Heads up ya'll........
Posted on 09/13/2002 1:18:43 AM PDT by WaterDragon
The Islamic Center of Portland -- the southwest Portland mosque that has come under recent FBI scrutiny -- is considered one of the most radical mosques in the U.S...(snip) The FBI is taking a close look at those who frequent the Islamic Center.
For complete story click here.
Related story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Reviewby Betsy Hiel and Chuck Plunkett:
A writer for a former Pittsburgh Islamist magazine is connected to a Portland, Ore., mosque that is under FBI scrutiny with the arrest of its imam, or religious leader.
Tawfiq Tabib, 49, who wrote for an Islamist magazine published in Pittsburgh from 1991 to 2000, lives in the same apartment complex as Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, who was arrested Sunday at Portland International Airport with one-way tickets to the United Arab Emirates. In interviews conducted in Portland and Eugene, Ore., in July, sources told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that FBI agents consider the Islamic Center "one of the most radical in the country."...(snip)
Islamists constitute a small but significant minority of Muslims, perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Many of them are peaceable in apearance, but they all must be considered potential killers.
How does 400,000 to 800,000 -- in our country -- potential killers sound?
Meet an Islamist -- peaceable in appearance, killer
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)
Heads up ya'll........
I actually think Portland isn't as liberal as its government, and that a center-right mayor could win if business people would just get behind a candidate and fight for him. Most of the nutty liberalism is centered in NW, downtown and Hawthorne/Belmont.
Again, this was very predictable the way that Katz and her butt boy Keystone Key Kops, and the city council rushed to keep from helping the Feds in interviewing these local Islamakazis last year a few months after 9/11.
This link goes to one of our discussions on these left wing POSes from the Mayor of Portland on down. They all are Watermelons who hate America/Americans and are in full lust of the Islmakazis here and around the world: (Vera Katz and her Fellow Watermelons Welcome Islamkazis to Portland)
Al-Qaida trail tracked to NW
09/13/02
LES ZAITZ
The year was 1997, and one of Osama bin Laden's trusted aides, Wadih El-Hage, had just returned to Kenya from a meeting with bin Laden, who was known as "the contractor." His instructions were to "militarize" the Kenyan network of al-Qaida operatives, the men who would carry out the suicide bombing of the America Embassy in downtown Nairobi.
El-Hage carried with him a seven-page report from al-Qaida's military commander that detailed the group's new ties to the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan. Days later, according to Kenyan phone records, he faxed the document to three men in the U.S. with the suggestion that it be shared with the "brothers in work."
One fax went to a Florida man later identified in court testimony as an al-Qaida member and pilot. A second copy was sent to California, to Ali Mohammed, an intimate of bin Laden's who was involved in planning the embassy attacks. And the third went to Lake Oswego, to the fax machine of a civil engineer named Farid Adlouni.
Records show the two men had extensive contact. Over 16 months in 1996 and 1997, El-Hage called Adlouni in Oregon 72 times, sometimes just before or after meeting with bin Laden. Adlouni's home phone and fax numbers were listed in two personal phone directories and one notebook kept by El-Hage. The directories also contained coded entries for al-Qaida leaders.
Adlouni, 38, has not been charged, but he is one of at least three Portland-area men the FBI has focused on in its investigation of suspected terror links to Oregon and the Northwest. He runs an online Muslim business directory in Southwest Portland.
Prosecutors recently brought charges in Seattle and Detroit against several men accused of providing money, false identification and logistical support that included plans for a training camp in Bly.
The investigation in Oregon, law enforcement officials said, is aimed at building similar cases.
Federal prosecutors and investigators won't comment on the scope or direction of the inquiry, but interviews and an examination of more than 40,000 pages of court records and other documents show that the FBI investigation has been extensive, involving sophisticated electronic eavesdropping.
Among the other subjects of federal scrutiny is Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, 40, the head of the Islamic Center of Portland, which is also called Masjed As-Saber. Records show that Kariye was a founding member of an Illinois charity that authorities have linked to al-Qaida. He was arrested this week at Portland International Airport and charged with Social Security fraud as he attempted to leave the United States with his children and brother.
