HOW TERRORISTS HAVE INFILTRATED AMERICAPosted on 01/07/2003 1:55:40 AM PST by Uncle Bill
HOW TERRORISTS HAVE INFILTRATED AMERICA
Recruiting, fundraising, money laundering and planning Jihad in the ‘land of the free’
The Free Press,
A division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York
By Steven Emerson
2002
The following article was published in the December 2002 Volume 11, No. 12 Whistleblower publication of Worldnetdaily, in their Terrorists Among Us edition.
Journalist Steven Emerson, since leaving CNN in 1993, has come to be regarded by many as the nation’s leading expert on Islamist terror networks. He works full-time on tracking the spread of terrorist networks to American shores, at great personal risk. In 1995, not long after the release of his PBS documentary "Jihad in America," he was informed by federal officials that an Islamist death squad had been dispatched to kill him, and that he should leave his home immediately. Ever since then he has not maintained a home address, varies his routine, takes a different route to work each day and practices other "living-underground" techniques, although he continues to write and testify under his own name, and is a frequent expert on TV news reports.
With the help of a staff of researchers he has followed the terrorists’ monetary sources, monitored their attacks and plans, exposed their ties to charitable foundations, and assisted a variety of government agencies in the battle against them.
"What we discovered," says Emerson of his research group, The Investigative Project, "is that, indeed, international terrorist organizations of all sorts had set up shop here in America. They often took advantage of religious, civic, or charitable organizations. Usually this was more than enough to fool the public, the police, and especially naïve leaders of religious or educational institutions, who were more than willing to encourage and sponsor these groups in the name of "multiculturalism" and "diversity." Meanwhile, U.S.-based terrorists have been able to use these organizations to ferry equipment to Middle Eastern terror groups, to offer financial support to the families of suicide bombers, to coordinate efforts with other terrorist networks around the world, and ultimately to plan and support terrorist acts in the United States."
Following is an exclusive excerpt from Emerson’s 2002 book, "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us."
Only by knowing how the terrorists’ networks operate, and what they have accomplished in the past decade, can we be vigilant in detecting any new activity. Unfortunately, the terrorists’ world is complex and shadowy, full of unfamiliar names and half-known or hidden activities.
In 1987, FBI informants reported seeing weapons in the Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn.
An application for a wiretap was nonetheless turned down by the Justice Department since there was no evidence of criminal conspiracy. As it turned out, however, the Alkhifa Refugee Center, then based at the mosque had become a center for counterfeiting tens of thousands of dollars, shipping explosives to Hamas in the Middle East, reconfiguring passports to enable Muslim volunteers to visit the United States, and enlisting new recruits for Jihad in Bosnia, the Philippines, Egypt, Algeria, Kashmir, Palestine, and elsewhere. But at the time, none of this was known.
Two years later, on Aug. 29, 1989, a Connecticut state trooper stopped a suspicious vehicle carrying six "Middle Eastern persons" near the High Rock Shooting Range in Naugatuck. According to FBI reports, the trooper found a small arsenal of semi-automatic weapons and several out-of-state license plates in the trunk. The guns were legally licensed to the driver, a local gun dealer and former Waterbury policeman of Albanian origin. He told police he was training volunteers to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. A computer check found that the extra license plates were registered to El-Sayeed Nosair, a name that meant little at the time.
A year later, on Nov. 5, 1990, Nosair leapt onto the front pages of newspapers when he murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League and leader of a militant anti-Arab movement in Israel, at a hotel in New York. By then, several foreign militant movements had moved into the liberal environment of the United States of America. By 1990, Hamas (of Palestine) and al-Gama’at al=Islamiyya (of Egypt) were here, as was the precursor to the now-infamous al-Qaida (of Afghanistan and Sudan) run by Osama bin Laden.
In the following decade, a shifting cast of characters attempted a series of attacks on American targets:
These acts all aimed at Americans at home. But terrorists have also used the country as a base for mayhem committed against other nations and against American targets abroad. Osama bin Laden, for example, used agents in the United States to purchase a satellite telephone and carry it to him, for use in planning the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Hamas is known to have sent promising Middle Eastern recruits to the United States for training; here they were taught how to build car bombs and other explosives for use in the Middle East.
