Second man with ties to University of Idaho arrested [Yet More CAIR Terrorism evident]

A second man with ties to the University of Idaho has been arrested by federal agents in a widening investigation of a suspected terrorist-related web in the Moscow, Idaho-Pullman, Wash., area, an FBI source confirmed today.

Former Idaho student Bassem K. Khafagi was arrested in January at the Marriott Hotel near New York City’s LaGuardia Airport and was returned to Michigan to face bank fraud charges, court documents show.

A total of four men with ties to the Moscow-Pullman area and the Michigan-based Islamic Assembly of North America have been implicated in the investigation.

They include current University of Idaho student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, who was arrested in late February, about a month after Khafagi, and is in custody in Boise, Idaho.

Federal investigators allege the nonprofit IANA, which says it was formed to promote Islam, funneled money to activities supporting terrorism. Khafagi was a founding member of the assembly.

“There is a very strong University of Idaho tie to that organization (IANA),” the FBI agent told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. “It’s safe to say this investigation, because of the ongoing nature, is going to reveal additional information in the future.”

Khafagi has performed some freelance community outreach work for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C., ~~nonprofit~~ [terrorist front] group that seeks to promote a positive view of Muslims. A group spokesman today criticized the FBI for linking Khafagi to terrorism.

“All they are talking about here is some business dispute over a check and an immigration problem,” the official, who requested anonymity, told the AP. “This has nothing to do with terrorism and nothing to do with CAIR.”

Khafagi’s arrest was first reported in The Spokesman-Review newspaper in today’s editions.

Khafagi is charged with bouncing a $6,000 check in February 2002 to National City Bank of Ann Arbor, Mich., which is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., making the crime a federal offense.

Moscow is home to the University of Idaho and Pullman is home to Washington State University. The towns are just eight miles apart, an isolated pocket of academia surrounded by farm fields far from large population centers. Both schools have students from Arab countries.

Investigators also have identified a third former University of Idaho student, who now lives in Detroit, as an associate of IANA. He has not been charged and the FBI agent refused to disclose his name.

The Spokesman-Review reported that a former Washington State University student, Ismail Diab, who lived in the area as recently as last August, is being held as a material witness in the investigation. Washington State University officials today could not confirm that Diab was a student at the Pullman school.

IANA is affiliated with Help the Needy, another nonprofit organization based in Syracuse, N.Y., also under investigation by the FBI. Four Arab men were arrested there in February and are accused of raising $4 million for unnamed individuals in Iraq through Help the Needy.

Khafagi and Al-Hussayen are being held for investigation of violating U.S. immigration laws while awaiting separate trials on the fraud charges.

Al-Hussayen, a Saudi national, is being held in Boise on charges of visa fraud and lying to federal agents. He has pleaded innocent to an 11-count federal indictment, and his trial is set for April 15.

Al-Hussayen is accused of making false statements on student visa applications and helping set up Web sites to gather money for terrorism against Americans. Prosecutors said a computer which Al-Hussayen used had thousands of photographs, including the World Trade Center towers before and after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks.

Al-Hussayen’s attorneys and friends in Moscow dispute the government’s contention that Al-Hussayen has led a life on the fringes of terrorism.

But federal investigators contend Al-Hussayen and IANA provided Web sites for two radical Saudi sheiks, Salman Al-Awdah and Safar al-Hawali, who have direct contact with Osama bin Laden. IANA operated more than a dozen Internet sites, many of them managed by Al-Hussayen.

Khafagi, an Egyptian national, enrolled at the University of Idaho in 1986 and earned a master’s degree in civil engineering in August 1988, school officials say. His specialty was structural engineering.

After getting his degree, Khafagi remained enrolled at the University of Idaho, working as a teaching assistant in engineering and taking postgraduate classes.

He moved to East Lansing, Mich., and enrolled at Michigan State University in the fall of 1990, MSU records show. He received his doctorate in civil engineering, specializing in structural engineering, in 1993. He later lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., operating a business called International Media Group from his home, court documents showed. It was not clear what kind of business it was, court records said.

Wednesday morning I called Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Last week Hooper and I had words on MSNBC’s Nachman show about the propriety of the FBI investigating mosques, and I wanted to get his reaction to new allegations that the al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn has been a chief source of funding for al-Qaeda.

But Mr. Hooper wouldn’t tell me what he thought. Without allowing me to ask my question, he just said, "I have no interest in promoting the anti-Muslim agenda of you or FrontPage Magazine," and hung up.

Now, I know that tempers are boiling over in today’s tense political climate. But CAIR would be able to gain a better hearing for its new campaign to "foster greater understanding of Islam" if its spokesmen engaged the organization’s political opponents honestly, instead of smearing their positions and indulging in juvenile displays. This is especially true in these days of national crisis. Americans have legitimate questions about CAIR and Islamic radicalism that Hooper and Co. has so far refused to answer, preferring instead to resort to ad hominem attacks upon those who raise the questions.

But the questions aren’t going away. Ibrahim Hooper won’t answer them, but he can’t bury them:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6546

Ibrahim Hooper won’t answer them, but he can’t bury them

The following is necessarily Ibrahim Hooper's authoritative answer:

Medina Suras
The Chapter of Women
[Chapters from the Koran]
The Harvard Classics 1909–14
But if there befalls you grace from God, he would say—as though there were no friendship between you and him—‘O would that I had been with thee to attain this mighty happiness!’ Let those then fight in God’s way who sell this life of the world for the next; and whoso fights in God’s way, then, be he killed or be he victorious, we will give him a mighty hire.
What ails you that ye do not fight in God’s way, and for the weak men and women and children, who say, ‘Lord, bring us out of this town 19 of oppressive folk, and make for us from Thee a patron, and make for us from Thee a help?’
Those who believe fight in the way of God; and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Tâghût; fight ye then against the friends of Satan, verily, Satan’s tricks are weak.
Do ye not see those to whom it is said, ‘Restrain your hands, and be steadfast in prayer and give alms;’ and when it is prescribed for them to fight then a band of them fear men, as though it were the fear of God or a still stronger fear, and they say, ‘O our Lord! why hast thou prescribed for us to fight, couldst thou not let us abide till our near appointed time?’ Say, ‘The enjoyment of this world is but slight, and the next is better for him who fears;’—but they shall not be wronged a straw.