Representatives of the Islamic Center rejected repeated interview requests and did not respond to written questions. On Thursday, the mosque issued a statement "in response to media inquiries and reports of unsubstantiated links to terrorism."
"Rather than working towards healing and understanding, these reports have created an uneasy and insecure feeling among Muslims and non-Muslims alike," the statement read in part. "If there were any truth to these reports, the government surely knows and would have acted upon them by now."
Kariye, who pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges, didn't respond to questions sent three weeks before his arrest.
A third man who has been a focal point of FBI inquiries is Ali K. Steitiye, 40, a Portland computer technician. He was arrested by the terrorism task force last October, and three leaders of the mosque testified on his behalf at his detention hearing in an unsuccessful effort to win his release. He was convicted in June on federal weapons and fraud charges and is to be sentenced Wednesday.
Many of the ties between Portland-area residents and al-Qaida revolve around El-Hage, a Lebanese immigrant who served for two years as bin Laden's personal secretary. El-Hage was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.
Records show that El-Hage had extensive dealings with Adlouni. El-Hage enlisted Adlouni to sell gems in the United States, used his bank account to pay a debt and asked for his help in raising money for an African charity that has been tied to the 1998 embassy bombings, according to court records and testimony.
Adlouni, a native of Lebanon, remains a "person of interest" to an FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to an intelligence source. He declined to respond to written questions or repeated requests for an interview, and it is not clear from the faxes and other documents what, if anything, he knew about El-Hage's role in al-Qaida, an organization that mixed legitimate businesses with terrorism.
Federal prosecutors, in an action that has not been made public, identified him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the embassy bombings case, according to defense attorneys.
The FBI interviewed Adlouni twice in 1997.
Students become friends Al-Qaida's connections to Portland-area residents are rooted in the mid-1980s, when Wadih El-Hage enrolled in the University of Louisiana to study urban planning. While attending classes, El-Hage struck up a friendship with a Kuwaiti immigrant, Khalil Zaidan, who had also come to Louisiana for a college education.
After graduating in 1986, El-Hage worked for a time as a driver and a parks maintenance worker in Phoenix, Ariz., before moving to the Sudan in 1992 to take a job as personal secretary to bin Laden, who was building an organization he called al-Qaida, Arabic for "the base." An al-Qaida defector later testified that El-Hage's duties included the processing of payroll for al-Qaida operatives hidden in a web of companies owned by bin Laden.
Zaidan moved to Oregon and by 1992 had opened a computer equipment company in Portland and began attending religious services at the Islamic Center of Portland.
According to prosecutors, El-Hage moved to Kenya in 1994 to take over the al-Qaida network that carried out the bombing of the American Embassy in that country four years later. He continued to help bin Laden's businesses.
In late 1995, El-Hage launched a new profit-making venture: the sales of an African gemstone called tanzanite. According to Sam Schmidt, El-Hage's attorney, he called Zaidan in Oregon, who said he wasn't interested but knew someone from his Portland mosque who might be -- Adlouni.
Adlouni, a native of Lebanon, enrolled in college at the University of Texas at Arlington, earning a degree in civil engineering in Texas.
He moved to Oregon in 1988 and operated a video store before taking a job at the Washington State Department of Transportation, engineering safety improvements for highways. Colleagues at the department said he was industrious, competent and friendly.
"He was a good engineer," recalled Bob Briggs, one of Adlouni's supervisors.
Adlouni's co-workers said he soon became more involved in the Muslim faith. Agency officials allowed Adlouni to set up a prayer rug in a spare room and gave him time for his daily prayers. He let his beard grow according to Muslim custom as part of what one coworker described as "a very complete conversion."
Adlouni became more active in his Portland mosque, the Islamic Center. Co-workers said he assumed a leadership role and raised money for a new mosque building and has taken on public speaking engagements on its behalf.
Money from El-Hage Court records show that El-Hage and Adlouni had business dealings and that El-Hage made use of the Portland man's bank account on at least one occasion. Adlouni did not respond to repeated requests to explain the transactions, and it is not clear from the records whether Adlouni understood El-Hage's role in al-Qaida.
