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U.S. Inquiry Said to Focus on 2 Mosques in Seattle
New York Times ^ | Saturday, July 13, 2002 | AP

Posted on 07/12/2002 11:46:50 PM PDT by JohnHuang2

July 13, 2002

U.S. Inquiry Said to Focus on 2 Mosques in Seattle

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE, July 12 (AP) — A federal grand jury is investigating a group of people affiliated with two defunct Seattle mosques for possible ties to Al Qaeda, a lawyer for a former mosque member said today.

"The grand jury is looking into a lot of things," said the lawyer, Robert Leen, who declined to be specific.

Mr. Leen confirmed the inquiry in an interview, after The Seattle Times reported today that investigators here had identified a half-dozen core members of the group but had gathered information on more than 100 others who had dealings with one of the mosques, Dar-us-Salaam.

The newspaper said members of the group had ties to Abu Hamza al-Masri, a suspected Qaeda recruiter who was born in Egypt, runs a London mosque and is wanted in Yemen on terrorism charges. Mr. Masri told The Associated Press after the Sept. 11 attacks that it would be a blessing if God destroyed the United States. Only today, he attended a London meeting of several militant Muslim leaders, who joined in condemning the United States.

The Times also said federal investigators believed that the Seattle group might have scouted a ranch near tiny Bly, Ore., in the fall of 1999 as a possible site for a terrorist training camp. Bly is in Klamath County, whose sheriff, Tim Evinger, said today that the ranch had "never been off the radar screen of the joint terrorism task force" led by the Portland office of the F.B.I. He declined to give details.

Mr. Leen, the lawyer who confirmed the inquiry, represents Semi Osman, 32, who is charged with trying to obtain citizenship fraudulently and with owning a handgun whose serial number was removed. Mr. Osman was born in Sierra Leone, holds a British passport and has lived in the United States since the late 1980's, Mr. Leen said.

Mr. Osman formerly attended the Dar-us-Salaam mosque, which closed after being damaged in an earthquake in February 2001. It is members of that mosque, and of one that opened nearby after the earthquake, who have been under investigation, Mr. Leen said.

The F.B.I. and the United States attorney's office here declined to comment.

But in Bly, Kelly Peterson, a local truck driver and cowboy who previously trained horses for the ranch's owner, Ivan Fisher, said Mr. Osman lived at the ranch with a woman and two children for about three months in 1999.

Mr. Peterson and other Bly residents said Mr. Osman had been known around town as Sammy and had stood out in his tunic and skullcap. Mr. Peterson said that he had heard gunfire at the ranch but that "people fire guns around here all the time." He said he had seen nothing out of the ordinary there.

Regarding Mr. Osman's stay at the ranch, Mr. Leen, his lawyer, said, "I don't think your information is inaccurate." Mr. Leen was clearly familiar with the ranch, volunteering the name of Mr. Fisher, the owner, and saying, "Ivan Fisher raised sheep there, that's true."

Mr. Leen said Mr. Osman had refused to cooperate with investigators. He said that Mr. Osman was not a terrorist but that "it's true he was a member of a mosque where it's clear there were some things going on that probably bear some investigation."

A spokeswoman for the Seattle Police Department, Deanna Nollette, said several people at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque told officers who investigated a 1998 assault that a large number of weapons were stored inside the building. She declined to comment further.

Mr. Osman was arrested on the fraudulent-citizenship charge this May, after accusations that he had entered into a sham marriage in the early 1990's to gain citizenship. Besides the handgun, investigators serving a search warrant found a visa application for Yemen and a passport from Lebanon. The passport, issued in 1981, bears Mr. Osman's photograph but the name Sami Samir el-Kassem, documents filed in federal court in Seattle show.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: 911; almasri; alqaeda; arab; arabs; darussalaam; fbi; holywar; islam; jihad; jihadinamerica; koran; mosques; muslim; seattle; september11; terrorism; terrorist; terrorwar; washington
Saturday, July 13, 2002

Quote of the Day posted by Dead Corpse

1 posted on 07/12/2002 11:46:50 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
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To: *TerrOrWar; *JIHAD IN AMERICA
.
2 posted on 07/13/2002 12:06:46 AM PDT by Libertarianize the GOP
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To: JohnHuang2
Are either of these mosques the one in North Seattle? The one stacked with flowers and messages after 9/11? And the one some drunken bozo attempte
3 posted on 07/13/2002 8:03:11 AM PDT by Eala
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To: Eala
...our liberal Seattle bias coming back to haunt us.