Above all, the United States has proven a fertile ground for fund-raising. Nonprofit foundations have helped raise untold sums supporting terrorist activities in the Middle East and elsewhere. Overall, the terrorists’ activities can be divided into four categories: recruitment, fund-raising and /or money-laundering, networking, and direct organizing.
Recruitment
Foreign terrorist organizations have utilized solo operators in America as well as groups. Some of their representatives and supporters have entered the country illegally, using visa fraud; they have also actively recruited individuals who are able to use American passports to travel freely around the world.
A few examples will give the general idea. For just one example of visa fraud, consider the case of Ghazi Ibrahim abu Mezer. In 1997, he was arrested by New York police acting on a tip, foiling his plan to bomb the city subway system. Abu Mezer had no business being in this country; he had been apprehended on three separate occasions by the Immigration and Naturalization Service within little more than a year prior to his arrest, each time for illegally entering the country from Canada.
The INS had begun deportation proceedings, a lengthy process during which abu Mezer was free on bail. He had complicated the matter by applying for political asylum on the grounds that he was in danger of arrest by Israeli law enforcement thanks to his membership in the Hamas organization.
As abu Mezer’s example demonstrates, visa fraud is a messy business for terrorists. It is possible, and sometimes even easy, to avoid detention and INS proceedings for months and even years, but if your real name is on a list of suspected terrorists, you must operate clandestinely. Even if the wheels of justice grind slowly, they do grind. Far better, then, for the terrorist organization is to recruit members who hold American passports.
For example, Hamas used Mohammed Salah, an American naturalized citizen, to travel to Israel using his American passport in order to enter Palestinian territories carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars—primarily from the head of the Hamas Political Bureau in the United States, Musa abu Marzook - to be distributed to Hamas military leaders in the Palestinian territories to help build the military/terrorist infrastructure there.
Salah, also known as Abu Ahmed, is a Chicago-based car dealer who was arrested by the Israelis in 1993 while funneling these monies to Hamas terrorists and who was subsequently released in 1997 ultimately to return to Chicago. While he was detained in Israel, he was declared a Specially Designated Terrorist by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and his assets were frozen in 1995. On June 8, 1998, his assets, and those of the Quranic Literacy Institute in Chicago, were seized in a civil forfeiture action by the U.S. government as proceeds of a Hamas money- laundering operation.
Another example is that of Wadih el-Hage, a 40-year-old naturalized American citizen from Lebanon who worked for al_Qaida and who was convicted in 2001 for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. FBI Special Agent Roberts Miranda testified in 2001 at the trial of Wadih el-Hage and others for their roles in the bombings regarding an interview he conducted with el-Hage on Aug. 20, 1998:
MIRANDA: Yes. He said that because he had an American passport, Usama bin Laden wanted him to work for him because he could travel more freely and buy things for bin Laden.
One of Wadih el-Hage’s attorneys, Sam Schmidt, emphasized this point even further at the same trial by stating:
Wadih el-Hage served as Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary in the early 1990s. In 1994, el-Hage moved to Kenya to set up businesses for bin Laden to be used as terrorist fronts. Mr. Hage’s business card shows him as a director of Anhar Trading, a company with addresses in Hamburg, Germany, and Arlington, Texas.
One last example of al-Qaida’s use of a U.S. passport holder shows how American residents can use their mobility and access to technology to promote evil. On Dec. 29, 1999, Jordanian authorities arrested "Khalil Ziyad," identified by the FBI as a Florida-based "procurement agent" for Osama bin Laden. His arrest was not publicly revealed by Jordanian authorities and he was later released. But according to U.S. government sources, "Khalil Ziyad" is most likely cooperating with the FBI and providing crucial evidence about the U.S. network of militant Muslims. "Ziyad" was to "procure computers, satellite telephone and covert surveillance equipment" for the leadership of bin Laden’s organization.
"Khalil Ziyad" is actually known in the United States as Ziyad Khaleel (a.k.a. Ziyad Sadaqa, a.k.a Ziyad Abdulrahman). Public records reveal that he was associated with a variety of addresses in Orlando, Detroit, Columbia (Missouri), and Denver. Khaleel was also responsible for administering a variety of the most radical Islamic Web sites on the Internet.
