas chapter joined a coalition of Muslim Organizations and Islamic Centers earlier this month in filing a lawsuit effectively derailing an attempt by Joe Kaufman and his group, “American’s Against Hate”, to demonize the October 14, 2007 Islamic Center of North America (ICNA) sponsored Muslim Family Day at Six Flags, a Dallas-area amusement park.
Kaufman has referred to the event’s sponsors and co-sponsors as “radicals”, “extremists” and “jihadists’” (in the sense of that word as used in America to mean armed or violent people) - “which is, in fact, the antithesis of the title, in that it tries to foment hate and anger against law abiding United States citizens who practice their religion (Islam), freely as guaranteed by the United States Constitution,” the coalition’s slander and defamation lawsuit, filed in Tarrant County District Court prior to the event, states.
District Court Judge Bob McGrath executed an initial temporary restraining order against Kauffman on October 12, ordering that Kaufman be immediately restrained from threatening plaintiffs in person, by telephone, or in writing to take unlawful action against any person, intending by this action to annoy or alarm Plaintiffs; intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury to Plaintiffs or Plaintiffs’ associates or members; threatening Plaintiffs or Plaintiffs’ associates or members with imminent bodily injury; and/or inciting violence against Plaintiffs, their members or associates.
At Monday’s hearing, District Court Judge Ken Curry extended the October 12 temporary restraining order pending further consideration of the lawsuit’s request for a temporary injunction.
“We would like to commend the Dallas area Muslim community for filling Judge Curry’s court room on Monday in a demonstration of solidarity in seeing that justice is served,” stated MAS Freedom Executive Director, Mahdi Bray.
MAS Freedom will continue to keep the community updated as the case progresses.
Related:
Order Extended Against Muslim Day Protester
Muslim Organizations and Islamic Centers Derail Kaufman Attempt to Demonize Sunday’s Muslim Family Day at Six Flags
Rally Small But Well Recorded
Coalition Petition
Kaufman Restraining Order
MIM: Thomas Fulton, the lawyer who is prosecuting the case against Joe Kaufman defended Syed Maaz Shah on terrorism charges last year.
Shah
Shah
Shah to be jailed until federal weapons trial, judge rules
By: Iris Kuo
Posted: 11/27/06
Calling him “a danger to the community” for his alleged participation in combat and weapons training, a federal judge ruled today that electrical engineering sophomore Syed Maaz Shah will remain in jail until his trial on federal firearms charges.
FBI agents testified and presented photographic evidence that Shah, a 19-year-old Pakistan native, was participating in combat and firearms training at a campground in Willis, Texas - just outside of Houston. Houston FBI agent John McKinley testified that the exercises were designed to “prepare participants in combat operations as they would apply to jihad (holy war) overseas.”
Shah’s Nov. 28 arrest in Waterview Park Apartments by Houston FBI agents on federal firearms charges came one day after the arrest of two Houston men that federal agents claim were associated with Shah. Kobie Williams, 33, and Adnan Mirza, 29, were arrested Nov. 28 in Houston on charges of conspiring to aid the Afghanistan-based Taliban.
“Mr. Shah spoke of the benefits of jihad and martyrdom,” McKinley said. “He provided a lecture he described as ‘pretty radical,’ and it dealt with jihad.”
McKinley said photos show Shah dressed in camouflage and holding an AR-15 rifle and Remington 870 shotgun. He was also photographed at the campground with Williams and Mirza.
Williams pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to aid the Taliban and admitted giving $350 to the group and participating in firearms training.
Each of the charges carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
He is charged with possessing an Armalite, Inc. 223 caliber semiautomatic rifle on Jan. 13-15 and March 10-11. It is illegal for non-immigrant visa holders to possess firearms.
FBI agents recorded conversations of the men at the campsite in Willis, which McKinley said was owned by the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.
“The group had a discussion in which they considered themselves muhajadeen,” McKinley said. “(Shah) held up his passport to an individual member of a group and asked if he wanted to see a passport of a terrorist.”
McKinley said the passport bore stamps from London and the United Arab Emirates.
The men participated in patrolling exercises and combat preparation at the campground on those two occasions, one of which was during UTD’s spring break.
Shah is in the United States on a student visa that was revoked January 2006, Dallas FBI Agent Melinda Tilton testified. Tilton said Shah has received an academic scholarship since he began attending UTD in fall of 2005.
Cristen Casey, director of UTD International Student Services, said visas do not always have to remain valid for students to be in the United States legally. UTD is not officially notified by the State Department when a student’s visa expires or is revoked.
“Because that has no determination on their eligibility to stay in the U.S., there’s been no requirement for the school to take any action,” Casey said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Stokes said Shah would be moved to Houston, where the trial will take place at an undetermined date.
Dressed in an orange shirt and pants, with his feet shackled together, Shah listened quietly throughout the hearing, pausing sometimes to whisper to his lawyer.
“He’s an excellent kid, excellent student,” said his aunt Rubina Shah, who flew from New York to testify at the detention hearing. “He’s a good kid, a very good kid.”
She testified that Shah lived with her in New York for more than a month last summer, but stayed in Houston for some time as he was attempting to sell an apartment owned by his father.
Shah’s attorney, Donald Fulton, said Shah had not tried to commit any violent acts.
“The facts are that he has not been shown to be a violent person here,” Fulton told Magistrate Judge Jeff Kaplan in closing arguments for Shah to be released to his aunt.
Shah’s parents live in Nigeria, where his father works for an oil company.
Shah was born in Pakistan, but attended school in Houston and Virginia.
Fulton declined comment on the specifics of the case.
“He is a young kid,” Fulton said, adding that military training does not necessarily constitute criminal behavior.
“If everything I did in (military) training was weapons (violations), from BB guns and up, they’d have me behind bars today,” Fulton said. “But, it’s a different world we live in now.”
Shah also posted comments on blogs and the Muslim Student Association Web site’s forums that were supportive of insurgent activities in Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks, according to CBS 11 News.
Shah is the secretary of MSA and a Student Government senator. MSA shut down the forum Nov. 30. MSA President Ahmed Subhani said the reason for closing the forums was that people commenting “knew each other quite well, and some of it can be taken out of context.”
Rally small but well recorded
Arlington: Reporters outnumber protesters at Muslim day at Six Flags
12:00 AM CDT on Monday, October 15, 2007
By SCOTT FARWELL / The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON – Ten anti-terrorism protesters confronted thousands of cars streaming into Six Flags Over Texas on Sunday for a Muslim Family Day.
[Click image for a larger version] ELIZABETH M. CLAFFEY/DMN
ELIZABETH M. CLAFFEY/DMN
Muhammad Khan (left) tried to videotape Joe Kaufman (right), who led the protest Sunday at Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Over Texas. Paul Kramer blocks Mr. Khan with a protest sign, and Mr. Kaufman pulled out his own video recorder.
Demonstrators said the sponsor of the event – the Islamic Circle of North America – funds overseas terrorism. Local Muslims denied the accusation.
“There’s no evidence to support their claims,” said Mohammad Barney, president of the Dallas-area group. “I know that we Americans all have a right to protest, but I wish they would do their homework before spreading lies.”
Joe Kaufman, chairman of Florida-based Americans Against Hate, who wore a dark suit and a flag-patterned tie, said he was pleased by the media coverage. There were more reporters than protesters at the event.
“This is a success because the media came out and covered it,” said Mr. Kaufman. “That’s the way the public get educated about this organization’s ... ties to overseas terrorism.”
Mr. Kaufman says the Islamic Circle of North America was founded three decades ago as an American arm of the terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, and funnels money to Hamas.
Protesters walked back and forth near the entrance to the theme park holding signs that read, “Americans Against Hate.”
One young man leaned out the window of a gold-colored SUV, pumped his fist, and responded: “Long live Palestine. Long live Palestine.”
Brenda Jernigan of Duncanville said she isn’t positive the Muslim group holding Sunday’s event is tied to terrorism. But she’s positive her conservative Christian values are under attack.
“There’s a moment when you have to decide whether you’re going to do something, even if it’s just stand here and hold this sign,” she said. “It’s a statement that we’re just not going to let people come in and take over our country.”
Three Arlington police officers stood, arms crossed, and watched the protest. .
Sgt. Robert Vorpahl joked that many visitors to the theme park expressed a form of digital disgust with the protest. “I’ve seen quite a few hand signs,” he said.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3237
[has hidden urls in article on the site]
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3248
From Pakistan With Terror: How the Islamic Circle of North America is tied to the Bhutto attack
November 7, 2007
From Pakistan With Terror
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, November 07, 2007 The tragedy that occurred on 9/11 taught us that America is not insulated in safety from radicals positioned thousands of miles from our shores. So when violence in Pakistan erupts, as it did last month in the form of an assassination attempt on an ex-Pakistani Premier, or when the Pakistani government declares martial law, as has happened this week, possible implications on the United States must be delved into. This is especially the case given the fact that Pakistan has been used as a training ground for Al-Qaeda. One American organization in particular, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), has a number of ties to groups that are implicated in last month’s deadly attacks.
After the dual suicide bombings that shook Karachi, Pakistan on October 14, 2007, all eyes focused on those that were likely responsible. The attack – a targeted response on the return of former Pakistani Premier Benazir Bhutto – was preordained, as extremists voiced their violent opposition to a negotiated deal between Bhutto and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf only weeks before the incident.
On October 5th, both the Taliban and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, issued separate statements denouncing any deal between Musharraf and Bhutto as being a plot by the United States to destroy Islam in the region. As well, both groups summoned Pakistanis to take action, including violent jihad.
As reported in Pakistan’s Daily Times, Taliban Commander Baitullah Mehsud “threatened suicide attacks” against Bhutto, stating that his bombers were “waiting in the wings to ‘welcome’ her when she returns.” According to a confidant of Mehsud, he stated, “We don’t accept President General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto because they only protect the US interest and see things through its glasses.”
The same day, JI Secretary General Syed Munawar Hasan voiced his own contempt, saying that the deal was “brokered and patronized by the USA in order to block the way of Islamic forces in the region.” According to Hasan, “the USA has united its agents, dictators and oppressors of the present times on one platform to eliminate Islam and Jihad from Pakistan.” He warned that “the situation predicts that a fierce battle is about to begin between Islamic forces and those of evil,” and he called on those concerned to “play their due role” and “block the march of evil forces.”
Additionally, following the bombing, Mahmoud Al Hasan, a leader of JI’s militant wing Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen – a group that has taken credit for past terror attacks – issued the following statement to the Associated Press: “Benazir Bhutto was totally talking like an infidel. What should be the reaction of jihadis? They should definitely kill her. She is an enemy of Islam. She is an enemy of jihadis. She is an enemy of the country.”
The bombers, while unsuccessful in their mission of taking Bhutto’s life, left close to 140 persons dead and scores of others injured and maimed. The attack reverberated all over South Asia, but the incident has ramifications here in America, as well.
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is the American arm of JI. It was created as such in 1971, and never has it relinquished its ties. JI President Qazi Hussain Ahmad has previously represented ICNA, and even today, the national website of ICNA is registered to farrukh.net, a mirror site of the former official website of JI’s media division.
ICNA is currently listed as the top donor of JI’s charity in Pakistan, the Al-Khidmat Foundation (AKF), and as a “Mission Partner” to the AKF subsidiary, the Al-Khidmat Welfare Society (AKWS). In the midst of ICNA’s top donor status with the “charity,” AKF, in August of 2006, gave $99,000 to the head of Hamas Khaled Mashaal, who in turn thanked the group and said Hamas would continue to wage war against Israelis.
In addition, ICNA’s past Secretary General, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, has been accused of being a death squad leader for Al-Badr – the former designation of JI’s Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen – during the Bangledesh massacre of 1971. The bloodbath reportedly included up to 3,000,000 deceased Bangladeshis.
Furthermore, ICNA’s Southeast division, shortly before and shortly after 9/11, called upon its website viewers to give “material support” to groups associated with Al-Qaeda. Along with its call, ICNA-SE provided a link to Jihad in Chechnya (www.qoqaz.net), one of the main websites that was used for raising funds and recruiting fighters for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The site was produced by Azzam Publications, named for the mentor of Osama bin Laden and co-founder of Al-Qaeda, Abdullah Azzam. ICNA-SE also placed on its website links to the official sites for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban.
Lastly, a four-man ICNA-related group from the Houston and Dallas, Texas areas, tagged the “Houston Taliban,” was taken into custody last November, accused of taking part in terror training. Two of them, Kobie Diallo Williams and Adnan Babar Mirza, were charged with conspiring to join the Taliban to attack American soldiers abroad. The others, Shiraz Syed Qazi and Syed Maaz Shah were charged with unlawful possession of firearms. At the time of his arrest, Shah, a Pakistani, was serving as the Secretary of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), even though his student visa had expired.
None of the above, with regard to ICNA, diminishes the responsibility of the United States to look into the connections between the group and those suspected of the anti-Bhutto suicide attacks in Karachi. Indeed, the information only strengthens the case that these associations need to be properly and completely vetted. If we choose to ignore the ties, then like 9/11, we may see what goes on “over there” wind up at our doorstep once again.
Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate, the founder of CAIR Watch, and the spokesman for Terror-Free Oil Initiative.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=8D3D4C6A-12D7-444F-B104-5B7F40AB502E
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3248
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3252
US State Department delusional if it sees Bhutto and her Al Qaeda linked pro Taliban allies as the answer
November 15, 2007
.S. State Department Delusional If It Sees Bhutto As The Answer
By William Mayer and Beila Rabinowitz
November 14, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Why the U.S. diplomatic establishment views the re-injection of Benazir Bhutto into Pakistani politics as anything but alarming is hard to fathom.
