Free Republic

One year ago, I wrote a piece exposing radical Islam within Florida Atlantic University (FAU). My goal was twofold: [1] to bring awareness concerning a growing problem within FAU [2] to push the university to take action so that this problem ceases to exist. Unfortunately, only the first part of my goal was accomplished, as FAU is continuing to allow radicals on its campus, the latest being this Saturday'S (Jan.22, 2005) return engagement of potential co-conspirator to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Siraj Wahhaj. The Enemy Thrives at FAU In recent times, a fairly large list of...

America's norther neighbor continues to serve as a favorite operational base and transit country for terrorists. An American courtroom just witnessed the first conviction ever of a Canadian citizen in the War on Terror. Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, 21, originally from Kuwait, pleaded guilty to several charges of planning attacks against American interests outside the United States. The charges include conspiracy to kill US nationals, destroy US property abroad with weapons of mass destruction, kill American employees while on duty, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. The WMD, in this case, was dynamite. According to Canadian newspapers, Jabarah was...

Convicted Egyptian cleric Omar Abdul Rahman, mastermind of the first bombing of the World Trade Center, continues to communicate with and inspire his followers despite his imprisonment. The blind sheik, convicted of multiple charges of terrorism, is incarcerated in the one of the most secure prisons in the United States, but letters to followers somehow still manage to reach his intended audience of terrorists through publication on various websites devoted to advancement of Islamic terrorism and radical ideology. On Feb. 10, New York Attorney Lynne Stewart was convicted of helping Abdul Rahman pass secret messages to his followers urging violent...

American jurisprudence and homeland security aligned yesterday, as a jury of her peers found terrorist lawyer-cum-facilitator Lynne Stewart guilty of aiding international Islamist murderers. After 13 days of deliberation, the federal jury found Stewart and her two co-defendants guilty on all counts, including providing material support to terrorism, conspiracy, and defrauding the government. The saga began in 1995, when Stewart defended and befriended “the Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In the ensuring years, Stewart – with the aid of co-defendants Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry – illegally passed on fatwas...

A New York jury Thursday convicted a veteran defense lawyer of aiding terrorists by smuggling messages from an imprisoned Islamic radical to his followers. Lynne Stewart, 65, a leftist civil rights lawyer who has represented revolutionaries and other unpopular defendants for more than 30 years, was found guilty on all five counts against her in federal court.

NEW YORK (AP) - A month of deliberations in the trial of a lawyer and two others accused of helping terrorists appears to be taking its toll on jurors, leading two of them to ask to speak with the judge Tuesday. The text of what was said in the two jurors' separate meetings with U.S. District Judge John Koeltl was sealed. The proceedings were witnessed by a lawyer for the government and a lawyer for the defense teams, and raised the possibility of a mistrial. After the two jurors met with the judge, the three defendants and their lawyers gathered...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in Moderate Islam or Fata Morgana? and freemuslims.org Speaks Out.There is good news to report: The idea that "militant Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution" is finding greater acceptance over time. But there is also bad news, namely growing confusion over who really is a moderate Muslim. This means that the ideological side of the war on terror is making some, but only limited, progress.The good news: Anti-Islamist Muslims have found their voice since September 11. Their numbers include distinguished academics such as Azar Nafisi (Johns Hopkins), Ahmed al-Rahim (formerly...

The New York Times, The Providence Journal-Bulletin, Friday, August 1, 1997, page A-1, A-8 -- As heavily armed agents stood guard, a federal judge presided over the arraignment of two suspects charged with conspiracy to blow up a New York subway station and possession of explosives. Other investigators were seeking a reason behind the alleged plot. Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, 23, and Lafi Khalil, 22, both from Israel's West Bank, were charged late Friday as they lay in their hospital beds recovering from gunshot wounds suffered during a shootout with police at their Brooklyn apartment . The men were arrested...

On February 26, 1993 Al Qaeda fired the first salvo in the war on terror by bombing the World Trade Center. A powerful explosive device was detonated on the second floor of the parking garage in the world trade center. The explosion created an 8 foot hole through 4 floors of concrete, killed 6 people, and injured another 1040. A two year investigation ensued which resulted in the indictment of 10 people and the conviction of nine of them. The 10th person's name was Abdul Rahman Yasin, an American born in Indiana and admitted member of the group that did...

WANA, Pakistan - About 1,000 Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships, mortars and artillery Wednesday pounded a mountainous region near the Afghan border where a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers is believed to be hiding. The assault targeted the village of Spinkai Raghzai in South Waziristan, a tribal region where the Pakistani army has been hunting Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and his al-Qaida associates. But the top military commander in the region said Tuesday it was unlikely bin Laden was hiding in the area, as U.S. authorities suspect. Abdullah Mehsud,...