...
Why are ye two parties about the hypocrites, when God hath overturned them for what they earned? Do ye wish to guide those whom God hath led astray? Whoso God hath led astray ye shall not surely find for him a path. They would fain that ye misbelieve as they misbelieve, that ye might be alike; take ye not patrons from among them until they too flee in God’s way; but if they turn their backs, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them, and take from them neither patron nor help,—save those who reach a people betwixt whom and you is an alliance—or who come to you while their bosoms prevent them from fighting you or fighting their own people. But had God pleased He would have given you dominion over them, and they would surely have fought you. But if they retire from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace,—then God hath given you no way against them.
Ye will find others who seek for quarter from you, and quarter from their own people; whenever they return to sedition they shall be overturned therein: but if they retire not from you, nor offer you peace, nor restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them;—over these we have made for you manifest power.

Terrorists and their supporters are doing their best to weave themselves into the political fabric of American society, say specialists in homeland security. They are operating front groups and charities to finance their operations, and they are running influence operations to weaken federal antiterrorism laws under the guise of protecting civil liberties.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31441

There is Cair and AMC both grous are terrorist fronts!
AMC on terrorism: "We are all supporters of Hamas! Allahu Akhbar! ... I am also a supporter of Hezbollah" (AMC founder Abdurahman Alamoudi, Associated Press, Jan. 9, 2002).

AMC on the United States: "I think if we were outside this country, we can say, 'Oh, Allah, destroy America,' but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means to do it. You can be violent anywhere else but in America" (Alamoudi to Islamic Association of Palestine, Chicago, Dec. 29, 1996).

AMC on Hamas: "Hamas is not a terrorist group. ... I have followed the good work of Hamas. ... They have a wing that is a violent wing. They had to resort to some kind of violence" (Alamoudi, National Press Club, Nov. 22, 1994).

AMC on Abu Marzook, deported from the United States and now Hamas leader in Syria: "Yes, I am honored to be a member of the committee that is defending Musa Abu Marzook in America. This a mark of distinction on my chest. ... I have known Musa Abu Marzook before and I really consider him to be from among the best people in the Islamic movement, Hamas -- in the Palestinian movement in general -- and I work together with him" (Alamoudi, Middle East TV, March 26, 1996).

AMC on Muslims and the war on terrorism: "We as Muslim Americans are being called upon to either show patriotism or suffer shame" (AMC Executive Director Eric Vickers, Sept. 24, 2002).

AMC on Wahhabism: "We have no more right or business putting Wahhabism on trial for the Sept. 11 attack, as your editorial suggests, than we do putting Christianity on trial for the Oklahoma City bombing" (Vickers, letter to editor, Buffalo News, Sept. 26, 2002).

AMC on al-Qaeda: "They are involved in a resistance movement" (Vickers, MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews, June 27, 2002 ).

AMC on President George W. Bush's closure of the Holy Land Foundation as an alleged terrorist fund-raising front: "Particularly disturbing ... unjust and counterproductive" (AMC statement, Dec. 11, 2001).

AMC on Bush's State of the Union speech and Iraq: "In invoking God to be with American soldiers in our apparently imminent war with Iraq, what the president did not say is that he is calling on God to kill innocent Iraqi children" (Vickers, Jan. 29, 2003).

AMC on ridding the U.S. Muslim community of terrorists: "As long as the war on terrorism exists, the government is not going to cease profiling Muslims, having selective INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] registrations, spying on mosques and Muslims, detaining Muslims, raiding Muslim organizations and businesses, bringing fishing-expedition criminal indictments, etc. ... Thus I think we have no real choice but to follow the wise example of our brother Malcolm X and take our case to the world community. And who, I would ask, has better stature as a mainstream organization than the AMC to credibly present this compelling case?" (Vickers, Jan. 31).

AMC to imams on how to work with the FBI: "AMC calls upon you to demonstrate mass criticism and activism against the new FBI policy, which directs FBI field offices nationwide to conduct an inventory of mosques and Muslims as part of their charge to develop demographic profiles of their regions to combat possible terrorism" (Vickers, memorandum to imams, Jan. 28, 2003).

AMC before Sami Al-Arian arrest:

"First let me say that when you had Mr. -- professor Arian on your show -- you didn't grill him, you assassinated his character. You presented him to all the world as a terrorist. And there's absolutely no evidence of that. ... What has happened to professor Arian is happening to Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent all over this country. They are being discriminated against" (Vickers, on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Jan. 15, 2002).

AMC after Al-Arian arrest: "The [Muslim] community is gaining the perception that people are rounded up and targeted because of their political opinions and because they exercise the right to dissent on current U.S. policy. Our community is in dire need to understand how these charges are founded on concrete evidence of criminal activity and not guilt by association or political considerations" (AMC news release with the Council on American Islamic Relations, American Muslim Alliance and Muslim Public Affairs Council, under the American Muslim Political Coordination Council, Feb. 21, 2003).

http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=384362

question is who brings them into the white house besides Grover Norquest?

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