In the current crisis, which finds Pak military strong-man/president Musharraf attempting to manage his country’s seemingly headlong rush towards Islamist madness, Bhutto’s presence is anything but helpful.
Fact - The Bhutto family is the poster child for Pakistani corruption, so it’s hardly surprising that Benazir Bhutto was in exile because of massive evidence of her participation in money laundering schemes [a charge which sent her husband Asif Ali Zardani to jail for 8 years] before the U.S. State Dept. started its campaign of ill-advised meddling, which resulted in her return.
Not only is Ms. Bhutto corrupt but she comes from a long line of corrupt “public servants,” notably her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who in addition to that failing and general thuggery, was executed in 1979 on charges that he participated in a conspiracy to murder a political rival. It must also be remembered that Mr. Bhutto is responsible for putting Pakistan on the nuclear map.
Despite this, in many ways Benazir Bhutto’s history is even more troubling.
She is the leader of Pakistan’s PPP party, a fact constantly referred to in media reports. However what is not so widely reported [if at all] is that PPP is a hard left political entity. Its motto is “Islam is our faith; democracy is our politics; socialism is our economy; all power to the people.”
One does not have to ponder long the Islamist conception of democracy, or the impediments that “power to the people” type leftism presents to the prospects of secular rule in Pakistan to understand that nothing about Ms. Bhutto augurs well as a possible solution for the country’s deepening instability.
Fact - Bhutto can’t escape her past support of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Her level of support was critical and complete, even to the extent of sending Pakistani troops, after having been elected prime minister in 1988, to aid the establishment of that bloody terrorist regime.
Thus it is comical to observe Bhutto’s calculated deceptions broadcast by CNN, “... I can tell you that if General Musharraf stays, al- Qaeda or Taliban people taking over the country will become a reality,” which in lapdog media fashion, CNN apparently saw fit not to challenge.
Bhutto’s goal in the current crisis is to depose Musharraf, despite his election in October 2007, sensing that manipulated world opinion might support her effort.
In this quest she has found allies in the worst of Pakistan’s Islamist rabble, including Pir Sabir Shah a power in the tribal areas who is directly in league with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who has decried U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan on the grounds that, “the Taliban are being killed...due to ruthless bombing by the allied forces,” [source http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/29/local22.htm]
Before his arrest on Tuesday, Imran Khan, the UK cricketeer turned politician, was slated to join Bhutto’s campaign, another sign of Bhutto’s Islamism. Khan is the head of the Pakistan Tehrek -e- Insaaf (PTI) party and supports the Taliban. Last year Khan met with the pro al-Qaeda Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal [MMA] and agreed to an alliance with the Jamaat e Islami.
According to a report in the Daily Times:
“The meeting was held at the initiative of Imran Khan, PTI chairman, and was attended by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, MMA president and amir Jamaat-e-Islami, and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the PML-N. Akbar S Babar, PTI central information secretary, was also present in the meeting.” [source, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk:80/default.asp?page=story_17-2-2005_pg7_26]
The MMA is led by Fazlur Rahman probably best known in the United States as having run the al-Qaeda camp where a California man Hamid Hayat received terror training for nearly a year, re-entering this country with the intent of carrying out jihad.
In September of this year Hamid was sentenced to serve 24 years in prison.
Hamid’s father, Umar [Umer] was also charged in the case and pled guilty to a lesser charge.
From a report by Huma Aamir Malik in the Arab News, “ISLAMABAD, 12 June 2005 - The arrest of two suspected Al-Qaeda agents in California raises new concerns about the existence of Al-Qaeda training camps inside Pakistan, according to a special report for the US and Pakistan. Citing an FBI affidavit, the report showed in a news channel accused opposition Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leader Fazlur Rehman of running an Al-Qaeda camp near Rawalpindi. It said that Rehman is a fundamentalist, and is known for his close ties to Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban regime.”
Below from a 2003 interview with Rehman conducted by Pakistan Newsline, in which he serves as a Taliban apologist while clearly indicating that the imposition of Sharia is his goal:
Q: Liberal forces feared that religious extremism would increase with Islamic parties coming to power in the Frontier province. Do you think this is happening?
A: If they cannot tolerate the Shariah Bill, which has been passed unanimously by all the elected members of the Frontier assembly, then the popular sentiment that America and other western countries are against Islam is right. The whole world should understand the realities and respect the mandate given to the MMA by the people of Pakistan. Actually, this is a campaign against Pakistan’s Islamic forces, to brand them as Taliban.
Q: People generally believe that the Islamic parties idealise the Taliban and they have recently adopted a Taliban-style system of governance.
A: The Taliban were misrepresented. Their system was an ideal Islamic system, but they were trying to implement it by force. Here, in Pakistan, we are trying to bring about an Islamic revolution in accordance with the wishes of the people who voted for us.” [source http://www.newsline.com.pk/newsJuly2003/cover3july2003.htm]
Make no mistake about it, no matter how flawed Pervez Musharraf’s governance has been, his actions including the dismissal of Supreme Court Chief Justice Chaudry, his declaration of martial law and program of detentions and house arrests [including those of Ms. Bhutto] are entirely appropriate and designed to prevent the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of al-Qaeda.
Unfortunately, at this juncture the United States has no realistic option aside from backing Musharraf to the hilt. It had therefore better adopt a realistic assessment of the threat posed by a nuclear Taliban while resisting the influence of the State Department dolts [whose policies dealing with the Muslim world are fundamentally in error] who believe against all available evidence that a “free” election in Pakistan would not quickly devolve into a radical Islamist takeover followed by a rogue government with its finger on the triggers of as many as 80 nuclear weapons. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=pak11.14.07%2Ehtm
MIM: Imran Khan planned to join the Bhutto campaign.
Imran Khan ‘will join Bhutto campaign’
From correspondents in Islamabad November 14, 2007 01:53am Article from: Reuters PAKISTANI cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan said today he would launch a joint opposition campaign with Benazir Bhutto if she agreed to boycott elections. Ms Bhutto, who was put under house arrest for a week yesterday to stop her leading a protest, phoned Mr Khan and other political leaders opposed to President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of a state of emergency. “I spoke to Benazir Bhutto today. She has talked about boycotting elections which is a welcome step,” Mr Khan told Geo television from an undisclosed location where he is in hiding after escaping house arrest. Mr Musharraf has promised elections by January 9 but opposition parties say they will be meaningless if held under emergency rule. “We should all boycott these fraudulent elections under emergency rule and on this point we can run a joint campaign,” Mr Khan said. “We should all agree that until courts are not restored to pre-emergency status, we should not take part in elections.” He added that there should be a “one-point agenda of opposition parties - remove Musharraf”. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22756336-38197,00.html
MIM: Imran Khan’s instigation of last years Koran flush rumor riots must have earned him his street creds by the Taliban supporting MMA. Khan’s new partnership of his party Tehrik-e- Insaf together with the pro Taliban MMA prove that his transformation from Westernised millionaire playboy crickeer to radical Islamist ‘fundi’ is now complete. His divorce from UK born billionaire’s daughter wife may have to do with the fact that Khan’s new cronies believe that women belong in burqas locked up at home, and his ex’s Jewish father was considered a political liability.
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1553
http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=84473
Imran assures support to MMA’s anti-Musharraf drive
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan and acting president Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, after agreeing on three basic points for the restoration of democracy, have said that they will cooperate mutually for the supremacy of constitution, restoration of real democracy and in the anti-uniform movement. Qazi and Imran met Tuesday at the residence of former. Qazi warmly welcomed Imran Khan at his residence and invited him to participate and address in the public gatherings of expected anti-uniform campaign, which Imran Khan accepted. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_17-2-2005_pg7_26
Thursday, February 17, 2005
PTI, MMA and PML-N for unity between opposition parties * No semblance of law and order in Pakistan, says Imran
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI), the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have called for unity between opposition parties for the restoration of democracy and the Constitution in the country. This was agreed in a meeting between the top leadership of the PTI, the MMA, and the PML-N in Islamabad on Wednesday morning. The meeting was held at the initiative of Imran Khan, PTI chairman, and was attended by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, MMA president and amir Jamaat-e-Islami, and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the PML-N. Akbar S Babar, PTI central information secretary, was also present in the meeting. The three leaders discussed the political situation in the country and decided to launch a decisive public movement against dictatorship and a fake political system in the country. The leaders said the present parliament had been made redundant as it had no powers to resolve people’s problems.
The leaders hoped the MMA and the Alliance for the Restoration for Democracy (ARD) would agree to launch a joint movement against Gen Pervez Musharraf’s rule. Reacting to the increasing acts of violence in various parts of the country including the murder at the Bari Imam shrine in Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, Imran Khan said the country was being led down a dark alley of uncertainty. Nobody was safe even in the federal capital, he said, adding that the insurgency was growing with daily acts of sabotage in Balochistan. Gilgit and Skardu had remained under curfew for extended periods of time. The Tribal Aareas continued to simmer with acts of violence, he said. Imran Khan thanked the PML-N and MMA leaders for their positive response to his efforts for forging unity between opposition parties.
Imran Khan is tied to the MMA and Fazlur Rahman.
For more on Imran Khan the MMA and the “Koran flush’ story see: http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/655 http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/614 http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/649 MIM: The Hayats who were arrested in Lodi are linked to Fazlur Rahman. FBI Says Top MMA Leader Runs Al-Qaeda Camp
Huma Aamir Malik, Arab News —
ISLAMABAD, 12 June 2005 — The arrest of two suspected Al-Qaeda agents in California raises new concerns about the existence of Al-Qaeda training camps inside Pakistan, according to a special report for the US and Pakistan. Citing an FBI affidavit, the report showed in a news channel accused opposition Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leader Fazlur Rehman of running an Al-Qaeda camp near Rawalpindi. It said that Rehman is a fundamentalist, and is known for his close ties to Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban regime. Authorities in the United States and in Pakistan are investigating whether the opposition leader is the same man identified by the Al-Qaeda suspects. According to an FBI affidavit, one of the suspects, Hamid Hayat, 22, admitted he had trained at an Al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan for six months in 2003 and 2004 where he others were trained on “how to kill Americans,” an FBI agent stated in an affidavit.
Hamid’s father, Umar, 47, who drives an ice cream truck, acknowledged paying for his son’s flight and giving him a $100 a month stipend knowing he was going to a “jihadi training camp,” according to the affidavit. Hamid was arrested upon returning to the United States from Pakistan late last month. Videotapes shown in the course of the report contain the only known images of Al-Qaeda training camps inside Pakistan. The tape shows fighters conducting a variety of exercises with automatic weapons, as they once did at similar camps in Afghanistan. The fighters are identified as coming from nine different countries in Africa and the Middle East. Earlier this year, President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan Army had attacked and shut down such remote Al-Qaeda sanctuaries. ‘They are now on the run in the mountains, in small groups,’ said the president. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri said in Washington on Friday his country had not been contacted by the US government regarding claims by the man with suspected Al-Qaeda ties that he was trained at an Al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan. “Our government has not been contacted,” Kasuri told reporters after meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for more than an hour. “And if we are contacted, it goes without saying that we will provide cooperation,” he added. Pakistan on Thursday denied that there were any Al-Qaeda training camps on its soil.
MIM: Bhutto is also seeking to form an alliance with Nawaz Sharif who is linked to Bin Laden.
Former Pakistani PM met Bin Laden discussed Jihad - says ex intelligence agent
March 22, 2006
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.277838622&par=0
PAKISTAN: FORMER PM NAWAZ SHARIF DID MEET BIN LADEN, SAYS EX-INTELLIGENCE AGENT
Karachi, 20 March (AKI) - (Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif did meet al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at least three times in order to get financial help, according to Khalid Khawaja, the former official with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Khawaja, once a close friend of Osama bin Laden, rejected the statements by a spokesperson for Sharif’s political party, denying that Sharif had sought political cooperation from bin Laden in the past.
“Nawaz Sharif met Osama Bin Laden on at least three occasions and was desperately seeking his financial assistance,” Khawaja told AKI in response to recent news reports regarding a possible meeting between the two.
In an interview with a national Urdu daily, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the leader of the largest Islamic party in Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and of the six party religious alliance MMA, said that Nawaz had repeatedly met Osama bin Laden who offered him money to buy the loyalties of parlimentarians in the late 1980s in order to topple the government of then prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Ahmad also said that bin Laden was a big supporter of Nawaz Sharif’s bid to be prime minister in 1990.
Soon after the publication of the interview, the information secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Siddiqul Farooq, denied any contact between Nawaz Sharif and Osama bin Laden.
“Osama is above all this politicking,” said Khawaja. “He is a great man and will remain great. Even if Nawaz Sharif’s party refuse to admit a contact between Osama and Nawaz, it will not change the facts which were witnessed by many people including Khayyam Qaisar (Nawaz Sharif’s personal staff officer) and myself,” Khalid Khawaja maintained.
Khalid Khawaja is a retired squadron leader of the Pakistan Air Force who was an official in Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, in the mid 1980s. After he wrote a critical letter to General Zia ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1977 till 1988, in which he labeled Zia as hypocrite, he was removed from the ISI and forced to retire from the airforce.
He then went straight to Afghanistan in 1987 and fought against the Soviets along side with Osama Bin Laden, developing a relationship of firm friendship and trust.