On April 6, 1996, El-Hage sent a fax from Kenya to a friend in Texas that asked him to move money into Adlouni's local bank account.
"I want to transfer one thousand dollars to a brother in Oregon, his name is FAREED ADLUNY. I hope you can transfer this amount to him or send him a check as soon as you can and take this money from my account," El-Hage wrote in a fax message recovered by the FBI.
El-Hage provided Adlouni's home address, telephone number and account number at the U.S. Bank in Beaverton.
In court papers, El-Hage's attorney dismissed the fax as an "innocuous request" that had no connection to al-Qaida. He did not elaborate.
Adlouni's bank account again came into play seven months later.
El-Hage owed a company in Slovakia several thousand dollars for spare tractor parts that he had bought for bin Laden's farming operations in Sudan. El-Hage told a grand jury that he paid some of the bill with bin Laden's money. But the remainder, a payment of $3,150, came out of Adlouni's Portland account in November 1996.
In an e-mail that month that was later seized by the FBI, El-Hage wrote the Slovak company that he had transferred the balance due from the "U.S. National Bank of Oregon."
El-Hage's attorneys confirmed that this was an imprecise reference to Adlouni's account. They said that banking in the former Soviet bloc was tricky and that El-Hage wanted to use a bank he could trust. In addition, they said, Adlouni owed money to El-Hage for their gemstone business.
That venture went poorly. El-Hage complained in e-mails intercepted by federal investigators that prices were low and sales slow in the U.S. In one e-mail, El-Hage apparently refers to Adlouni as "Fareed" -- the spelling that appears in El-Hage's telephone directory.
"About the stone business, you will be surprised to know that the last consignment I sent to the States last December is still there with brother Fareed," El-Hage wrote one friend sometime in early 1997.
In late 1996, El-Hage addressed a fax to "the dear brother Farid, to the brothers in the Islamic Center in Portland, Oregon." He asked for money to feed starving Kenyans and Somalians.
"People have been dying from lack of food and water," the message said. He asked money be sent to his charity's bank in Nairobi.
Officials at the mosque didn't respond to written questions about whether the mosque or its members contributed to El-Hage's cause.
In the summer of 1997, U.S. intelligence agents recorded a conversation between El-Hage and another associate involving gems and Adlouni. According to the government transcript, the associate said customers in Syria might want some stones.
"I have some stones valued at $5,000. They have been in the U.S. for more than five months now, and they cannot sell them," El-Hage said. "I can give you the telephone number of the guy who has the stones," he continued, and listed a telephone number in Oregon. "The guy's name is Farid Adlouni."
The U.S. Treasury Department said it now suspects that al-Qaida was funding itself in part through the tanzanite business. The agency has a task force investigating al-Qaida involvement in the gemstone business.
Adlouni told his co-workers at the Washington State Department of Transportation that he was dabbling in the gem business without much success. There is no indication in the publicly available court records and testimony that he knew the ultimate purpose of the money El-Hage was raising through the sales.
El-Hage had turned to the tanzanite business to supplement another enterprise in Kenya, a charity he registered in Kenya under the name "Help Africa People." Federal investigators later concluded that this charity was a front to provide cover identities for al-Qaida agents involved in the embassy bombing.
Taliban report delivered Bin Laden was thrown out of the Sudan in 1996 and moved his operations to Afghanistan, which was rapidly coming under the authority of a group of young, religious fanatics known as the Taliban.
In February 1997, El-Hage was preparing for a trip to Afghanistan to meet bin Laden and Mohammed Atef, the Egyptian man prosecutors have identified as the military commander of al-Qaida. Just before he left Africa, telephone records show, he called Adlouni in Portland. El-Hage returned to Kenya at the end of the month with instructions to militarize the Kenyan operation. A day after his return, El-Hage phoned Adlouni's Lake Oswego number four times.
Days later, on Feb. 25, 1997, El-Hage sent a seven-page fax from his walled compound in Nairobi to associates in Germany and in the U.S. -- including Adlouni. The report, introduced at El-Hage's trial, was written in Arabic by Atef and summarized how the Taliban was taking control in Afghanistan.