For the last three months, the defendant who has drawn the most attention in a terror trial under way in Manhattan federal court is Lynne F. Stewart, who made a name as a defense lawyer for suspects accused of terrorism. But as the prosecutors' case has unfolded, most of the evidence about the international conspiracy they hope to prove has centered on a defendant who sits silently beside her, Ahmed Abdel Sattar. A Staten Island postal worker and a Muslim, Mr. Sattar served as a paralegal aide for Ms. Stewart in the 1995 trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the...

...Bangladesh has a reputation for moderate Islam, for democracy, and for promoting the rights of women. Indeed, women lead both major political parties, the governing Bangladesh National Party of prime minister Khaleda Zia and the opposition Awami League. Mainstream parties accept that they can only assume power through elections. Bangladesh is home to the Grameen Bank, cited as a model of development for the way that it empowers poor women through small scale loans, or "micro-credit." But the Islamist current, once marginal, appears to be growing. In 1998, when Osama bin Laden declared "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," few took...

NEW YORK -- Authorities believe a U.S. postal employee in custody here helped draft a letter of introduction that may have been used by two men who posed as journalists to assassinate a leading opposition figure in Afghanistan last fall, according to a U.S. official familiar with the case.Click here for full Washington Post article

Horrifying new details of how Daniel Pearl, the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter, met his death have emerged from the interrogation of new suspects by Pakistani police. Pearl, who was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002, knew for several hours that he was about to be killed, but resisted repeated attempts to sedate him, police now believe. He was fully aware of what was happening when the Arab extremists who took control during his final days cut his throat, according to information gleaned from Pakistani militants now in police custody. Shocking video film of Pearl's murder, seen around the world...

Cheerleaders for TerrorismBy Erick StakelbeckFrontPageMagazine.com | June 17, 2003 Two groups whom Islamic terrorists can count on for sympathy and support are radical lawyers and their counterparts in American law schools. Lynne Stewart is a hero of the National Lawyers Guild and a sought-after campus lecturer. While out on bail under indictment for colluding with a terrorist leader, she has been a sought-after speaker for law school audiences who relish her attacks on Attorney General John Ashcroft as a modern-day fascist and on her country for its imperialist and racist policies. Stewart made national headlines in April 2002 when she...

Military retaliation from Baghdad was the main administration concern following Saturday's strike on Iraq. Yet U.S. officials should start thinking seriously about the question of retaliation through terror. It is quite possible, for example, that there was a connection between Saddam and recent attempts to blow up Manhattan. It is quite possible that New York's terror is Saddam's revenge. Speculation about the responsibility for last week's bombing plot and the earlier World Trade Center bombing has focused on Iran, Sudan, and the fundamentalist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Much energy has been spent linking the terror to Islamic fundamentalism. Yet Saddam,...

<p>April 7 - Within weeks of the September 11 terror attacks, security officers at the Fleet National Bank in Boston had identified “suspicious” wire transfers from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that eventually led to the discovery of an active Al Qaeda “sleeper cell” that may have been planning follow-up attacks inside the United States, according to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.</p>

<p>Law-enforcement officials follow the money trail among suspected terrorists straight to the doors of the Saudi Embassy.</p> <p>April 7 - Within weeks of the September 11 terror attacks, security officers at the Fleet National Bank in Boston had identified “suspicious” wire transfers from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that eventually led to the discovery of an active Al Qaeda “sleeper cell” that may have been planning follow-up attacks inside the United States, according to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.</p>

Today: March 08, 2004 at 9:20:42 PST Man Held by Pakistan May Be Tied to AttackASSOCIATED PRESS QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A suspected Islamic militant already in police custody may have had a hand in the massacre of 44 people at a religious procession last week, Pakistani authorities said Monday. Shafiq-ur Rahman was in jail on kidnapping charges last Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a Shiite Muslim procession, but Quetta police chief Shoaib Suddle said authorities believe he may have been behind the attacks. Suddle said that during interrogation Rahman had confessed to taking part in past attacks on...

Did Nichols and Yousef meet? Closer analysis of Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef timelines creates a compelling, if still circumstantial, case — and offers clues to where the smoking guns may be found By J.M. BERGER INTELWIRE.com In November 1994, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef both walked on the grounds of the same college campus in the Philippines. Whether their paths crossed is a question that still dogs researchers. But it's increasingly clear that what separates their respective itineraries is sometimes a matter of yards, feet or even inches, within a span of days, hours and sometimes mere minutes. They...