Holy Land Indictments reveal City of Dallas Engineer is brother of top Hamas leader

CBS 11 (Dallas) ^ | July 28, 2004 | Robert Riggs and Todd Bensman

[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 Israel’s 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.

Abdulquader’s 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. Abdulquader’s 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 city’s 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. “I’d 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 Abdulquaber’s 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 government’s 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 engineer’s half-brother directed suicide bombings against Israel.

“It’s hard to think that it’s 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 Dallas–area 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.

“There’s 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 Foundation’s Richardson offices two years ago, the organization’s 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 sheep’s clothing,” said Nancy Jardini of the Internal Revenue Service.

The foundation’s 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 government’s 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.

[sinkspur]

Look at Sheriff Bowles... a BUSH supporter, and now out of office.

Well, Bowles was funneling department business to a good friend.

Can't do that, which is why he's gone.

[Brownie74]

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!!

[exhaustedmomma]

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.

[Happy2BMe]

Hate to tell you good folks this, but Islam does *NOT* mean peace, it is *AGGRESSIVE AS A GUT FULL OF MAGGOTS ON AN INFIDEL'S CORPSES*, and is *INFILTRATING* into every professional level discipline in American society . .

Demographics - it's ALL about DEMOGRAPHICS . .

Demographics "There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren’t 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 don’t 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.”

---

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Radical Islam's 'plan'
to take over America
Arab-American author outlines secret
20-year strategy to undermine country

---

Posted: August 4, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

9. Accelerate Islamic demographic growth via:

• Massive immigration (100,000 annually since 1961).

• Use no birth control whatsoever – every baby of Muslim parents is automatically a Muslim and cannot choose another religion later.

• Muslim men must marry American women and Islamize them (10,000 annually). Then divorce them and remarry every five years – since one can't legally marry four at one time. This is a legal solution in America.

Omar Ahmad

Co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

President & CEO of Silicon Expert Technologies, he is a Palestinian who grew up in a refugee camp in Jordan.  


" Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant...The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth,"
-Omar Ahmad


  Speak to me, Ibrahim Hooper!
CAIR spokesperson


"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that.


"CAIR does not support these groups publicly."
(when asked about CAIR's record of supporting Hamas, Hizbullah and other official terrorist groups)

-Ibrahim Hooper

What they're saying about "Onward Muslim Soldiers" - An expose of militant Islam.

The FREEPERS Guide To Islamic Terror Websites - CYBERTERRORISM (And It's Sponsors)

[Monkey Face]

Jeez...this is some SCARY stuff! I had no clue as to where to find these "sleepers" but I thank Heaven that they are not as clever as some of my compatriots.

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!"

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL! :^D

[dandelion]

"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...

[MeekOneGOP]

[toomanygrasshoppers]

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?

[Brownie74]

I just watched this story on Channel 11. This guy had a lot of information on the Dallas infrastructure including our water system.

CLICK HERE to link to the Channel 11 story.

[OXENinFLA]

HOLY SHNIKEYS!!!!

Abdulquader’s 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. Abdulquader’s half-brother – they share the same father – is Khaled Mishaal, Hamas’ political bureau chief and U.S. designee as a global terrorist.

[StriperSniper]

He noted that the arrests took place during the Democratic national convention.

The timing again!

O.K., no more good news for GWB until the election, it's all 'suspicious'. :-/

[Dubya]

WOW! Look out Dallas.

[sarasmom]

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...

[mabelkitty]

Oh ye who is represented by Menendez

; )

[prairiebreeze]

HOLY SHNIKEYS!!!!

You can say that again!

Prairie

[StriperSniper]

And it's worse in the Senate, Corzine, a Mercedes Marxist, and Lousenberg, a shambling corpse. Let's not even mention my governor, bringing back Florio would not be a step down. :(

[ValerieUSA]

pingy dingy

[philman_36]

North Texas resident Mufid Abdulquader is a city of Dallas engineer...
Must have been another of those low paying jobs Americans don't want to do.

[VOA]

great post...and I heard that quote (or equivalent) from Ibrahim Hooper on The Michael Medved Show