Yeah.

"Let's Celebrate Diversity!"
Notice the date of the article below?
Little did they know what loomed ahead.

Muslim community grows to overflowing in Seattle area

Thursday, September 7, 2000
By PHUONG LE

The pilgrimage begins just before 1:30 p.m. each Friday. It starts as a trickle, then grows as more than 100 vehicles cram into the tiny parking lot of the Islamic Center of South Seattle in SeaTac. Several worshipers come by taxi -- and the drivers as well as passengers stay for the service. Others come on foot, some with work ID badges still clipped to their shirts. Others have small children in tow. Before long, the mosque is so crowded for jumua, or Friday prayer, that many of the hundreds of Muslims place small mats at the edge of the gravel driveway to pray in the rain. Some cannot find an open spot on the mosque's 1-acre grounds. "There's no place for people," said mosque president Ahmed Nassar, directing cars that have spilled into the street for the most special of the day's five prayers. "There's no parking. There's no room for the kids. We have to make a new mosque. It's urgent." Call it a sign of the times. From SeaTac to Bellevue, the Puget Sound's Muslim community is expanding faster than mosques can accommodate. >/b>


Muslim men greet one another after prayers
at the Idriss Mosque on Northeast Northgate
Way in Seattle. With mosques throughout
the region overcrowded, new buildings are
planned in Kent and Everett.

Seven mosques built or established in recent years are already overwhelmed. New ones are planned for Kent and Everett. "We're outgrowing every mosque in Seattle," said Aziz Junejo, host of a public-access cable show, "Focus on Islam," as he left the crowded SeaTac mosque with a prayer mat tucked under his arm. "Every mosque is brimming."

The community's growth is evident beyond houses of worship -- from a new Muslim slaughterhouse and new preschool to the public-access cable show and new restaurants serving Islam-approved food.

"The community has established itself, it has its own infrastructure and is honoring its own tradition and culture," said Greg Gourley, a Bellevue immigration specialist who has observed the dramatic growth of the Muslim community on the Eastside.


At the Idriss mosque, a Muslim father who gave his name
as Essam, reads the Koran with his sons. To his right are
Adil, 16, and Mahand, 13. To his left, Sasa, 5, and Abed Alayz, 6.

The Islamic expansion in Western Washington is part of a national trend, fueled by immigration and high conversion rates that have made Islam one of the fastest-growing religions in the United States, where there are an estimated 6 million Muslims.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, there are 1.2 billion members worldwide, making Islam the second-most popular religion after Catholicism. The Puget Sound region has become particularly attractive to Muslims who, like many others, are drawn to the hot high-tech job market and quality of life, as well as the region's tolerance of diversity.

By some estimates, there are 40,000 Muslims in the region. Almost 90 percent of the area's Muslims are immigrants, said Nazeer Ahmed, editor of the Northwest Islamic Journal, which conducted a study several years ago. An average of 10,000 to 12,000 people move into the Puget Sound from overseas each year, often from countries such as India, Pakistan, Somalia and Cambodia, which have large Muslim populations.

"Seattle is an attraction," said Salah Dandan, 33, who moved with his family to Bellevue two years ago, lured by the region's booming economy. "It's a great place to live. It's also a friendly place for Muslims." With more than 32,000 jobs added in King County each year, and job growth outpacing population growth, the Puget Sound has become a magnet for well-educated, highly skilled workers such as Dandan, who is from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Dubbed Muppies, or Muslim urban professionals, many Muslims come to this country to study and are hired by high-tech firms. Others are recruited directly from overseas by companies who encounter a shortage of workers here. Dandan was recruited by Teledesic Corp. to direct the Kirkland company's business development. In April, the attorney left to help start a firm that helps Internet companies develop overseas markets.

Like many new families in the area, Dandan, his wife and two children are changing the face of the community. This summer, he helped start Medina Academy, an Islamic preschool in Redmond. It opened this week, and among the 20 preschoolers enrolled is his 4-year-old son Kalil. Medina Academy is named after the city in Saudi Arabia where the prophet Mohammed went after being kicked out of Mecca by the pagans. The school plans to add additional grades as enrollment grows.

Schools aren't the only institutions booming.


The Idriss Mosque, like all others in the region, is crowded
for Friday prayers, which begin at 1:30 p.m. Women pray
upstairs, and an overflow crowd uses the basement.