Khalid Khawaja’s name resurfaced when US reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted and subsequently killed. Pearl had come to Pakistan and met Khalid Khawaja in order to investigate the jihadi network of revered sufi, Syed Mubarak Ali Gailani.
“Actually the situation needs to be understood from very beginning as everybody has got the facts intermingled” Khawaja maintained.
“Soon after the plane crash of then President General Ziaul Haq in August 1988, I was fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The biggest challenge before us was to save Afghan Jihad as in the post-Zia period the victory of the secular Pakistan Peoples Party was like writing on the wall.”
“So initially a few Pakistanis, including myself, planned an alliance which would be dominated by Islamic parties and also include the moderate Pakistan Muslim League. We wanted clear domination of hardline religious parties so that moderate Muslim League would not deviate from the cause of Jihad,” Khawaja asserted.
“A businessman, Tanveer Sheikh, Dr Adil of Jamia Farooqia, Karachi and myself were the three person who initiated this task. Tanveer Sheikh provided the seed money and we established an office in a bungalow in an upmarket neighborhood of Karachi.
“At that time we had zero percent support from ISI. Though they knew of our plan and we both used to exchange notes as well” he said.
“We had meetings with all top religious figures ranging from Mufti Rafi Usmani to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and finally brought them together under the umbrella of Muttahida Ulema Council (United Islamic Scholars Council).”
“However, the irony of this situation was that when all there was a ground-swell for a broader Islamic alliance the ISI hijacked the whole plan and deviated partners into IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance).
Even then, Khawaja said, they did not give up and tried to outwit Benazir Bhutto . We met Altaf Hussain of MQM and he agreed to vote against Benazir Bhutto, then we tried to cut a deal between Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz was ready to give a big share to Fazl in power but Fazl insisted on premiership. As a result of these differences, Benazir Bhutto prevailed and with a very simple majority formed her government in 1989” Khawaja recalled.
“Now after Benazir Bhutto formed her government and the opposition parties moved for a vote of no-confidence, Osama Bin Laden comes in a picture,” Khawaja recalled.
“However, let it be clear that Osama is Mujahid. His aim was not to manipulate Pakistani politics. His whole life revolves around the cause of Jihad” he said.
“I still remember that Osama bin Laden provided me with funds, which I handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab [and later premier], to dislodge Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the “Sheikh”, which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia. “
The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself, Khayyam Qaiser is the witness for that meeting in which Khayyem, the personal staff officer tried to take a photograph but Osama’s friends there stopped him.
Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to “jihad in Kashmir”. Nawaz immediately said, “I love jihad.” Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. “Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much.” He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. “Your love for children is this much,” he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. “And your love for your parents is this much,” he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. “I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life.”
These sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif’s comprehension and he kept asking me. “Manya key nai manya?” [Agreed or not?] He was looking for a grant of 500 million rupee [US 8.4 million dollars at today’s rate]. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the [Saudi] royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged [as premier] by General Pervez Musharraf [in a coup in 1999]. Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia,”
“Now with these immortal accounts secured in my memory I see the denials published in newspapers, that Nawaz had nothing to do with Osama, and I think “how can people forget their mentors?”. Nawaz proudly said that he is friend of US president Bill Clinton and but denies his association with a revered holy figure like Osama Bin Laden,” Khalid Khawaja concluded
Syed Saleem Shahzad/Aki)
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1779
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3252
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3251
The Mullahs and the Islamic Circle of North America
November 15, 2007
The Mullahs and the Islamic Circle of North America
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, November 15, 2007
As war with Iran moves closer to reality, it behooves the U.S. government to keep an eye on those groups and individuals within our borders that could be seen as fifth columns. This is especially the case with regard to entities that have expressed support for the enemy government of Iran. One of those organizations is the Islamic Circle of North America or ICNA, a group with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami. Its present support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and its past (and present) support for the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini make the group worthy of investigation.
It is understood by many that the catalyst that drove the Islamist movement of the 1980s and beyond was the Iranian Revolution of 1979, where religious fundamentalists replaced the largely Westernized government of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. And while those in power were Shiites – a minority faction of Islam that many Sunni Muslims consider to be heretical – the takeover was widely embraced as a symbol of religious domination and the beginning of a return to Islam’s past, which Islamists had been praying for over 50 years. Indeed, the Sunni group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had used the Revolution as a basis for its founding.
Support for the Revolution was felt worldwide, including within the United States. Of course, any defense of the Iranian regime coming from America would be seen as nothing less than treasonous, especially after the hostage crisis that witnessed 52 Americans being held in captivity for nearly 450 days. One group based in the U.S., the Islamic Circle of North America, it seems, hasn’t worried too much about any negative labels ascribed to itself, as it has gone out of its way to laud the leaders of Iran, including the face behind the Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the country’s current President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In April of 1999, ICNA placed on its website a section entitled ‘GREAT MUSLIMS OF THE 20TH CENTURY.’ ICNA still has it up on one of its sites, under the title ‘Great Leaders of Last 100 Years.’ Featured within it are six individuals. One of the six is Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), otherwise known as the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan. Being that ICNA is the American arm of this organization, it would make sense that the group would honor him with a page on its site. Another of the individuals honored is Sayyid Qutb, an author and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who many consider to be the father of the modern-day Islamist movement.
A third honoree is Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the Grand Ayatollah (Supreme Leader) of the Islamic Republic of Iran. ICNA saved the most praise for him, as none of the other five tributes come anywhere close in length. The piece places Khomeini on a pedestal, stating, “The legacy of Imam Khomeini was considerable. He had bequeathed to Iran not only a political system enshrining the principles both of religious leadership and of an elected legislature and head of the executive branch, but also a whole new ethos and self-image, a dignified stance of independence... He was deeply imbued with the traditions and worldview of Shi’i Islam, but he viewed the revolution he had led and the republic he had founded as the nucleus for a worldwide awakening of all Muslims.”
As well, the tribute takes aim at the United States – which Khomeini, while he was alive, referred to as the “Great Satan” – and Israel (the “Little Satan”). It states that Khomeini “correctly regarded the United States as the principal instigator of the [Iran-Iraq] war...” and that Khomeini alerted those going on pilgrimage to the “dangers arising from American dominance of the Middle East, the tireless activity of Israel for subverting the Muslim world, and the subservience to America and Israel of numerous Middle Eastern governments.”
At the time of the Iranian Revolution, Iran’s current President, Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, was a student activist. Photographs taken during the hostage crisis suggest the possibility that he played a key role as one of the captors. Several former hostages have alleged the same. Today, of course, Ahmadenijad has been the subject of numerous controversies, calling the Holocaust “a myth” and sponsoring a cartoon contest about it, stating that “Israel must be wiped off the map,” announcing to the world that Iran has enriched uranium needed to make nuclear fuel, supplying sophisticated weaponry to insurgents in Iraq, and claiming that his nation is free of homosexuals.
The past and present (and possibly future) evils of Mahmoud Ahmadenijad are difficult to ignore – that is, unless you are an Islamist organization with an anti-American agenda. Just as ICNA did with Khomeini, the organization has disregarded the depravity of Ahmadenijad and has worked to prop him up as a source of pride and inspiration.
Young Muslims (YM) is the youth wing of ICNA. Apart from the jihad camps and conferences that the group is involved with, one of the ways YM gets out its message of hatred and violence is via its website. Featured on its site is an interactive forum, where leaders and members post messages to one another. Most of the material posted is tame and innocuous. However, a number of the postings have involved favorable statements concerning terrorist organizations and overt animosity towards the United States.
The individual that runs the YM forum goes by the name Salafisticated. Last year, in the midst of violent outbreaks between Hamas and Fatah, Salafisticated defended Hamas and attacked Fatah, stating that Fatah was a “secular party” that “can’t stand to see someone come into power that will establish Islam in the land...”
A couple months later, in August of 2006, Salafisticated began a new discussion, writing elatedly about how Ahmadinejad opened up a website to voice his own personal views, including his view that the United States’ war on terrorism is “illegal and immoral.” He exclaimed, “President Ahmadinejad starts own BLOG!” and provided a link to it. [Later, he would blame the Iranian Holocaust cartoons on the Jews.] Forum members responded to the post with their own pro-Ahmadinejad statements. Member Yassy wrote, “This guy is cool.” Big Umar wrote, “I’ve read that President Amadinejad is pretty well versed in literature and writing. He’s not a doping leader like some...”
But by far, the most laudatory of the statements came from Senior Member Iklas. He wrote, “I think that he is one of the few Muslim Leaders who’s actually ‘got some guts’ and is ready to speak his mind to anyone unlike some other corrupt, hypocrite leaders who enjoy hugging and kissing the enemies of Islam even as they insult all Muslims... P.S. He is a million times better than Anti-Islam Bush.”
As well, on a separate forum located on the website of ICNA’s Why Islam?, Senior Member Dow Buzz wrote, “I am inspired by the president of Iran. Standing up to the rest of the world, proclaiming the rights of Iran, in the face of those that are determined to make him submit. I like this guy, he challenges me.”
These kind words propagated by leaders and members of ICNA for two completely corrupt and degenerate people, as are Ayatollah Khomeini and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, cannot be overlooked. By glorifying them, ICNA has aligned itself with sworn enemies of the United States – enemies who have been responsible for loss of American lives.
When tens of thousands of Iranian violence-driven malcontents scream “Death to America” in chorus, we Americans have a right to know who here is screaming with them. And once we find out who, law enforcement and intelligence needs to investigate and take appropriate action, so that inappropriate action is not taken upon us.
“The Irani Government, Syria, and Lebanon are the only ones standing up to the Pharaohs of today, where are the rest of the so called ‘Muslim’ leaders. Those Muslim leaders need to be reminded that unjust colonialism ended more than a half-century ago, its time we took our future in our own hands, Inshallah!”
– Young Muslims Senior Member Iklas, September 3, 2006
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=1F61E755-9B4C-4057-91C7-3C612CAD5EAD
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3251
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3256
The Madrid Terrorism Trial Verdict - some critical comments
November 18, 2007
By Emerson Vermaat
On March 11, 2004, jihadist terrorists bombed four commuter trains in or near Madrid. Ten deadly bombs exploded almost simultaneously at seven-thirty nine, seven-forty one and seven-forty two in the morning. The death toll was 191, more than 1800 people were injured. The death toll would even have been higher if all the bombs would have gone off. But still, it was a devastating attack which was not carried out by suicide bombers but through devious remote control mechanisms using cellphones. Plastic explosives known as Goma 2 Eco had been used by the perpetrators. These explosives originated from a mine in Asturia, Northern Spain. Former miner José Emilio Suárez Trashorras had provided the explosives. The perpetrators were not terrorists from ETA – the notorious Basque terrorist group – but North African and Arab immigrants.
Eight perpetrators blew themselves up in their apartment in the Madrid suburb of Leganés on April 2, 2004 when special anti-terrorist police tried to enter the apartment. (Seven of them were later identified, among whom was a Tunisian man named Serhane Fakhet who probably masterminded the attacks.)
The trial against 28 other suspected perpetrators started three years later. The court in Madrid pronounced its verdict on October 31, 2007. There were seven acquittals.
Rabei Osman Sayed
Among those who were unexpectedly acquitted was Rabei Osman El Sayed Ahmed (Mohamed El Egiptio, or Mohammed The Egyptian). The court knew that Rabei Osman and those who died in Leganés as well as fourteen others “were members of a jihadist terrorist cell or group which seeks to overthrow the democratic state and eleminate the western Christian tradition by replacing them by an Islamic stated based on Islamic or Sharia law.” This was one of the proven facts (hechos probabos).[1]
Rabei Osman was arrested in Italy on June 8, 2004, after he told one of his friends that he was the mastermind behind the Madrid train bombings. His phone conversations had previously been tapped by the Italian anti-terrorist police DIGOS, his apartment in Milan was also bugged. In May 2004, DIGOS taped a highly interesting conversation between Rabei Osman and Yahia Mawad. He said that the attacks in Madrid had been his project, he also said that Serhane Fakhet and the others who died in Leganés were his friends. “The operation in Madrid,” he said, “had been prepared by me, do you understand?” “It was my project, the group, do you understand? All of them were my friends, our group, five of them have died (this refers to the seven or eight who committed suicide in Leganés, initially there was some confusion about the exact number of terrorists who died there), and God (Allah) has rewarded them, and eight are staying in prison now, but I am connected to them. But God did not want me to die for him, so I am not with them today, but I was in touch (with them) on day 4... and the project started on day 3, I knew about the project.” “ “I was the thread behind the operation.”
According to the Italian police translation, Osman also made reference to Al-Qaeda: “There is only one solution: join Al-Qaeda.”[2] These incriminating conversations were published in June 2004 in an Italian and a Spanish newspaper. The Spanish translation was based on the Italian DIGOS translation of the original conversation in Arabic.
In the Italian courtroom Rabei Osman and his lawyers flatly denied everything. It was not him, it was somebody else’s voice that was heard on the tapes. Nevertheless, Rabei Osman was convicted to ten years in November 2006. The Italian judges did take the Italian translation of the Arab conversations seriously and they also believed it was Rabei Osman himself who said these things.
Spanish prosecutors also indicted Rabei Osman. They regarded him as a leading figure involved in the preparations for the attacks and demanded a prison sentence of 38,962 years. The Italian police provided recorded wiretaps of Osman’s conversations.