"We wish to put our Muslim friends in the picture of the events, especially that the media portrayed an untrue image about the Taliban movement," Atef wrote. "Our duty towards the movement is to stand behind it, support it materially and morally."
In August 1997, El-Hage took another trip to meet bin Laden. Three days before leaving, he called Adlouni five times.
This time when he returned to Kenya, El-Hage was stopped at the Nairobi airport by FBI agents, who had already searched his home and office. An El-Hage associate described the scene in a letter that employed the crude code of the terrorist organization, referring to the FBI as the "Food and Beverage Industry."
El-Hage, the letter said, "was contacted by one of the opposition company called the Food and Beverage Industry based in the U.S. He was given an extensive interview. This interview was conducted in East Africa. After when he decided to return home and settle down in Texas."
In mid-September, El-Hage left Kenya for good -- but not before making one more call to Adlouni.
Adlouni's former co-worker, Michael Clark of the Washington Department of Transportation, said that at the time Adlouni was working as a telecommuter at home. He said the FBI questioned Adlouni at home and then asked that Adlouni be summoned to the office so he could be interviewed a second time.
Clark said Adlouni didn't share details of the FBI contact except he was under pressure to give information about someone.
"Because he knew somebody, the FBI assumed that he knew more than he was telling," Clark said.
In 1998, Adlouni left the transportation agency to enter business and pursue a private engineering career. He married, had two children, and moved from his Lake Oswego condominium to a one-story home on a gravel dead-end street near the mosque in Portland.
He now operates Jerusalem Enterprises Inc., which produces a Muslim business directory and sells imports.
In 2000, Adlouni and Zaidan were listed as defense witnesses for El-Hage but never appeared. Around the same time, they were summoned to a federal grand jury in New York investigating al-Qaida. Zaidan's appearance was postponed and never rescheduled. It couldn't be established whether Adlouni appeared because grand jury proceedings are secret.
Zaidan did not respond to written questions or repeated requests for interviews.
More recently, Adlouni has served as a speaker on behalf of the mosque, addressing non-Muslim audiences interested in learning about the Muslim faith. He made such an appearance last October, speaking to the Lake Oswego Rotary Club less than a month after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Adlouni said Muslims condemned the attacks but cautioned against blaming bin Laden.
"We are not ready, before we see the evidence that will condemn that individual, to say he is guilty," Adlouni said.
Global Relief Foundation Separately, federal investigators were also focusing their attention on Mohamed Kariye, the imam, or religious leader, of the Portland mosque Adlouni attended.
In 1992, Kariye was among the founding directors of a Muslim charity called the Global Relief Foundation. His name in incorporations filings was given as "Muhamed Abdirahman," a variation of one of several names he used. The address listed in the papers is in a Southwest Alfred Street complex where Kariye lives.
Federal authorities froze the charity's assets in December, and the U.S. Treasury Department is investigating whether the charity should be formally branded a terrorist organization for using its charitable status to provide money and support to al-Qaida.
The foundation's links to terrorist groups "generally have been known within the intelligence and law enforcement communities dating back many years," according to an affidavit filed in a Chicago federal court by R. Richard Newcomb, a Treasury official.
The FBI last Dec. 14 searched the Illinois office of Global Relief and the home of its executive director. The same day, Rabih Haddad, a founder and former chairman of Global Relief, was arrested in Michigan for violating his tourist visa.
The Treasury Department said in a court filing in Chicago that it was concerned that the foundation sent millions of dollars "to the very countries experiencing Islamic extremist violence, with no detailed accounting of the money and a refusal to respond to further inquiries by the federal government."
The Treasury Department said in court papers it had classified information establishing Global Relief's connections to al-Qaida. In the publicly available portions of its submission, the department detailed contacts between the foundation and El-Hage in 1996 and 1997.
Neither Kariye nor Portland mosque officials responded to questions about his role in the foundation.
Roger Simmons, a Maryland attorney representing the foundation, said Kariye attended "one or two meetings" to help create the organization but had not been involved with Global Relief since. He said Kariye was listed as a director in the company's annual report filed with Illinois officials in January 1993.