At the Islamic Center of the Eastside in Bellevue, where Dandan's family worships, the mosque had become so crowded during Friday prayers that, six months ago, the community leased additional space in an old Redmond school. Now, mostly Microsoft workers pack the rented facility in Redmond.

When the Bellevue mosque first opened in 1996, some thought it was too big.

"People were saying at the time, 'There are not enough Muslims in Bellevue,'" said Salim Dada, 42, an investment banker. "Now, you can see we have no room." Western Washington's burgeoning Muslim community is young compared with those in Los Angeles, San Diego, Calif., Washington, D.C., and Detroit, where Muslim voter-registration drives, youth camps and advocacy groups are well-established.

But social institutions are sprouting in slow but noticeable ways. Last month, a small group of Muslims from South Seattle bought a U.S. Agriculture Department-inspected slaughterhouse in Sumner. It will offer halal, or lawful, meat slaughtered in accord with Islamic dietary laws. Last week, the 2-year-old Amigos Mexican Grill in the Redmond Town Center "went halal." It got rid of two pork dishes and now serves its burritos, quesadillas and tacos with halal meat.

"There were a lot of people asking for halal food -- that's why I did it," said manager Vill Shirazi. "People are very much eager to find a Mexican restaurant that serves halal." The Islamic Journal's Ahmed marvels at how fast his community and newspaper have grown. Started in 1995 to educate the public about Islam, the newspaper quickly went from printing 2,500 copies to almost twice as many this summer.

"Last month, we were scrambling, looking for copies to send out to people," said Ahmed, a computer consultant who became the paper's editor four years ago. Gourley, the immigration specialist, said the Muslim community's growing presence in the region helps people shatter stereotypes. "What it means for the non-Muslim population is more significant," Gourley said. "The more we get to know about the Muslim community, the better we understand."

Large numbers of Muslims have immigrated as refugees from war-torn countries such as Somalia, Cambodia and Vietnam and settled in South Seattle.

Distinct communities of Somalis and Cham, a Muslim minority in Cambodia, have emerged, and a drive along Martin Luther King Jr. Way reveals several new halal markets and restaurants.

From his popular Olympic Restaurant in Rainier Valley, Alavy Les has watched as more eateries like his have cropped up in recent years. When his father opened Olympic eight years ago, few restaurants served halal. "The Muslim community grew, and the need for halal grew," said the 24-year-old owner, who was born in Vietnam. Now, halal restaurants in the neighborhood offer everything from lamb curry and Vietnamese pho noodles to gyros and fried chicken.

"I come from a very strict religious family," said Les, who wears blue jeans and a baseball cap turned backward. "There was no girlfriends, no KFC, no McDonald's." He studied four years at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia and has made the pilgrimage to Mecca five times.

Making the pilgrimage is one of five pillars of Islam. The others are: declaring there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his servant and messenger; prayer; fasting during the month of Ramadan; and alms giving. "Islam is a way of life," said Les, who has set up an area in his kitchen to pray five times daily. "Islam is every day, every hour and every moment." More about Islam Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a monotheistic faith. Its followers are called Muslims.

Muslims believe Mohammed was the final messenger of God, the last in a series of prophets that included Abraham, Moses and Jesus. The Koran, the holy book of Islam, is said to have been revealed to Mohammed over a period of more than 20 years.

About 10 percent of Muslims are Arabs. The religion is also popular in Southeast Asia, India, North Africa, East Asia and Europe.

A locally produced television program, "Focus on Islam," airs at 10:30 p.m. Sundays on public access cable, channel 29 or 77, in the Seattle area.

The five pillars of Islam are:

1. Testimony of faith, or shahadah.
2. Five formal daily prayers (before dawn, noon, afternoon, after sunset and evening).
3. Fasting during the month of Ramadan (the ninth month of the lunar year).
4. Alms-giving (zakat). Muslims must give at least 2 percent of their savings to the needy.
5. Pilgrimage (hajj). Muslims who are financially able must go to the faith's spiritual center, Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during the month of Hajj (12th month of the lunar year).

Link to article HERE.


4 posted on 07/13/2002 10:20:29 AM PDT by ppaul
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To: JohnHuang2
I have never seen this question answered:

Are mosques in the US allowed to keep "non-muslims" out?

5 posted on 07/13/2002 10:40:40 AM PDT by Publius6961
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To: ppaul
bttt
6 posted on 07/13/2002 10:55:47 AM PDT by Don Myers
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To: Publius6961
They keep "women" out - why not infidels?
7 posted on 07/13/2002 1:32:58 PM PDT by ppaul
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