Osman’s Spanish lawyer Endika Zulueta asked the Spanish court to investigate the Italian wiretaps. Four experts examined the taped conversations and suddenly reported that Osman said different things than the Italians claim he said. The Spanish experts assert that Osman really said this: “Yes... all of them are my friends, five of them achieved martyrdom, may they rest in peace, and eight are in prison now. But God did not want me to become a martyr and saved me from prison. I am not where they are in these days. But they were my people... But exactly... exactly what was going to happen, they did not tell me...”[3]
The report from the Spanish experts very much satisfied Osman’s Spanish lawyers because their client was now reported to have said that he was not informed about what exactly was going to happen. Nevertheless, even if the new Spanish text were to be correct, it is still highly incriminating. Rabei Osman did refer to the perpetrators of the Madrid attacks as his friends, and those who died he called martyrs. Spanish interpreters also claim that Osman never made any reference to Al-Qaeda.[4]
It is a matter of debate whether the Italian DIGOS translation was wrong or not. In previous Italian terrorism cases similar DIGOS translations proved to be completely correct and did result in convictions. (This happened, for example, after terrorists belonging to the so-called “Varese network” were arrested and subsequently tried.) Those who regularly follow terrorism trials know that there are often long discussions in courtrooms between lawyers, prosecutors, police investigators and various interpreters about words or sentences in transcripts translated from Moroccan-Berber or Arabic into German, Dutch or Spanish. Sometimes it is not easy to understand exactly what is being said. It often depends on how much distance there is between the person who speaks and the microphone hidden in the apartment. Defense lawyers, of course, have a vested intererest in discrediting transcripts and translations provided by the police or the security service.
About two weeks after the judges in Madrid acquitted Rabei Osman, the Italian Appeals Court convicted him to a prison sentence of 8 years. The Appeals verdict did not criticize the Italian DIGOS translations.
There is something else which makes it possible that Rabei Osman was directly involved in the preparations of the Madrid attacks. Prosecutors claim he paid several visits to Spain prior to the attacks. He was in Spain between December 2003 and February 2004. Prosecutors believe he was coordinating the preparations, but the court says there is no indication that he contacted any of the cell members who executed the attacks.
When they searched Rabei Osman’s apartment in Milan, Italian police investigators found an incriminating document named “11M Shaid”, or “March 11, Honey.” DIGOS believes “Honey” is a code name for explosives. But the Madrid Court said it is not known who wrote this document. It could very well have been written after the attacks in Madrid, the one who wrote “11 March Honey” could have been bragging about the event, the court ruled.[5] This is not what the Italian specialists from DIGOS believe, though. They think Rabei Osman has reason to hide incriminating information from the police and the prosecutors.
The court also shared the view of those who criticized the Italian translation which have Osman say: “I am the thread behind Madrid, it was my project,” etc. This is clearly based on an error, the court said.”[6]
The only thing which in the court’s view has really been proven is that Rabei Osman is an Islamist or jihadist terrorist. But there is no evidence that he knew about the attacks, ordered, coordinated or directed them. Therefore, he must be acquitted of the crime of terrorist murder.[7]
The court also refused to convict Rabei Osman on the charges of membership of a terrorist organization or gang. The court said the defendant could not be convicted for this crime in Spain because he had already been convicted in Italy for the same crime (non bis in idem). The court wrongly assumed that the November 6, 2006 conviction in Milan, Italy, on November 6, 2006, was final. But the case was still before the Italian Appeals Court when the sentence in Madrid was passed.[8] This was a serious mistake. This is also what the prosecutors believe and they quickly decided to appeal Osman’s acquittal. They pointed out that the crimes for which Osman was convicted in Italy are not quite identical to the crimes he is accused of in Spain. They are different activities although all these activities are linked to the international jihad, raising funds and sending militants to Iraq and Afghanistan with a view to carrying out suicide attacks. The prosecutors admitted, however, that it is difficult to provide conclusive evidence that Rabei Osman played an instigating role in the attacks or had prior knowledge that they would take place. But is is likely he had general knowledge about the attacks.[9]
Critics say the Madrid Court was too lenient towards a defendant they see a dangerous instigator, a man who simply and consistently denied he was involved in anything dangerous. But what was he doing in Spain during those three critical months prior to the attacks? The court just concluded that there was no proof that Osman contacted any of the March 11 planners. But he did call them his friends, he even referred to them as “my people.” The court failed to address this issue, neither did the court seriously investigate the Rabei Osman’s interesting background. The court only said there was no doubt that he was “an Islamist or jihadist terrorist.”
Rabei Osman has had a reputation of being a consistent liar for years. This is in line with his “Takfiri” background. Claiming to be “a stateless Palestinian,” Osman applied for political asylum in Germany in 1999. His application was not accepted but the Germans could not deport him to his country of origin since they did not know his nationality. He was then sent to the foreigner’s center in Lebach near the Belgian border. Soon he was known as “the Palestinian imam Mohammed Fayad” who issued diatribes against the Jews. The German security service got interested in his activities and began to monitor him.
In August 2001 he traveled to Spain where he contacted Serhane Fakhet, one of the eight March 11 terrorists who would later commit suicide in Leganés. It is believed that Osman closely cooperated with the March 11 planners in the months prior to attacks. Osman, who was a former explosives expert in the Egyptian army, had detailed and useful knowlegde about explosives. Osman also had interesting contacts in Holland and Belgium.[10]
Al-Qaeda
The March 11 attacks were unprecedented in Spanish history. Even the Basque ETA had never done anything like that. We are talking about very well prepared and coordinated nearly simultaneous attacks on four packed commuter trains during the morning rush hour. This is the kind of attacks Al Qaeda was known for: nearly simultaneous attacks on three to four targets. The perpetrators were anything but amateurs, they were professionally trained people who worked in secret. Neither the court nor the prosecutors seriously investigated possible Al-Qaeda links. This had to do with the increasingly fashionable view that Al-Qaeda was fragmented and weakened, no longer able at least, to conduct major operations in Europe or elsewhere. (One European author even referred to Al-Qaeda as a myth.) In this view, Al-Qaeda could not be responsible for the train bombings.[11]
Today we know that Al-Qaeda is very resilient still and anything but a myth. Intelligence services now issue repeated warnings about the resurgence of Al-Qaeda. They realize that Al-Qaeda is still able to strike in Europe, as the London 7/7 bombings show. Radicals linked to Al-Qaeda control parts of Pakistan (Waziristan, Swat Valley). There are Al-Qaeda training camps where young European jihadists are being trained and the Pakistani goverment is simply unable to deal with this huge security problem. Two of the London suicide bombers visited such camps.
It was Osama bin Laden himself who, in a message “to the peoples of Europe,” claimed responsibility for the Madrid attacks, linking them 9/11: “What happened on September 11 and March 11 are your goods returned to you... We have reacted in kind... our actions are but a reaction to yours.”[12]
Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the London based Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi also believes that Al-Qaeda was behind the Madrid train bombings. Al-Qaeda was in the habit of sending e-mails to this very newspaper, claiming responsibility for previous attacks. And on the morning of March 11, 2004, too, the London newspaper received what Atwan calls “a genuine Al-Qaeda communiqué.” That it was genuine, was, Atwan claims, clear from the rhetorical style and the way the information was framed. “Within half an hour of passing the e-mail on to the wires, our offices were raided by the British security services and police. They had a warrant to search the premises, and they took the hard drive of the computer which had received the Al-Qaeda e-mail.”[13] “Al Qaeda,” Atwan observes, “has effected more change on western societies than vice versa, provoking draconian legislation in Britain and the US and a change of government in the 2004 Spanish general election.”[14] Atwan also points out that statements from Al-Qaeda leaders have often been followed by an attack:
“On 6 October 2002, bin Laden urged his followers to strike at western economic interests; on the same day the French supertanker Limburg was ruptured by a suicide bomber in a small boat. Six days later, a nightclub on the Indonesian island of Bali was bombed, killing 200 young people. (The club was frequented by foreign tourists, especially from Australia, a US ally in the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.) In December 2003, Al-Zawahiri condemned Pakistani president Parvez Musharraf; shortly afterwards, the president miraculously escaped an assassination attempt. Prior to the Madrid bombings in 2004, both bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri released tapes in which they threatened to avenge the innocent victims of the war on Iraq.”[15]
Atwan is one of the few in the West who personally knows bin Laden. He interviewed him in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 1996. Bin Laden told him Al-Qaeda was behind the June 1996 bombing of the American base at Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia.[16] Atwan is familiar with bin Laden’s personality and mentality. Many of his observations on Al-Qaeda proved to be more correct than the hastily drawn conclusions from experts who claim Al-Qaeda is “just an idea” or a “myth.”
The Madrid verdict against the March 11 perpetrators mentions the documents, videos and a Toshiba computer which were found in the apartment in Leganés where 8 of the perpetrators blew themselves up. There were videos about Al-Qaeda training camps and a video from the terrorist organization “Ansar Al-Sunnah” (linked to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the former Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq), referring to an attack against members of the Spanish intelligence service CNI in Iraq in November 2003. (It is not unlikely Zarqawi ordered the Madrid train bombings, his network in Western Europe was huge.) There was a video about the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as well as a video from Abu Qatada – a firebrand cleric in London who is also linked to Al-Qaeda – about “The objectives of jihad.” An USB-stick was found which contained interesting documents from the Al-Qaeda website “Global Islamic Media.”[17]
This shows that those who died in Leganés were directly or indirectly involved in Al-Qaeda, at least they possessed a lot of information about Al-Qaeda.
Youssef Belhadj and Al-Qaeda
The verdict further says that Youssef Belhadj, one of the Moroccans on trial in Madrid, “is a member of an organization which belongs to Al-Qaeda.” “He justified acts of terrorism against the infidels and was involved in proselyting activities and fundraising for the international jihad.”[18] Belhadj kept this money in a drawer in an apartment in Molenbeek, an area of Brussels known as a refuge of radicals and jihadists.
Belhadj was in Spain between mid-February and March 3, 2004 where he stayed at the apartment of his sister Safia Belhadj and his brother-in-law Allal Moussaten. With their sons Mohammed and Ibrahim Al-Qaeda member Youssef Belhadj discussed topics related to the jihad and to acts of violence against the infidels and all those who do not agree with the ideas and concepts of radical Islam. Mohammed Moussaten, who was also on trial Madrid, stayed at his uncle’s apartment in Molenbeek-Brussels in December 2004. Yousssef told his nephew Mohammed that he was a member of Al-Qaeda and gave him access to restricted websites about the preparations for suicide attacks, beheadings and the jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq.[19]
Youssef Belhadj was arrested in Brussels in February 2005 and appeared before a Brussels court in August 2005 on suspicion of membership of a terrorist organization and identity papers fraud. He was later extradited to Spain to be tried as a suspect in the trial on the March 11 attacks. Spanish police investigations into his cellphone calls showed that Belhadj had been communicating about terrorist attacks in Spain five months before these attacks actually occurred.[20] Belgian investigators believe Belhadj is a prominent member of the “Moroccan Islamic Combattant Group” (GICM). This movement was created in 1997/98 in Afghanistan at Osama bin Laden’s personal instigation. The GICM primarily operates in Belgium, France and Spain.
GICM leader Hassan El Haski (”Abu Hamza”) was also on trial in Madrid and was sentenced to 15 years for playing a leading role in a terrorist gang (banda terrorista). (Prosecutors had demanded a sentence of 38,962 years.). Like his friend Belhadj, Hassan El Haski also lived Belgium. He stayed with his brother Lahousinne in the city of Maaseik. Lahousinne was sentenced to six years jail in February 2006 after a major trial against an important GICM terrorist cell operating in Belgium.
Another convicted member of that cell was Mourad Charabou. He was one of Rabei Osman’s Belgian contacts. Osman phoned Charabou on May 24, 2004, telling him that “Serhane (Fakhet), Fouad and all the brothers are dead, the whole group is with God.”[21] This refers to the terrorists who died in Leganés.
Belgian and Spanish investigators believe that Youssef Belhadj was the mysterious “Abu Dujan(a) Al-Afghani, the military spokesman of Al-Qaeda in Europe” who claimed responsibility for the Madrid 11 attacks in a video message found on March 13, 2004. (This is probably the reason why the prosecutors in the Madrid Trial demanded a prison sentence of 38,962 years.) The video message referred to “the blessed conquests of New York and Washington” (=9/11) and said that the attacks in Madrid “were a response to your collaboration with the criminals Bush and his allies. They are a response to the crimes you committed in the world and in Iraq and Afghanistan.” “You must know that we choose death as our way to life, but you prefer life as your way to death.”[22]
The Madrid court condemned Belhadj to a prison sentence of 12 years for membership of a terrorist gang. This was probably because other investigators believe that the masked man who claimed the attacks was not Belhadj but Jamal Ahmidan (El Chino), one of the key organizers who would die in Leganés three weeks later. In fact, there were three masked men who were wearing suicide bomb belts, the man in the middle could indeed have been Ahmidan.
For some reason the Madrid judges did not pay any attention to to this important claim made just two days after the attacks, nor did the verdict delve into the political motives of the perpetrators. Other claims were also completely ignored. This is a serious omission.[23] It is clear that the perpetrators were very angry about the presence of Spanish troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar, a conservative, British prime minister Tony Blair and US president George Bush met in the Azores shortly before the invasion of Iraq. By that time Al-Qaeda was fully operative in Iraq offering assistance to those who wanted to resist the invasion.