Ashraf Nubani, a Virginia attorney representing Zaidan, the man who introduced Adlouni to El-Hage, has also has been general counsel to Global Relief. He said the foundation vigorously challenges the government's claims, saying the foundation has no connections to al-Qaida or any terrorists. Nubani said the charity has been destroyed by the government's actions.
Nubani acknowledged that the foundation raised money in Portland and said that Haddad, the Michigan man under arrest, had spoken at the Islamic Center of Portland.
Nubani also confirmed that Portland Muslims were among the first to offer Haddad support after his arrest last December. Haddad was arrested on a Friday, and by Monday, Portland mosques forwarded 27 pages containing nearly 300 signatures on a petition seeking Haddad's release. The petitions said Haddad had a reputation as a "humanitarian with selfless community service" and for "excellent moral character." The petitions asked for Haddad to be released.
Haddad remains in federal custody pending a hearing on the immigration violation.
News researchers Kathleen Blythe and Margie Gultry contributed to this report. Les Zaitz: 503-221-8181; leszaitz@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page/103191814880351.xml
Death To all Tyrant's !!
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security !!
Molon Labe !!
They also reported that the people who attend the mosque were being discouraged from talking to the media, and, in fact, the guy they were interviewing was whisked away by others at the center.
That story is not on KXL's web site, but here are some that are:
Terrorism expert: Portland was once extremist hotbed
A terrorism expert says Portland used to be a hotbed for radical Muslims, some of whom may have gone underground.
Gary Perlstein, a retired professor from Portland State University, said it was a very small group of radicals, however. They have either become silent about their views or moved away, he said.
“Even if there is, it is still - from my judgment, from the Muslims I know - a minority,” said Perlstein. “But the minority could make the moderates afraid. “
Perlstein said he has heard that the PSU campus once had such a problem with radical Muslims that Saudi Arabia held off on giving its students scholarships to go to Portland – because the government was afraid its students would get “corrupted” by those radicals here.
Al-Quaida phone trail leads to Portland
According to a report in the Oregonian, Osama bin Laden's former personal secretary had extensive contact with an Oregon man over the last decade.
Wadih El-Hage, who was convicted of conspiracy and perjury in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, called Farid Adlouni 72 times over 16 months in 1996 and 1997. Citing Kenyan phone records from 1997, the paper also reports that El-Hage faxed Adlouni a seven-page report from al-Qaida's military commander that detailed the group's ties to the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan.
Adlouni, who is 38, has not been charged, but he is one of at least three Portland-area men the FBI has focused on in its investigation of terror links to Oregon.
Al-Quaida's roots in Oregon date to the mid-80s, when El-Hage struck up a friendship with Khalil Zaidan, who moved to Oregon in 1992 and opened a computer equipment company in Portland. He attended religious services at the Islamic Center of Portland. In 1995, El Hage called Zaidan to tell him about the launching of a profit making venture: the sales of an African gemstone called tanzanite.
According to El-Hage's attorney, Sam Schmidt, Zaidan told El-Hage he wasn't interested in the business, but he knew someone from Portland who was - Adlouni. Records show that El-Hage had extensive dealings with Adlouni.
El-Hage enlisted Adlouni to sell gems in the United States, used his bank account to pay a debt and asked for his help in raising money for an African charity that has been tied to the 1998 embassy bombings.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
FBI looks at Kariye's charity
Federal investigators are focusing their attention on Mohamed Kariye, a religious leader in Portland. In 1992, Kariye was among the founding directors of a Muslim charity called the Global Relief Foundation. His name in incorporations filings was given as "Muhamed Abdirahman," a variation of one of the several names he used.
Federal authorities froze the charity's assets in December, and the US Treasury Department is investigating whether the charity should be formally branded a terrorist organization for using its charitable status to provide money and support al-Qaida.
Richard Newcomb, a US Treasury official, said the foundation's links to terrorist groups "generally have been known within the intelligence and law enforcement communities dating back many years."
Kariye was arrested Sunday at Portland International Airport by an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force as he attempted to leave for the United Arab Emirates with his brother and four young children. Kariye was ordered held without bail Tuesday on two felony charges of Social Security fraud.
He pleaded innocent; a trial is scheduled for November Fifth.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.