He's affiliated with the CAIR-Arizona office.
He's imam with the Islamic Center of the East Valley.
He was a representative for the Muslim PAC at a fundraiser for Jim Pederson who ran against Kyl in 2006.
He's head of the Valley's Imam Council, is the Islamic leader at a local Islamic parochial school, and imam at a local mosque, and he also emceed a recent CAIR-Arizona fundraiser.
He has a law degree from Jordan, and he used to be with the Tucson Islamic Center in 2001.
Some quotes from Omar via the AZ Republic, 09/28/01: "More than 1200 Muslims died in the WTC catastrophe..." and regarding reports by the FBI of Al-Queda nests in the US..."all of these, they made it up."
He's a Muslim extremist by association, and I doubt he was innocently praying on this flight.
Thank you IrishRainy for the post.
Phoenix seems to be a busy place.
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http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=%22Omar+Shahin%22&scoring=d
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&client=news&q=%22Omar+Shahin%22&ie=UTF8
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UPDATE...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/21/passengers.removed.ap/
"Six Muslim imams taken off plane"
POSTED: 3:00 a.m. EST, November 21, 2006
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AP) --
ARTICLE SNIPPET: ""They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way," said Omar Shahin of Phoenix.
The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, California, he said.
Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.
"I never felt bad in my life like that," he said. "I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed anger at the detentions.
"CAIR will be filing a complaint with relevant authorities in the morning over the treatment of the imams to determine whether the incident was caused by anti-Muslim hysteria by the passengers and/or the airline crew," Hooper said. "Because, unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it's one that we've been addressing for some time."
Hooper said the conference drew about 150 imams from all over the country, and that those attending included U.S. Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minneapolis, who just became the first Muslim elected to Congress. Shahin said they went as far as notifying police and the FBI about their meeting in advance."
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Reached by cell phone just after his release, Shahin said he didn't know where they would spend the night or how they would try to get back to Phoenix on Tuesday. Hooper said US Airways refused to put the men on another flight."
If these fellows were not themselves on Islamic business such as was carried on at WTC back in '01, then it is a pretty good bet they were casing the joint, so to speak.
Well done. I'm not sure what their goal was, but it does seem Muslims have gotten much more "in your face" since 9/11. It is disturbing and seemingly part of a plan to weaken us.