Jamal Ahmidan and Abdelilah El Fadoual El Akil
The verdict does mention, however, that Jamal Ahmidan and his friend Abdelilah El Fadoual El Akil paid a visit to Holland in the millennium year of 2000, and from there they contacted Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, “a top recruiter of jidadist terrorists.” (Bakarat Yarkas, a nationalized Syrian immigrant living in Madrid, was, in fact, the leader of a very active Al-Qaeda cell in Spain; he was also in touch with the 9/11 conspirators and made a mysterious phone call in August 2001 about people who were taking flying lessons.). Both Ahmidan and El Akil had made a jihadist trip to Chechnya in the previous year, it was probably in Chechnya that they were recruited by Al-Qaeda. El Akil lived in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. On March 1, 2004 he met Ahmidan in the latter’s small farm house in Chinchón. It was here that the bombs for the March 11 attacks were assembled. The Goma 2 Eco explosives had been transported by Ahmidan in a Volkswagen Golf on the previous day. Ahmidan now asked his friend Akil to drive the Volkswagen Golf to Ceuta which he on March 3, 2004.[24] The court sentenced El Akil to nine years. (The prosecution had demanded 12.) The court did not follow the prosecutors who saw him as a member of a terrorist organization or gang. He was, in the court’s view, only one of the collaborators (colaboración con banda terrorista). El Akil’s close ties to Jamal Ahmidan, however, were an indication that the prosecutors’ view was right.
Ahmidan was a notorious Moroccan drug dealer operating from mainland Spain and Ceuta. The explosives were financed by profits made from the drugs trade (The Taliban in Afghanistan do the same: they finance terrorism by selling drugs.) Ahmidan often used forged identity documents. In January 2004 he produced a passport in the name Youssef Ben Salan when he signed the papers for the rental agreement of the country house in Chinchón. Ahmidan also used a Moroccan passport belonging to Othman El Gnaoui, showing Ahmidan’s picture. Gnaoui was also on trial in Madrid: he got 32 years.
Emerson Vermaat is a Dutch investigative reporter specialized in crime and terrorism. His website is: emersonvermaat.com
A shorter version in Dutch, published in Reformatorisch Dagblad, the Netherlands, on November 5, 2007.
Kritiek op vonnis aanslagen Madrid 11 maart 2004
door drs. Emerson Vermaat
Op 31 oktober velde de rechtbank in Madrid vonnis tegen 28 verdachten die aangeklaagd waren op verdenking van betrokkenheid bij de aanslagen in Madrid. Bij die aanslagen op 11 maart 2004 kwamen 191 mensen om het leven en raakten 1800 personen gewond. De rechtbank sprak 7 verdachten vrij en verklaarde en dat de Baskische afscheidingsbeweging ETA geen enkele rol bij de aanslagen had gespeeld.
Er was na afloop veel kritiek op het vonnis. Want één van degenen die vrijgesproken werd, was Rabei Osman el Sayed die in Italië werd gearresteerd nadat de Italiaanse anti-terreurpolitie DIGOS telefoongesprekken had afgeluisterd waarin hij verklaarde het brein achter de aanslagen te zijn. Tijdens het proces werd betoogd dat de in het Italiaans vertaalde transcripties van die gesprekken niet juist waren. Maar tijdens terreurprocessen in Nederland komen advocaten van terreurverdachten steevast met precies dezelfde argumenten: de tolken van politie en AIVD hebben belastende gesprekken niet op de juiste wijze vertaald en dus zijn ze onbruikbaar voor het bewijs. In eerdere terreurzaken bleken de vertalingen van de DIGOS echter uiterst betrouwbaar en leidden inderdaad tot veroordelingen. In Spanje gaat het openbaar ministerie dan ook in hoger beroep want men ziet in Rabei Osman wel degelijk een van de hoofdverdachten: tegen hem was een zeer hoge straf geëist. Volgens de aanklagers bevond Rabei Osman zich tussen december 2003 en februari 2004 in Spanje waar hij de voorbereidingen voor de aanslagen coördineerde. Twee weken vóór de aanslagen vertrok hij weer. De rechtbank erkende wel dat Rabei Osman deel uitmaakt van een terroristisch netwerk, maar meende toch dat er onvoldoende bewijs voor een veroordeling was. Rabei Osman had overigens hoogst interessante contacten met terroristen in Nederland en België.
Er zijn meer vragen. Dat de ETA niet achter de aanslagen zat, is duidelijk. Maar wie dan wel? De aanslagen waren zó goed en zó grondig voorbereid dat evenzeer duidelijk is dat het niet om een groep amateurs ging. Ze deden sterk aan het patroon bij eerdere aanslagen van Al-Qaeda denken: meerdere aanslagen die vrijwel gelijktijdig plaatsvonden.
Verwijzend naar de aanslagen van 11 september 2001 en 11 maart 2004, verklaarde Osama bin Laden op 15 april 2004 in “een boodschap aan de volken van Europa”: “Wíj hebben u met gelijke munt terugbetaald, ónze acties zijn slechts een reactie op die van u.” Volgens Abdel Bari Atwan, een van de beste kenners van Al-Qaeda, zat Bin Ladens terreurnetwerk inderdaad achter de aanslagen in Madrid. Anderen ontkennen dit met grote stelligheid. De rechtbank erkende alleen dat Al-Qaeda “mogelijk een ideologisch referentiekader voor de daders vormde”. Overigens staat in het vonnis wél dat één van de verdachten, Youssef Belhadj, “lid was van een groepering die deel uitmaakte van Al-Qaeda”. Belhadj, die zich vaak in Brussel ophield, was lid van de Marokkaans-Islamitische Strijdgroep (GICM) en hield zich onder meer met fondswerving bezig. Hij kreeg 12 jaar, veel te weinig vinden de aanklagers. Uit afgeluisterde telefoongesprekken bleek dat Belhadj al vijf maanden vóór de aanslagen wist dat er iets zou gaan gebeuren.
Nederland
In het vonnis staat bovendien dat Jamal Ahmidan, de man die met zijn vele criminele contacten de explosieven voor de aanslagen regelde, in het jaar 2000 contact had opgenomen met de Spaanse Syriër Eddin Barakat Yarkas, “de hoogst verantwoordelijke in Europa voor het rekruteren van jihadistische terroristen”. Bakarat Yarkas was tevens leider van het Al-Qaeda netwerk in Spanje en werd daarvoor in 2005 veroordeeld. Ahmidan en zijn vriend Abdelilah el Fadoual el Akil bevonden zich in Nederland toen zij met Eddin Barakat Yarkas contact opnamen. Het is niet onwaarschijnlijk dat beiden ook nadien nog contacten met belangrijke personen uit het Al-Qaeda netwerk hebben onderhouden. De eerste contacten met Al-Qaeda waren mogelijk in 1999 gelegd toen Ahmidan en el Akil in Tsjetsjenië op jihad gingen. Ahmidan behoorde tot de groep van 7 hoofddaders die zichzelf in april 2004 in een flat in een buitenwijk van Madrid opbliezen en hij kon dus niet worden berecht. Maar zijn boezemvriend el Akil werd wel berecht en veroordeeld: hij kreeg 9 jaar.
De rechtbank legde tenslotte onvoldoende accent op het motief van de daders. Volgens aanklager Olga Sánchez en onderzoeksrechter Juan del Olmo waren de organisatoren achter de aanslagen woedend over de Amerikaanse inval in Irak en met name over de aanwezigheid van Spaanse troepen in Irak. Door middel van spectaculaire aanslagen die enkele dagen vóór de parlementsverkiezingen gepleegd werden, hoopten zij dat de conservatieve regering-Aznar het veld zou ruimen om plaats te maken voor een linkse regering die de Spaanse troepen uit Irak zou terugtrekken. Aznar en zijn Partido Popular waren zo onverstandig om de ETA de schuld van de aanslagen te geven, terwijl al snel duidelijk werd dat het om moslimextremisten ging. De kiezers kregen het gevoel dat de regering hen om politieke redenen had voorgelogen en liepen massaal over naar het sociaal-democratische kamp van José Luis Zapatero, die direct aankondigde de Spaanse troepen uit Irak te zullen terugtrekken. Dat was precies wat Al-Qaeda en de organisatoren
achter de aanslagen hadden beoogd.
[1] Audiencia Nacional. Sala de lo Penal, Sección Segunda. Summario número 20/04 del Juzgado Central de Instrucción núm. 66. Rollo de Sala núm. 5/05, Sentencia número 65/2007, Madrid, October 31, 2007, p. 172, 173. (Quoted hereafter as: Madrid Court March 11 Sentence).
[2] El País, June 9, 2004, p. 17 (”El atentado de Madrid ha sido un proyecto mío”).
[3] El País, November 4, 2007, Domingo: 11-M. La verdad, p. 7 (”El bulo de la autoría intelectual”).
[4] Madrid Court March 11 Sentence, op. cit., p. 635.
[5] Ibid., p. 632, 633.
[6] Ibid. p. 634, 635.
[7] Ibid.. p. 635, 636.
[8] El País, November 6, 2007, p. 1, 14 (”El Tribunal del 11-M absolvió a El Egiptio por un error”).
[9] El País, November 7, 2007, p. 14 (”La Fiscalía sólo recurrirá la absolución de El Egipto”); El Mundo, November 7, 2007, p. 1, 14 (”La Fiscalía se rinde y no recurrirá las absoluciones por planear el 11-M”).
[10] Emerson Vermaat, De dodelijke planning van Al-Qaida (Soesterberg: Aspekt Publishers, 2005), p. 140, 141.
[11] See for example Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda. The True Story of Radical Islam (London: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 8, 272: “There was no or little direction from bin Laden or even people close to him. If it grew out of anything, the Madrid bomb cell grew out of a series of overlapping, highly informal circles of militants in the Maghreb and southwest Europe.” Page 290: “All that exists is the idea of Al-Qaeda.” See also the interview with Jason Burke in NRC Handelsblad’s Monthly Magazine, September 2005, p. 10-14 (”Iedereen kan nu zijn Al-Qaeda beginnen”): “De terreurorganisatie heeft altijd zijn mythische trekjes gehad,” and: Rik Coolsaet, De mythe van Al-Qaeda. Terrorisme als symptoom van een zieke samenleving (Louvain: Van Halewyck, 2004).
[12] Bruce Lawrence (Ed.), Messages to the World. The Statements of Osama bin Laden (London/New York: Verso, 2005), p. 234.
[13] Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of Al-Qaida (London: Saqi Books, 2006), p. 121, 122.
[14] Ibid., p. 10.
[15] Ibid. p. 230, 231.
[16] Ibid., p. 36.
[17] Madrid Court March 11 Sentence, p. 211, 212.
[18] Ibid.. p. 215.
[19] Ibid.. p. 215, 216.
[20] Belgische Senaat, Zitting 2005-2006, Bulletin 3-58, August 18, 2005, Vragen en Antwoorden: Terrorisme – Terreurnetwerk GICM.
[21] Madrid Court March 11 Sentence, p. 220, 221; Nieuwsblad.be, February 16, 2006 (”Terreurverdachten uit Maaseik veroordeeld”); Nieuwsblad.be, April 4, 2006 (”Aanslag Madrid beraamd in België”).
[22] Casimiro García-Abadillo, 11-M. La Venganza (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2004), p. 114.
[23] El País, November 4, 2007, p. 15 (”El tribunal omitió el contenido de las reinvindicaciones”). “El tribunal del 11-M, que se ha destacado por su minuciosidad con los detalles, omitió mencionar en la sentencia los contenidos de todas las reivindicaciones de los atentados que realizaron los suicidas de Leganés y en las que vinculan la matanza a la presencia de tropas españolas en Irak y Afghanistan.”
[24] Madrid Court March 11 Sentence, p. 201, 202.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3256
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3257
University of Pennslyvania Hillel Conducts Interfaith Hoax With Radical Muslim Student Association
November 19, 2007
University Of Pennsylvania Hillel Conducts Interfaith Hoax With Radical Muslim Student Association
November 19, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - During the upcoming spring break, U of Penn’s Hillel, a Jewish student organization, is scheduled to participate in a field trip to New Orleans with the Islamist Muslim Students Association.
The trip is billed as an “interfaith community service trip...to foster understanding between the two communities.”
In fact Penn’s Muslim Student Association [MSA] often stokes hatred, reflected by the controversial speakers they have sponsored at campus events.
Last year the MSA hosted Yvonne Ridley. Ridley is a supporter of suicide bombing and sits on the board of the UK’s viciously anti-Semitic Respect party which is headed by the corrupt pro-Islamist MP George Galloway, who was intimately involved in Saddam Hussein’s, U.N. sponsored oil-for-food scandal.
In 1994 Galloway personally delivered the following speech to Saddam Hussein:
“Your Excellency, Mr. President. I greet you in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means which is [sic] aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. I greet you, too, in the name of the Palestinian people. I thought the President would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam. I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem.” [source, Christopher Hitchens, http://www.hitchensweb.com/OilForFood.pdf]
At a 2006 event Ridley stated that, “Respect is a Zionist-free party…if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out.”
Zionist in this context is of course a code word for Jew, used as an epithet by the left in the same manner as “neo-con.”
On November 4 of this year the MSA promoted an “Islamophia Seminar” on the U Penn campus which featured the national director of CAIR Parvez Ahmed. CAIR was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case.
CAIR was also a defendant in the 9/11 lawsuit brought by the family of FBI agent John O’Neill who was killed in the WTC bombings.
