Posted on 07/28/2004 1:23:01 PM PDT by johnfrink
The federal government's roundup Tuesday of seven Middle Eastern men on charges of funding the terrorist group Hamas yielded an unexpected disclosure: a link between Dallas City Hall and Hamas top leader in Israels occupied territories.
North Texas resident Mufid Abdulquader is a city of Dallas engineer who was among the men charged Tuesday in a 42-count indictment for allegedly using the Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas terrorist operations. But Abdulquader, a Palestinian and naturalized U.S. citizen, has a connection to Hamas shared by none of the others.
Abdulquaders Syrian-based half brother is a top leader of Hamas, ranking so high that he has been a target of high-profile Israeli assassinations that have killed other organization leaders in recent months. Abdulquaders half-brother they share the same father is Khaled Mishaal, Hamas political bureau chief and U.S. designee as a global terrorist.
Until the government unsealed its indictment Tuesday, the family relationship between the city of Dallas engineer and Mishaal was known only to a few intelligence officials who had grown increasingly concerned about it as Hamas leaders began publicly threatening to target Americans.
Hamas has deployed dozens of suicide bombers who have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in a quest to annihilate that country and replace it with an Islamic regime.
But recent threats by Hamas leadership to mount attacks on American soil provoked heightened fears within the FBI that the engineer could pass along sensitive information about the citys vital infrastructure systems to terrorists, two sources have told CBS-11 News.
The FBI therefore has kept Abdulquader under especially close scrutiny, using a variety of surveillance methods both on and off the job, the sources said.
The relationship did concern us, one source told CBS-11. Id say it has been a concern all along.
Sources, however, said no evidence surfaced that Abdulquader had used his city job for nefarious purposes. It remained unclear Tuesday when Dallas city officials were made aware of Abdulquabers family connection to Hamas or whether the city has cooperated in surveillance. City officials who would be aware of such cooperation could not immediately be reached for comment.
The governments indictment of the seven men accuses Abdulquader of working as a top fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation and accuses him of praising Hamas through a violent dramatic skit depicting the killing of Jewish people.
Current and former FBI terrorism experts say the city engineers half-brother directed suicide bombings against Israel.
Its hard to think that its permissible to carry out Jihad or blowing up a bus in Israel from the safety of the United States without ultimately creating the situation where people might do the same here, said Steven Emerson, who heads a private intelligence gathering agency in Washington, D.C.
The indictment accuses the Holy Land Foundation of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the families of suicide bombers. Abdulquader and the other six, including Dallasarea residents Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi, also are accused of filing false tax returns and sending token donations to real charities as a means of hiding their more substantial activities of raising millions from U.S. muslims on false pretenses.
Dallas criminal defense attorney Tim Evans, speaking on behalf of the accused Tuesday, said they were the victims of a politically motivated investigation. He noted that the arrests took place during the Democratic national convention.
Theres been a tremendous amount of resources expended going after these families for all these years that in my opinion quite frankly could have been used to go after some real terrorist threat, Evans told reporters Tuesday after an arraignment of the three Dallas defendants.
Former FBI Special Agent Tino Perez, who worked on the current investigation before retiring last year, said the Holy Land Foundation sought to fool donors and silence critics by doling out some funds to legitimate causes.
The money that was being collected here by this charitable organization was going to both the families of the needy, families of martyrs, and in some cases, the money was going toward the purchase of munitions, bombs and weapons to be used in their fight, Perez told CBS-11.
When President Bush shut down the Holy Land Foundations Richardson offices two years ago, the organizations officers insisted there was no relationship with Hamas. At the time, one of the founders of the organization, the now-indicted Shukri Abu Baker, denied it gave money to anyone but orphans and needy refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Holy Land Foundation is a wolf in sheeps clothing, said Nancy Jardini of the Internal Revenue Service.
The foundations original treasurer, Ghassan Elashi also was indicted Tuesday. He is already in federal custody, having been convicted recently of illegally shipping computers to Syria.
Supporters continued to maintain the foundation was only an ordinary charity. But new information released in the governments indictment suggests the foundation did not always act like an ordinary charity.
The indictment says the foundation taught employees how to shred documents and that it hired a security company to sweep its offices for listening devices.
Well, Bowles was funneling department business to a good friend.
Can't do that, which is why he's gone.
What next? I've been watching channel 5 and they didn't report this. I need to hire a staff to keep track of all this madness!!
Sleeper or not, what's the chances he hasn't passed this off to a few thousand comrads slipping in from the southern border... in multiple copies. Bad news.
Demographics - it's ALL about DEMOGRAPHICS . .
Demographics "There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we darent bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially, he said. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well. By 2020, 50% of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. He even drew attention to the birth dearth in the West.
And dont forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers, he said. Western Europeans are not having any babies. The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56% of what it is now. The population of France, 52% of what it is now. The population of Italy is going to be down 7 million people.
9. Accelerate Islamic demographic growth via:
What they're saying about "Onward Muslim Soldiers" - An expose of militant Islam. |
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The FREEPERS Guide To Islamic Terror Websites - CYBERTERRORISM (And It's Sponsors) |
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I don't know about the rest of the citizens in this FREE country, but I want enough of it left so my great-great-great-great-great grandchilden can be proud to say, "I'm an AMERICAN!!!! My ancestors fought for MY right to say that!"
Keep up the good work! Life is much better with "bodyguards like Freepers!"
LOL! :^D
"Good friend", Mr. Madera, now works in the same food-services capacity for the City of Fort Worth - they said, despite his relationship to Bowles, Madera had the best bid and the best services. They said they had no choice but to hire him, for he was the only one who could do the job right.
Notice - Hill dropped the "investigation" against Bowles as soon as he lost the election.
Seeing as how Bowles was investigating a double-dipping scam in the Dallas Sheriff's Dept - one which he was unable to get Hill to prosecute - I'd say my money is on Bowles as a whistleblower. Hill initiated the investigation on Bowles alleged "scandal" after Bowles tried to blow the lid off Sheriff's Dept employees who were fraudulently scamming the gov't of YOUR FEDERAL TAX DOLLARS. Now, with Bowles leaving office, that investigation will die - Hill has already said he will NOT investigate the scamming employees. Hill also won't investigate the police dept's fake drug scandal.
Call me foolish, but I think someone is greasing Hill's palm...
Prior to 9-11, a popular AM radio station in Dallas used to run ads for the Holy Land Foundation all the time. I wonder how much money they raised for terrorism from the unsuspecting citizens of Dallas?
CLICK HERE to link to the Channel 11 story.
Abdulquaders Syrian-based half brother is a top leader of Hamas, ranking so high that he has been a target of high-profile Israeli assassinations that have killed other organization leaders in recent months. Abdulquaders half-brother they share the same father is Khaled Mishaal, Hamas political bureau chief and U.S. designee as a global terrorist.
The timing again!
O.K., no more good news for GWB until the election, it's all 'suspicious'. :-/
WOW! Look out Dallas.
The other way to look at such a statement would be...the individuals who would normally ensure these types of arrests were interfered with or disabled before being made, or made public, are currently out of town...
Oh ye who is represented by Menendez
; )
You can say that again!
Prairie
pingy dingy
great post...and I heard that quote (or equivalent) from Ibrahim Hooper on The Michael Medved Show
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