Guilty to Terrorism Charges
By Andrew L. Jaffee, January 19, 2004
Posted on 01/19/2004 6:07:48 PM PST by stevejackson
| Former CAIR Member Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Charges By Andrew L. Jaffee, January 19, 2004 |
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The Council on American Islamic Relations' (CAIR) ties to terrorism just keep getting more and more obvious. We're not talking accusations and indictments anymore. Now a former CAIR member has pled guilty to terrorism charges.
According to FOXNews.com last Friday, CAIR's former Communications Specialist and Civil Rights Coordinator, Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, pled guilty to involvement with the Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, ties to Afghanistan's Taliban, connections to Chechnya's terrorists, and last but not least, involvement with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Specific indictments against Royer included explosives and weapons charges. He also admitted to helping several people "gain entry to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan."
In September, 2003, Royer was served with charges that he "...conspired to provide material support to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization and to his Taliban protectors in Afghanistan," according to the Washington Post. Royer had already been arrested and charged on June 27, 2003 for "...conspiring to join a Muslim extremist terror group that has been blamed for thousands of deaths in the disputed Kashmir territory of India and Pakistan," according to ABC.
Last Friday's charges added to a long list of evidence that CAIR has ties to terrorist groups. Siraj Wahhaj, one of CAIR's advisory board members, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case. Nihad Awad, CAIR’s Executive Director, has declared himself a supporter of Hamas and the PLO, which are both on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations. And Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's director of community relations, "was arrested by the FBI in January in connection with a terror-financing front group he helped found that is allegedly tied to both Iraq and al Qaeda." Note that Khafagi has pled guilty to "charges of visa and bank fraud in federal court in Detroit."
For some strange reason, CAIR had been considered a "mainstream" Muslim group, a notion most likely encouraged by the legions of the politically correct. That all seems to be changing. All these indictments -- and now convictions -- have caused a rethinking of the group's "mainstream" label. CAIR has also tempered its previous bold-faced arrogance. In September of 2003, CAIR's Chairman Omar Ahmed and Executive Director Nihad Awad were invited to testify before hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. Guess what? Neither of them showing up. According to FrontPageMagazine.com, during the hearings,
Senators turned out in force to connect the dots between CAIR and the deviant Islamic extremism that led to the vicious attacks of 9/11. In his opening statement, Chairman Jon Kyl said, “a small group of organizations based in the U.S. with Saudi backing and support, is well advanced in its four- decade effort to control Islam in America -from mosques, universities and community centers to our prisons and even within our military. Moderate Muslims who love America and want to be part of our great country are being forced out of those institutions.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been steadfast in his efforts to uncover the nexus of Hamas front groups in the U.S., was ruthless in his portrayal of CAIR as part of an international terror network. In his opening remarks, Senator Schumer stated that prominent members of CAIR—referring specifically to Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmed—have “intimate links with Hamas.” Later, he remarked that “we know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism.”
Even Senator Richard Durbin, who has made common cause with some of America’s Wahhabi-backed groups, came down hard on CAIR. In his final comments he conceded that CAIR is “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect,” and requested that the committee seek the testimony of mainstream Muslim groups in its place in the future.
The Senate is not the only branch of government catching on to CAIR's terrorist connections. In October, President Bush didn't invite CAIR to his annual iftaar dinner, which marks the end of fasting in Ramadan. Bush also recently signed the Syria Accountability Act into law, and appointed Daniel Pipes to USIP -- both issues which CAIR vociferously opposed.
Does CAIR sound "mainstream" to you? I'm not sure why so many people became enraptured with this group. There are truly moderate and mainstream Muslims and Islamic groups out there like Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi -- who has been implicitly threatened by CAIR -- and the Islamic Supreme Council of America (ISCA) whom, incidentally, CAIR has tried to smear and silence.
I really don't understand why so many people choose political correctness over sanity and pragmatic reason. Supporting CAIR is insanity.
CAIR doesn't "have ties" to terrorism; they ARE a terrorist organization.
Yep. 'parently so. I fell right outta' my chair. 
Perhaps AP was too busy interviewing dishonest pro-Taliban, anti-American eyewitnesses to American atrocities in Afghanistan to cover this story yesterday.
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