“[Count] 86. Council on American Islamic Relations and CAIR Canada (collectively, CAIR), have aided, abetted, and materially sponsored and al Qaeda and international terrorism. CAIR is an outgrowth of the Hamas front group the Islamic Association of Palestine. The FBI’s former associate director in charge of Investigative and Counter-Intelligence Operations described the Islamic Association of Palestine as an organization that has directly supported Hamas military goals and is a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants. It has produced videotapes that are very hate-filled, full of vehement propaganda. It is an organization that has supported direct confrontation.” http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/394
Since the Muslim Student Association is an integral part of the Saudi-funded Wahhabist power structure, this interfaith trip can’t be anything but a da’wa exercise by the group, a call to convert the Jewish students.
According to counter-terrorism expert Joe Kaufman:
“The Muslim Students Association (MSA) was founded by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Ikhw?n Al-Muslim?n, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in January of 1963. It was the first major project of the newly arrived Brotherhood immigrants, who numbered in the hundreds. Today, MSA chapters are found in most, if not all, of the leading universities throughout the United States and Canada.” [source http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=%7B482B28BF-86D4-440C-ADD7-49B07331DA2A%7D]
Because the MSA is such an important component in the Islamist’s stealth jihad, Hillel should have nothing to do with the organization, whether it be interfaith or any other activity.
Hillel can be contacted at 215-898-7391.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=msa11.19.07%2Ehtm
MIM: The Muslim Student Association message about the Spring Break Trip
In the Name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful -
Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullah
Spring Break Interfaith Trip to New Orleans – Deadline 11/19 Interested in participating in an interfaith community service trip? This spring, the MSA, in conjunction with Hillel, is organizing a joint-trip to New Orleans in order to foster understanding between the two communities as well as to collaborate in achieving a central tenet to both of our faiths: community service. To apply, return the attached application to Samir Malik ( samirmm@wharton.upenn.edu) by Monday, November 19th, at 9:00pm. Wa’salamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullah - MSA - http://www.upennmsa.org
MIM: Samir does da’wa as a “representative for Islam to all my non- Muslim friends”
The Board
The 2007 Board
Samir Malik
Samir Malik
President
Hometown: St. Louis
Major: Management & Neuroscience
Salaam all! So my story goes like this: Born in St. Louis and lived there my entire life. Islam was always a part of my life, but it was not front and center until 9/11. Whether I wanted the responsibilty or not, I was a representative for Islam to all my non-Muslim friends. Being such, I took it upon myself to really learn the religion and became very much involved with everything Islam.
Above everything else, I am here because I love the people.
http://www.upennmsa.org/about/the-board/
by Jonathan Dowd-Gailey
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2004
The northern Virginia-based Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) might easily be taken for a benign student religious group. It promotes itself as a benevolent, non-political entity devoted to the simple virtue of celebrating Islam and providing college students a healthy venue to develop their faith and engage in philanthropy. Along these lines, its constitution declares the MSA’s mission as serving “the best interest of Islam and Muslims in the United States and Canada so as to enable them to practice Islam as a complete way of life.”[1]
Today, over 150 MSA chapters exist on American college campuses (divided into five regional chapters), easily establishing this organization as the most extensive Muslim student organization in North America. A Washington, D.C.-based national office assists in the establishment of constituent chapters and oversees fundraising and conferences while steering a plethora of special committees and “Political Action Task Forces.”
Yet consider some of these recent activities of the MSA:
*
At a meeting in Queensborough Community College in New York in March 2003, a guest speaker named Faheed declared, “We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don’t lobby Congress or protest because we don’t recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it … Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah.”[2]
*
During an October 2000 anti-Israeli protest, former MSA president Ahmed Shama at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) stood before the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, shouting “Victory to Islam! Death to the Jews!” MSA West president Sohail Shakr declared at the same rally, “the biggest impediment to peace [in the Middle East] has been the existence of the Zionist entity in the middle of the Muslim world.”[3]
*
Prior to September 11, 2001, the MSA formally assisted three Islamic charities in fundraising: the Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief, and Benevolence Foundation. After that date, all three were accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of having serious links to terrorism and were ordered closed. The MSA issued a formal statement of protest: “How three of the nation’s largest Muslim charities could be made inoperable at the peak of the giving season of Ramadan seemed unbelievable.”[4]
This is only the tip of the iceberg. There is overwhelming evidence that the MSA, far from being a benign student society, is an overtly political organization seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses—a voice espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.
A Saudi Creation
On its website, the MSA describes its emergence as spontaneous and disavows any link to foreign governments.[5] In fact, the creation of the MSA resulted from Saudi-backed efforts to found Islamic bodies internationally in the 1960s. Alex Alexiev of the Center for Security Policy states,
The Saudis over the years set up a number of large front organizations, such as the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the Al Haramain Foundation, and a great number of Islamic “charities.” While invariably claiming that they were private, all of these groups were tightly controlled and financed by the Saudi government and the Wahhabi clergy.[6]
In the United States, two leading Saudi-backed organizations were the MSA and the Islamic Society of North America (the MSA’s adult counterpart), both of which received major funding, direction, and influence from Riyadh.
Personnel, money, and institutional linkages bound these organizations together from their inception, and all roads led eventually to Riyadh. Ahmad Totonji, an MSA co-founder, later served as vice-president for the notorious Saudi SAAR Foundation (a network of charities named after Saudi benefactor Sulayman ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ar-Rajhi), which closed down in 2001 after federal agents discovered links to terrorist groups.[7] Another MSA co-founder, Ahmad Sakr, served on a number of Saudi-affiliated organizations, such as the World Council of Mosques. The MSA is very much a result of Saudi “petro-Islam” diplomacy.
Current estimates suggest that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spends $4 billion annually on international aid, with two-thirds of that sum devoted to strictly Islamic development. Much of this largesse has ended up at Islamist organizations like MSA. Funded through private donations or through foundations and charities (only some of which the MSA officially reports),[8] MSA offers its Saudi benefactors a powerful tool. However, until the MSA’s tax records are made public (on January 14, 2004, the Senate Finance Committee publicized a list of Islamic organizations whose financial records are sought, including the MSA),[9] the exact extent of foreign funding for the organization cannot be known.
But even without the tax records, there is plenty of evidence for the MSA’s strident advocacy of the Saudi-style Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. In “Wahhabism: A Critical Essay,” Hamid Algar of the University of California-Berkeley writes,
Some Muslim student organizations have functioned at times as Saudi-supported channels for the propagation of Wahhabism abroad, especially in the United States … Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, no criticism of Saudi Arabia would be tolerated at the annual conventions of the MSA. The organization has, in fact, consistently advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaati Islam.[10]
The MSA has played a major role in spreading Wahhabism. “Its numerous local chapters,” Algar explains, “would make available at every Friday prayer large stacks of the [Mecca-based] World Muslim League’s publications, in both English and Arabic. Although the MSA progressively diversified its connections with Arab states, official approval of Wahhabism remained strong.”[11]
Stephen Schwartz goes further, stating in his June 2003 testimony to the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security,
Shia and other non-Wahhabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques out of a total ranging between an official estimate of 1,200 and an unofficial figure of 4-6,000 are under Wahhabi control … Wahhabi control over mosques means control of property, buildings, appointment of imams, training of imams, content of preaching including faxing of Friday sermons from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and of literature distributed in mosques and mosque bookstores, notices on bulletin boards, and organizational and charitable solicitation … The main organizations that have carried out this campaign are the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which originated in the Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).[12]
The MSA reflects a prime characteristic of militant Islamic groups: a refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of secular society and personal spirituality. The MSA’s Starters Guide contains an open call to Islamicize campus politics:
It should be the long-term goal of every MSA to Islamicize the politics of their respective university … the politicization of the MSA means to make the MSA more of a force on internal campus politics. The MSA needs to be a more “In-your-face” association.[13]
All of this, the guide explains, results from the MSA’s duty “to bring morality back into the campus” and to convince students to practice Islam “as a complete way of life.”
In the process, the MSA preaches a creed of “special treatment” and “self-segregation” that sounds reminiscent of, and may actually borrow from, Afro-centric campus politics of the 1990s. Demanding that universities be more “Muslim-friendly,” the MSA’s newly established National Religious Accommodations Task Force (RATF) directs local MSA chapters to insist that universities provide separate housing and meals for Muslims only.[14]
The politics of segregation practiced by the MSA have included blanket marginalization of its own female members. Shabana Mir, writing for the American Muslim, summarizes the plight of Muslim women on campus:
It is particularly important to know what is happening with Muslim women pursuing higher education. Many Muslim women in MSAs are working toward the justice and the equality that Islam ordains for humankind. A survey of sisters’ participation in MSAs conducted in 1994 shows that women’s activism in MSAs is at an abysmally low level due in large part to “brother domination.” A related problem is “there is a common attitude that strict segregation should exist between the genders and that sisters should not appear in public!” On an MSA mailing list, a popular article gives a long list of conditions that women must fulfill to gain access to the mosque. These include obtaining permission from her male guardian, wearing hijab [veil], not wearing “fancy clothes” or perfume, not mixing with men, leaving immediately after the prayer, and so on![15]
Political Monopoly
Just as the MSA promotes a single theology, it similarly projects a monolithic political voice, one openly antagonistic to Muslim American diversity and in complete opposition to existing U.S. foreign policy. Although Muslim students in the United States exhibit the full range of political views found in America today, the MSA invariably adopts lopsided adversarial positions, as in these three cases:
Patriot Act: The MSA categorically opposes this legislation, describing it as “infamous.” Chapters across the country have agitated against it, as well as against virtually every other security initiative since 9/11. At an MSA rally at the University of Pennsylvania, the co-chair of Muslims for Justice declared, “the Patriot Act is sending us in a backwards spiral, where the destination is chaos.”[16]
Afghanistan: The MSA opposed the military intervention against the Taliban regime, instead calling for a “police investigation.” MSA National further advised that the entire matter would be best addressed at the International Criminal Tribunal. MSA chapters organized rallies demanding a ceasefire and held “Solidarity Fasts” to honor Afghans who, the MSA charged, would face massive starvation as a result of the war.
Iraq: Even before the crisis of 2003, the MSA opposed every U.S. policy towards Iraq over the last twelve years. It strongly opposed the United Nations (U.N.)-authorized sanctions, claiming that the sanctions were “nothing short of a systematic genocide being carried out against civilian people.”[17] The MSA condemned former president Clinton’s 1998 strike against Iraq following Saddam Hussein’s ouster of U.N. weapons inspectors, declaring that its “brothers and sisters in Iraq are once again being terrorized by the self-appointed champions of democracy.”[18]
MSA National consistently pledges support for the war on terror and claims to merely “represent” student views. But it maintains control of the political agenda, leaving the chapters simply to mobilize support. Its chapters pointedly ignored the New York Shi‘ites who held vigils for their Iraqi brethren and the Michigan Kurds who rallied for Hussein’s ouster. The MSA’s decision to mobilize against the Bush administration took place without public debate and with no attempt at representing diverse views within the MSA. This approach is in keeping with the MSA’s goal, as its official literature states, that the student body “be convinced that there is such a thing as a Muslim-bloc.”[19]
Muslim students who refuse to submit to the MSA’s position often find themselves harassed by their MSA peers. Oubai Shahbandar, an Arizona State University (ASU) student, expressed support for the Iraqi invasion and suffered condemnation from MSA members. Shahbandar states,
When I, a proud American of Arab descent and Muslim faith, took a stand on behalf of the liberation of my oppressed Iraqi brethren, the ASU Muslim Students’ Association personally attacked me for not being a real Muslim and announced to the ASU student body in editorials in the student paper that I, Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar, was a hater of Arabs and Muslims.
Shahbandar also explains what the MSA preaches on his campus:
We are told America’s foreign policy is based on racist neo-imperialism; we are taught that national security is a foul epithet to be reviled; we are told the Jews and Israel are to blame for the hatred against us.[20]
Playing the Victim
The MSA’s adoption of the politics of victimization is reminiscent of wider campus trends of the 1990s. In the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the MSA stated,
In light of the Bush administration’s casting blame for the attack on Osama Bin Laden, MSA National recognizes that Muslim students on college campuses will be subject to backlash.
Ominously, an “awareness” document describes post 9/11 Homeland Security policies in the same terms as do extremist Muslims abroad—that is, as an assault explicitly against Islam. America: Post 9/11, an MSA document, states,
Soon after [9/11], the attacks against our religion began at the hands of the media and the political establishment.[21]
Not surprisingly, the MSA has expressed resistance, outrage, and cynicism with virtually every high-profile arrest of Muslim Americans charged with conspiring with terrorists. When former University of South Florida (USF) professor Sami al-Arian was arrested for directing U.S. operations for the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Florida campus MSA chapter held a press conference and stated:
We come before you today on behalf of the Muslim Student Association at USF as well as the National Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada to express our shock, deep concern, and plea for justice regarding the recent arrests of two USF professors, Dr. Sami al-Arian and Sameeh Hammoudeh … we are concerned that the USF professors were arrested for their political views.
The problem is that the MSA has been unable or unwilling to recognize that some Muslims, including its members, have crossed the line between political advocacy and material support for jihadist activities. In fact, MSA members and activities have repeatedly surfaced in police investigations. Some of these arrests received national media coverage, including the following:
*
In February 2003, former head of the MSA chapter at the University of Idaho, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was arrested with an indictment that he raised over $300,000 for the Islamic Assembly of North America, a group under federal investigation for funding terrorist groups. FBI agents believed Hussayen was communicating with two radical clerics, nicknamed the “awakening sheikhs,” known for inspiring young Muslims to pursue the path of jihad and credited as major ideological mentors to Osama bin Laden.[22]
*
In April 2003, the home of Arizona State University MSA president Hassan Alrafea was raided by the FBI, whose agents confiscated his computer and unspecified documents.[23]
Extreme Friends
In 2002, when the number of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe hit a twelve-year high, French Jewish leader Roger Cukierman observed a peculiar phenomenon on the European street —a loose fusing of extreme Left, Right, and Muslim political forces—what Cukierman terms the “brown-green-red alliance.”[24] The three disparate constituencies have incompatible ideologies, but all three have a shared hatred for the pluralized world order, globalized market economies, U.S. preponderance, and the state of Israel. Cukierman has observed these forces forming an alliance of convenience in the post-9/11 world with potentially dangerous results.
