It started out as an investigation into U.S.-based financing of Hamas terrorist operations, which was bad enough. But as federal investigators developed a matrix of suspects, they discovered a possible 9/11 connection.
The Holy Land Foundation terror case has already touched the top Muslim lobby in Washington — the Council on American-Islamic Relations — which U.S. prosecutors recently named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
A former senior CAIR official is among five indicted figures in the major terror-funding case. It turns out he is related by marriage to a key suspect in the conspiracy — a radical Muslim cleric and activist who authorities have linked to al-Qaida.
In fact, they say the cleric is closely connected to the spiritual adviser to the 9/11 hijackers.
Federal investigators have learned that imam Mohammed El-Mezain — who goes on trial next month with one of CAIR’s founding board members — once lived in the same small Colorado apartment complex with another imam accused of preparing some of the hijackers for their “martyrdom” operation.
El-Mezain and imam Anwar Aulaqi later moved to San Diego, where Aulaqi held closed-door meetings with the al-Qaida hijackers. The two radical clerics also organized pilgrimages to Mecca together, including one made just months before the 9/11 attacks.
According to federal investigators, El-Mezain likely met Aulaqi in Fort Collins, Colo., around 1990, when the two lived next door to each other.
Investigators have traced El-Mezain’s address at the time to 500 W. Prospect Rd. in Fort Collins. Aulaqi also listed an address then at 500 W. Prospect Rd. El-Mezain occupied Apartment 19C, while Aulaqi occupied Apartment 23L, as I first reported in my book, “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and
Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”
In February 2001, El-Mezain and Aulaqi arranged for American Muslims to go on an “executive-package” trip to the Saudi holy land through a travel agency in Falls Church, Va., a connection also revealed in “Infiltration.” The trip itinerary I obtained lists Aulaqi as the “Imam on Trip,” with El-Mezain acting as trip adviser.
El-Mezain and Aulaqi moved in the same circles in San Diego.
Before his recent arrest, El-Mezain headed the San Diego office of alleged Hamas front Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and, like Aulaqi, served as a leader in local mosques there. Aulaqi preached in a San Diego mosque for four years before moving in January 2001 to Falls Church,
Va., to lead prayers at Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, the largest mosque in the Washington, D.C., area.
Re: obituaries of this jerk’s parentsL
Everything in those obit’s indicates his parents were muslims.
So why is it the news clowns keep describing him as a “convert to Islam” (when they dare mention Islam at all)?
49 and 52 are really quite young to die.......wonder what is up with that.
these two were quite young - 52 and 49. how did they die?