The same pattern is also emerging in the United States with groups of the extreme Left forging bonds with specific Muslim organizations, and here again we find the MSA figures prominently. Given the MSA’s propensity for radical politics in a campus environment, it is no surprise that it has become arguably the Muslim organization most enmeshed with American leftists. Consider the following:
*
Perhaps as a reward for its total opposition to every U.S. policy since the September 2001 attacks, the MSA has been given a seat on the steering committee for International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). ANSWER is an organization dedicated to defending rogue states and fighting “U.S. imperialism,” and has been distinguished by its ability to organize the largest peace demonstrations in North America. ANSWER was formed by International Action Center, a communist organization that supports Stalinist regimes worldwide, including North Korea and Hussein’s Iraq. [25]
*
In its aggressive protest activities against recent Middle East wars, the MSA has developed strong working ties with numerous activist groups of the extreme Left. Among them: Free Palestine Alliance, Nicaragua Network, Kensington Welfare Rights Union, Mexico Solidarity Network, Korea Truth Commission, Young Communist League, Young Peoples’ Socialist League, and Black Radical Congress.
As these examples suggest, the MSA boasts institutional ties with a host of radical issue-specific activist groups, all of them vehemently opposed to U.S. policy, and many of them openly anti-American.
The Center for Security Policy’s Alex Alexiev argues,
The majority of Muslim Student Associations at U.S. colleges are dominated by Islamist and anti-American agendas, as are most of the numerous Islamic centers and schools financed by the Saudis. Intolerance and outright rejection of American values and democratic ideals are often taught also in the growing number of Deobandi schools that are frequently subsidized by the Saudis.[26]
The following examples illustrate both the degree and pervasiveness of hate-America vitriol that characterize the MSA:
*
Taliban propaganda is featured on the website of the University of Southern California MSA chapter.[27]
*
One featured article in Al-Talib (a magazine developed by the UCLA chapter of the MSA and not affiliated with the Taliban of Afghanistan) entitled, “The Spirit of Jihad,” praised Osama bin Laden as a “prominent Muslim activist.” The article goes on to say,
When we hear someone refer to the great mujahideen Osama bin Laden as a ‘terrorist,’ we should defend our brother and refer to him as a freedom fighter; someone who has forsaken wealth and power to fight in Allah’s cause and speak out against oppressors. [28]
*
Another Al-Talib article entitled “Americanization” states,
A dangerous weapon has once again been unfurled by the U.S. military in this War on Terrorism … This weapon comes in the form of cultural warfare … In this new War on Terrorism, the colossal brunt of this production machine is now squarely targeted at the Muslim population.[29]
*
At an Al-Talib event to offer support for Imam Jamil al-Amin, convicted of killing a policeman, guest speaker Imam Abdul-Alim Musa said,
When you fight [the U.S.] you are fighting someone that is superior in criminality and Nazism … the American criminalizer is the most skillful oppressor the world has ever known …They beat the British at everything, isn’t that right? They are a better colonizer, a better murderer, a better killer, a better liar, a better thief, a better infiltrator than old British.[30]
This anti-Americanism blends together almost seamlessly with a virulent discourse against the Jews and Israel. Consider the following:
*
At the 2001 MSA West conference, hosted by UCLA, cleric Imam Muhammad al-Asi stated,
Israel is as racist as apartheid could ever be … you can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the Jew.[31]
*
The MSA continues to celebrate violence against Israel on its websites. At the MSA Northwest site, for example, images of Hamas suicide squads and child soldiers are proudly displayed above jihadist poetry, whose verse (erratically capitalized) celebrates violence:
two soldiers spotted me in their sight … i had to blast 4 shots hitting each one in the face and waist. a trace of blood drips from my arm as i make my away thru streets with an injured zionist as a hostage … seen a group of israeli soldiers run out and began pulling the trigger when sounds of rounds began playing a deadly melody. Each gun dropped two …[32]
*
In 2002, the MSA at the University of Michigan helped host the Second National Student Conference for Palestine Solidarity Movement. At that conference, one of the guest speakers was ex-University of Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who is now awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges.
Self-Defeating
Ironically, although one of the founding missions of the MSA is to increase favorable awareness of Muslim life among non-Muslims, the effect of the MSA’s activities is the opposite: they confirm the worst suspicions of American society at large. The MSA’s refusal to identify jihadists and jihadist sympathizers within its ranks, its indiscriminate opposition to U.S. policies following the September 11 attacks, its vitriolic anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, and its solidarity with “Leftover Left” radical activist organizations, together reinforce an image that the MSA, and by extension, Muslim college students, are a divisive, angry, and potentially violent group on our campuses. By monopolizing the Muslim student voice in America with “radical chic” to create a “single Muslim bloc,” an opportunity to forge a healthy discourse on the diverse attitudes of Muslim students is lost to the confrontational language of radical dissent and resistance.
Universities that host student organizations have an obligation to enforce basic standards of conduct, standards that the MSA has clearly breached. At the very least, MSA’s most egregious behavior must face censure from those responsible for monitoring student conduct. University administrators must unchain themselves from cultural relativism and the ideology of “validation” and deal squarely with such misdeeds.
More importantly, however, the problem of the Muslim Students’ Association illustrates the great question that confronts the West today: how does it cultivate liberalism in Muslim communities living at home and abroad? Just as the U.S. policy of détente with the Arab world collapsed after September 11, to be replaced by a “forward strategy of democracy,” it may be time to adopt a “forward strategy” within U.S. borders, focused on promoting moderate voices in mosques and campuses. To improve campus life for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, universities should work with moderate students to inaugurate a new Muslim students’ organization, one that eschews the radical politics of the “old world” in favor of authenticity, diversity, and integration. A new Muslim student organization would return to the primary mission of religiously-based campus groups—to celebrate and share in the fellowship of faith.
Jonathan Dowd-Gailey is a writer in Washington State.
[1] “The Constitution of the Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada,” Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/about/constitution.html.
[2] WorldNetDaily, Mar. 18, 2003, at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31571.
[3] Frontpage Magazine, Apr. 4, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7098.
[4] Sakeena Mirza and Ameena Qazi, “Robbing the Poor,” al-Talib, vol. 12, no. 3, at http://www.al-talib.com/articles/v12_i3_a04.htm.
[5] “A Little Taste of History,” Muslim Students’ Association of U.S. and Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/about/history.html.
[6] Alex Alexiev, “The Missing Link in the War on Terror: Confronting Saudi Subversion,” Center for Security Policy, at http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=alexiev.
[7] FrontPage Magazine, Apr. 23, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7395.
[8] “List of Organizations that Donate Islamic Books and Da’wah Materials,” Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-natl.org/resources/Donation_Books.html.
[9] “Senators Request Tax Information on Muslim Charities for Probe,” Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, Jan. 14, 2003, at http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=January&x=20040114155543zemogb0.8868524&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html. For details, see http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/164.
[10] Hamid Algar, “Wahhabism: A Critical Essay,” in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Adair T. Lummis, eds., Islamic Values in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 124.
[11] Ibid..
[12] Stephen Schwartz, “Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States,” testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, June 26, 2003, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2003_h/030626-schwartz.htm.
[13] MSA Starter’s Guide: A Guide on How to Run a Successful MSA, 1st ed. (Washington, D.C.: Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Mar. 1996), at http://www.msa-natl.org/publications/startersguide.html.
[14] “Religious Accommodations Task Force,” Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/taskforces/religious.html.
[15] Shabana Mir, “Gender-based Exclusionism at a Muslim Student Association, Part I,” The American Muslim, July/Aug. 2003, at http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/2003jul_comments.php?id=347_0_21_0_C.
[16] “Rally against the Patriot Act,” University of Pennsylvania Muslim Students’ Association, at http://www.upenn-msa.org/subcommittees/pmj/patriotact.html.
[17] “MSA National Demands an Immediate End to the Inhumane U.N. Sanctions,” Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., Apr. 6, 2001, at http://www.msa-national.org/media/pressreleases/040601.html.
[18] “Muslim Students Condemn U.S. Attack on Iraq,” Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., Dec. 17, 1998 at http://www.msa-national.org/media/pressreleases/121798.html.
[19] MSA Starter’s Guide, at http://www.msa-natl.org/publications/startersguide.html.
[20] Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar, “Open Letter from an Arab-American Student,” FrontPage Magazine, June 2, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=8143.
[21] “MSA National Political Action Task Force, America: Post 9/11,” Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada, Washington, D.C., at http://www.msa-national.org/media/actionalerts/political.pdf.
[22] The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2003.
[23] Oubai Shahbandar, “U.S. Muslims as Patriots,” The Arizona Republic, Oct. 11, 2003.
[24] Quoted by Mark Strauss, “Anti-Globalism’s Jewish Problem,” Foreign Policy, Nov./Dec. 2003.
[25] “National Conference against War, Colonial Occupation and Imperialism, May 17-18, New York City,” ANSWER, at http://www.internationalanswer.org/news/update/041203m17conf.html.
[26] Alexiev, “This Missing Link on the War on Terror,” at http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=alexiev.
[27] Syed Rahmatullah Hashimi, “Taliban in Afghanistan,” University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Mar. 10, 2001, at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/Taliban/talebanlec.html.
[28] Al-Talib, July 1999, quoted in FrontPageMagazine.com, Apr. 23, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7113. Al-Talib is listed as an official MSA Project by the UCLA chapter of MSA, at http://www.msa-ucla.com/projects.htm.
[29] Ghaith Mahmood, “Americanization: Solutions for a Small Planet?” al-Talib, vol. 12, no. 3, at http://www.al-talib.com/articles/v12_i3_a05.htm.
[30] Erick Stakelbeck, “Islamic Radicals on Campus,” FrontPage Magazine, Apr. 23, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7395.
[31]”UCLA Sponsors of Terrorism,” FrontPage Magazine, Apr. 4, 2003, at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7098.
[32] Atlantiz Miztery, “Palestine in War,” South Seattle Community College Muslim Students’ Association, at http://sscc.msanw.org/forum.htm.
http://www.meforum.org/article/603
MIM: The MSA is part of the Saudi funded NAIT effort to build mosques possibly using federal and state funding.
http://www.nait.net/katrina.htm
Katrina Restoration Project
NAIT-Islamic Relief USA Joint Project
At the end of August 2005, NAIT organized a project aimed at restoration of Katrina-affected Islamic centers & schools in Louisiana and Mississippi. NAIT aimed to work in concert with other Muslim institutions, relief organizations and the private sector, to assist the affected Islamic centers and schools in restoring their infrastructure. Islamic Relief USA joined NAIT in providing financial assistance to the affected centers.
As of fall 2006, NAIT has conveyed formal approval of four grants for a total of $175,000 for the repair of three masajid and one Islamic school. None of these centers is part of NAIT family of centers. Part of these grants has been disbursed.
The Katrina Restoration Project has not moved faster, since its pace has been determined by the affected centers’ ability to find reputable contractors. Additional funds are retained in the Islamic Centers Cooperative Fund (ICCF) as a trust for this project only. NAIT expects the Muslim Students Association (MSA) of the University of New Orleans to take a while before defining its need of a new masjid, either an appropriate land or a building. The house being used by the MSA as masjid was totally destroyed.
Restoring Islamic centers and schools has been critical to the emotional and spiritual well-being of the affected individuals, families and communities.
katrina2.gif
Historical Milestones:
Since September 2005, NAIT personnel have made two trips to the affected centers in October and December 2005. A report entitled “Restoration of Katrina-affected Islamic Centers & Schools, Louisiana & Mississippi” was an outcome of the 4-day October field visit, which was preceded and followed by elaborate phone contacts with the effected communities’ leadership. The report comprises data related to the centers’ location, ownership, damage, etc in a tabulated form for ease of comprehension. Over 100 photos document the damage.
Of the 26 centers evaluated, 16 centers had suffered damage ranging from total destruction (only the foundation remaining) to negligible damage. This damage is tentatively estimated at $1,116,000. The report recommends an immediate assistance of $160,000 to fifteen centers/schools, followed by additional assistance of $90, 000 to two centers on finalization of their respective plans; a total of $250,000. The report enumerates requirements to be fulfilled by the potential recipients prior to receiving funds.
NAIT met again with the leadership of the affected centers and schools during the last week of December 2005 in New Orleans to answer their questions and encouraged completion of necessary formalities for grants.
Islamic Relief USA joined NAIT in providing financial assistance to the affected centers. After the completion of centers needs’ due diligence by NAIT, NAIT issued letters to the complying centers conveying approval of the specified grant amounts. To facilitate contractors’ engagement, NAIT also issued “To Whom It May Concern” documents committing to their contractors that the allocated funds will be paid directly to these contractors once the restoration work is completed and is certified by the respective centers.
.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3257
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3216
Cop Killer Abu Mumia Jamal Supports Khalil Gibran International Academy
October 15, 2007
Cop Killer Abu Mumia Jamal Supports Khalil Gibran International Academy
October 15, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Such is the state of affairs surrounding Brooklyn’s KGIA madrassah, that the “Communities in Support of KGIA” website, seemingly run by Arab Women Active In The Arts And Media [AWAAM, the now notorious Islamist group responsible for creating the “Intifada NYC” tee shirts which served as the tipping point in former KGIA principal Almontaser’s ouster] lists a glowing endorsement of the jihad school by the leftist’s favorite cop killer Abu Mumia Jamal. [source, http://kgia.wordpress.com/home/support-kgia/mumia-on-kgia-fear-hatred-in-the-apple]
For those with short attention spans, Jamal [born Wesley Cook] a Muslim convert, was convicted in 1982 of the murder of Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner during a routine traffic stop involving Jamal’s brother. Faulkner was shot in the back by Jamal and then executed by him in a cold blooded manner, shot in the face from a distance of just inches, killing him instantly].
The link to Jamal’s comments is prominently featured on the home page of the KGIA support website, within which the viewpoint of the school’s supporters alleging, “hateful and false attacks by anti-Arab media and extremists…these racist and inaccurate attacks,” appear to be in complete accord with the views of Jamal who claims that Almontaser was forced to resign by an attack led by “Racist and right-wing groups and media outlets,” which “demonized” the former principal and the school.
Given this level of animus, it should be no surprise that KGIA is a cause célèbre among the same coterie of leftist whack jobs and Islamists who maintain that Bush is Hitler, that al-Qaeda terrorists deserve the same Constitutional protection as American citizens and that cop killers should go free.
That this effort is sponsored by a coalition of groups including the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] a listed unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation federal terror prosecution, also seems to go with the territory. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=kgia10.15.07.htm
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3216
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/14537142/detail.html?rss=dgo&psp=news
Police Find Weapons Cache In Parolee’s Garage
POSTED: 6:55 pm PST November 7, 2007
UPDATED: 6:54 am PST November 8, 2007
EL CAJON, Calif. — Officers serving a search warrant at an El Cajon home Wednesday made a discovery that led to a bomb scare.
View Images | Watch Video
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department bomb squad was called out to a home in the 1100 block of Naranca Avenue after police said they found a cache of weapons, including rifles, shotguns, handguns and grenades inside a garage. One official said as many as 15 weapons were inside the home.
Click here to find out more!
It all began at 11:40 a.m. when El Cajon police officers served a search warrant at a home belonging to Mark Denton, 50. The officers were searching for drugs when they ran across the weapons, officials said.
continues.
Store security stabbed with syringe www.privateofficer.com
cuffs-pix.jpg Waterloo nov. 21 2007
A toy store security guard was stabbed in the hand with a syringe Sunday by a man suspected of shoplifting.
The incident happened at about 2 p.m. while employees at the Toys R Us store on Fairway Road were attempting to arrest a man suspected of swiping some electronic equipment, Waterloo regional police said.
During the arrest, the suspect stabbed one employee in the hand with the syringe, police said.
The suspect then struggled free and ran from the store. The security guard chased after him. When he caught up to the suspect, a physical altercation ensued, police said.
The man then ran off.
Police arrived a short time later and searched the area, but couldn’t locate the suspect.
The employee was taken by ambulance to Grand River Hospital for treatment of injuries to his hand and knee.
Police are still looking for the suspect who is described as a white male, about 40-years-old and about 5 feet 11 inches tall. He has a medium build and was wearing blue track pants and a long-sleeve, grey button-up shirt.
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November 21, 2007 - Posted by privateofficerbreakingnews
Federal fugitive caught on campus www.privateofficer.com
WILMINGTON, NC Nov. 21 2007 - On Tuesday afternoon, the pursuit for a federal fugitive ended on the UNCW campus after campus police stopped a vehicle for a moving violation.
Officers soon learned that the driver was wanted for various fraud charges and had numerous felony warrants outstanding for his arrest.
The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Department and the Wilmington Police Department resonded to assist the UNCW Police as well as the bomb squad. The bomb squad used their search robot to pull suspicious packages out of the fugitive’s car which were later determined not to be explosives.
the suspect was taken into custody and his name has not yet been released.
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[INSANITY]
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Father Bites Baby’s Lips Off by; Rick McCann www.privateofficer.com
Lowell Ma. Nov. 20, 2007
A Lowell toddler was leaning in for a kiss when his lip was bitten off by his drug-addled father in a sickening attack Saturday, according to a police report.
Police said yesterday that the 22-month-old boy’s condition was improving, and efforts to reattach the lip at Boston’s Children’s Hospital were initially successful, the Lowell Sun reported.
Prosecutors allege that Thy Chan, 26, was high on ecstasy when he bit down and severed his little son’s lip at their Middlesex Street apartment Saturday morning.
The tot’s horrified mother, Karolyn Ung, 25, wrestled her son from Chan’s jaws, took him and her daughter to another room, locked the door and called 911, the Lowell police report said.
Chan was arrested and hospitalized at Saints Medical Center in Lowell, where he was arraigned yesterday.
“Many of the most troubling cases that we deal with involve the abuse of young children,” Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone Jr. said. “This is a deeply disturbing case in which we allege that the young child was savagely injured by the defendant.”
Ung told cops that Chan returned home at 9:30 a.m. Saturday after being out all night. She said Chan was “tripping on ecstasy” and that he had been pacing back and forth all morning, grinding his teeth and drinking a lot of water, the police report said.
She told cops that Chan had a history of abusing the drug ecstasy.
At about 9:15 a.m., Ung told cops that Chan was playing on the couple’s bed with their son and daughter. Her son leaned forward as if to kiss his dad when she saw Chan bite down on the boy’s lip, the report said.
“She jumped up to try and separate them, but he refused to let go,” the reportsaid. “He then bit the child’s lip off.”
Cops arrived to find the little victim wrapped in a blanket and bleeding profusely from his mouth.
Chan was charged with assault and battery, assault and battery on a child and mayhem. Lowell District Court Judge Neil Walker ordered Chan held on $25,000 cash bail and barred him from contact with any children.
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Cop Busted For ID Theft by; Rick McCann www.privateofficer.com
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. Nov. 20 2007– A detective at the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department is facing federal charges after he was accused of stealing people’s identities and their money.
According to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court, Mark Warf got people’s names and Social Security numbers, along with other personal information, and applied for credit cards and checking accounts in their names.
Warf was taken into federal custody on Friiday.
Court documents said that over a period of a year, Warf knowingly spent at least $1,000 from the fraudulent cards.
It is not clear how Warf was getting access to the information, but according to the indictment, two debit cards and a credit card from Bank of America were delivered through the mail to him.
News Central called Warf to get his side of the story and left him messages. As of Monday evening, all calls had not been returned.
For more than 20 years, Warf worked on some of the biggest cases in Rutherford County, but suddenly resigned from the department in July, citing personal reasons.
That was the same time that the United States postal inspector told News Central that Warf was the center of an investigation.
Warf faces three counts of mail fraud, one count of credit card fraud and aggravated identification theft.
If convicted, he could face up to 72 years in prison and a fine of more than $1.2 million.
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Cops use tattoo parlor to bust gangs www.privateofficer.com
Augusta Ga. Nov. 19, 2007
Police in Augusta, Georgia hit upon a brilliant idea to catch gangbangers: just open a tattoo parlor and watch criminals walk in to sell their illegal weapons! The tattoo parlor was the brainchild of Richmond County Sheriff Ron Strength, who wanted to snuff out gangs carrying out violent crimes in his east Georgia community.
The idea was to create a place where the gang members would feel right at home, said sheriff’s Lt. Scott Peebles. And that they did.”We put the idea in their heads that there’s no way these guys are in law enforcement,” he said. Business was slow at first, but then things took off. Gang members soon began dropping in to sell guns, drugs and even stolen cars, authorities said. Every transaction was recorded by surveillance cameras around the store. Soon the shop had so much business the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office had to call in reinforcements from the ATF.
Four federal agents helped the sheriff’s deputies man the counters; others worked behind the scenes. Vanessa McLemore, ATF special agent in charge, said the teams had to coordinate their behaviors so it seemed like they fit in the store. “They spent a lot of time together learning each other’s mannerisms, learning each other’s body language. It had to be a brotherhood,” she said. On the store counter was a jar of colored markers to invite clients to write their favorite gang affiliation on the wall. Peebles said agents used the wall for intelligence. “At the very least we got names,” he said. The shop even put up its’ own MySpace page. “You think it, we ink it” was the MySpace slogan. It featured the back of a tattooed man, and below in large red letters agents told visitors to the site, “We buy what others won’t.” (cnn)
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Target has their own crime lab! www.privateofficer.com
MINNEAPOLIS Mn. Nov. 19 2007 When people talk about Target, most people think about the retail stores festooned with red bullÂ’s-eye symbols. But did you know the Minnesota retail giant is also known around the world for its focus on solving crimes?
TargetÂ’s crime lab and forensic experts often provide the missing link to connect killers to their crimes.Their lab, which was designed to conquer more petty crimes committed in their own stores, is not run by law enforcement. However they now provide help solving crimes to police.To date, Target has offered assistance to more than 100 different agencies.
They don’t charge a dime. All they ask for is a department patch in return.The Dru Sjodin case was one of the first Target was consulted on. Some of her last moments were caught on tape. So were the movements of her convicted killer.”There’s no way of knowing what’s actually inside of his mind, but obviously he makes some observation towards that camera that’s up in the ceiling,” said a crime lab employee. “Not all the cases we work on have happy endings.”
This proved to be the case with Sjodin, whose body was found in a ravine months after she vanished. The surveillance video was a key piece of evidence in the prosecution of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.”This was very important because it showed Alfonso in close proximity to the area of the disappearance,” said the employee.
Rick Lautenbach, who manages the Target Forensic Service Lab here and in Las Vegas, said “When there’s a serious crime that perhaps we can help with and we have the means to do it, it’s important for us to be able to do that when we can.”
Most of the people running the lab are former law enforcement. Brent Pack is a former special agent with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command. Earlier this year, he helped police put Anthony Albert Gomez behind bars.”One of the best things I like about the job is finding that one piece of evidence, that one thing that ties in a criminal to the crime,” said Pack, now a senior investigator with Target Forensic Services.
Gomez had recorded images of himself beheading a girl’s dog, before he left it on her doorstep in a box. When police arrested him, they called Target to get the images off his phone. Faced with the evidence, Gomez pleaded guilty.”It was gratifying to see his face in the paper not too long ago,” said Pack.
Target doesnÂ’t limit their scope to simply cracking cases in Minnesota. The impact of its crime lab spans the globe. Take, for instance, the murder of Kamila Garsztka, whose body was found floating in a marina in England. Her purse was found in her boyfriendÂ’s apartment.
Using video of Garsztka from cameras positioned all around the city, Casey Cottle spent over 80 hours enhancing and analyzing shades of color on her coat.”This light area goes all the way up over the shoulder. So it couldn’t be just a part of the jacket,” said Cottle. “There’s definitely something on the shoulder and to the investigation and in trial, that was a huge part.”Amilton Bento got a life sentence.
Target estimates law enforcement cases make up about 30 percent of the lab’s case load, and the rest focus on issues closer to the core of its business. Occasionally there is crossover.”If we can offer the same level of scientific ability to answer the questions that are before the court, or the questions investigators have, we want to be able to do that,” said Lautenbach.That is a mission statement Target plans to validate far into the future.”I know from being here 12 years that Target is sincere.
If all companies did what we do, that would be really powerful,” said Lautenbach.With all the sophisticated technology, some customers might wonder if Target is collecting information on its shoppers. While Target has security cameras, like everyone else, they emphasized to us they only use their lab to focus on criminal activity, not people’s buying habits.
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Mother guilty of shopping daughter on line for sex www.privateofficer.com
Detroit Mi. Nov. 18, 2007
A Taylor mother shopped her 7-year-old daughter for sex not just once, but three times, police say.
The twist in the case was revealed Friday when law enforcement announced the arrest of Chad Gorzela, 32, of Saginaw on five child-sex felonies after uncovering evidence in the investigation of the Taylor mother earlier this year showing e-mail conversations between the woman and Gorzela to allegedly arrange sex between Gorzela and the 7-year-old.
The chats are very graphic,” said Sheriff Warren Evans.
The woman is serving a nine- to 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to all counts in August after she shopped her daughter for sex to an undercover Wayne County sheriff’s deputy. Following her arrest, police nabbed a Brownstown Township man, who pleaded guilty in October to trying arrange sex with the girl. The mom’s arrest then led police to Gorzela.
Evans and Prosecutor Kym Worthy said it was unclear how Gorzela and the woman connected. Evans said the chats did not discuss money. Authorities are not identifying the woman to protect the identity of her daughter. Gorzela turned himself in Thursday.
Evans said seven months elapsed between the time of the mother’s arrest and Gorzela’s because Gorzela erased his computer’s hard drive and was residing outside the area.
Enough evidence was obtained from the Taylor woman’s computer and Gorzela’s Internet provider to verify his involvement, Worthy said.
Gorzela has been charged with child sexually abusive activity, a 20-year felony; using the Internet for child sexually abusive activity, a 20-year felony; two charges of distributing child sexually abusive material, a 7-year felony; and using the Internet to distribute child sexually abusive material, a 10-year felony.
In the third case, Nicholas Alley of Brownstown Township pleaded guilty to child sexually abusive activity and will be sentenced Nov. 30. He, too, attempted to arrange sex with the 7-year-old.