At various points in the late 1990s, according to Internic/Network Solutions database records, Khaleel was the administrative and billing contact of the official Hamas Web site (http://www.palestine-info.net), the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) Web site (http://www.fisalgeria.org), the Web site of Liberty for the Muslim World (http://www.lmw.org), and the Palestine Times Web site (http://www.ptimes.com).
Liberty for the Muslim World, a London-based group, vigorously promotes and defends Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other terror groups, and republishes much of their propaganda. The Palestine Times is a monthly newspaper of the Palestine Information Center, the sponsor of the official Hamas Web site. The official Hamas Web site is regularly updated to maintain a photographic record of Hamas terrorists who have been killed, or martyred, as a result of their terrorist actions.
In addition, the Web site contains a section entitled "Hamas Operations - The Glory Record" which details many of the significant terrorist attacks carried out by the Hamas movement since its beginning. Khaleel has given at least one lecture to students at the University of Missouri (Columbia campus) representing the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP).
Until recently, the FBI would not have been allowed to investigate Khaleel. He did not have to tell anyone about his whereabouts. He couldn’t be stopped from giving a lecture even if there were suspicions about him. Our freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion are among our most cherished rights, and the Bill of Rights, where these freedoms are enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, is one of the documents that makes America a beacon to the world.
What we must understand, however, is that these same freedoms are especially attractive to religious terrorists. We cannot stop anyone from preaching violence short of the "clear and present danger" standard, because we punish deeds, not words. We cannot stop groups from gathering to share their political views, even if one of those views is that the U.S. must be destroyed.
Fundraising and Money Laundering
Much of the terrorists’ fundraising has been the old-fashioned kind: grassroots drives, featuring conferences at which leaders exhort attendees to dig down deep. Representatives of charities dedicated to serving "widows and orphans" of the Middle East conflict make pious appeals; they generally don’t admit that they are sending money to the widows of suicide bombers. For example, an organization called the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development has been suspected of funneling millions per year to Hamas activists.
Sometimes, according to authorities, the terrorists get more creative. On July 21, 2000, agents from the FBI in Charlotte, N.C., charged 18 people with smuggling contraband cigarettes to Michigan from North Carolina and money-Laundering, among other things. What they were really doing, according to authorities, was providing "currency, financial services, training, false documentation and identification, communications equipment, explosives, and other physical assets to Hizballah, in order to facilitate its violent attacks."
The media quickly dubbed the group the "Charlotte Hizballah cell." The group’s lawyers say that providing aid to Hizballah shouldn’t be illegal, since it is primarily a political and religious group. They also say that the case should be limited to a routine cigarette-smuggling claim rather than anything related to counter-terrorism statutes.
The suspects were initially accused of fraudulently obtaining visas and of setting up sham marriages. Their main economic activity allegedly consisted of buying cigarettes in large quantities from outlets in North Carolina and smuggling them to Michigan. Later, authorities charged eight men and one woman with providing assistance to Hizballah. These individuals are accused of planning to purchase night-vision goggles and cameras, stun guns. Blasting equipment, binoculars, radars, laser range-finders, mine detection equipment and advanced aircraft-analysis and design software; they also had wired money between accounts controlled by Hizballah operatives and even arranged life-insurance policies for operatives who might be killed in action. The government, unable to resist the pun, dubbed its sting "Operation Smokescreen."
I myself can testify to how widespread grassroots fundraising efforts are here in the United States. I have been at multiple conferences at which money has been raised for jihad, with passionate speeches that spare few details about the ultimate objectives of the fund-raisers.
Networking
By far the most important tactic utilized by terrorist groups in America has been to use nonprofit organizations to establish a zone of legitimacy within which fund-raising, recruitment, and even outright planning can occur. The use of charitable organizations by jihad warriors and their supporters is a complicated subject. Often, the organizations are perfectly legitimate, but they unwittingly provide a forum for evil. Many of these organizations react strongly when accused of collaborating with or facilitating the work of terrorists, for understandable reasons. If their official policy is to oppose and denounce terrorism, how much responsibility must they bear for the contrary behaviors of individual members or guest speakers?
At the meeting of the Muslim Arab Youth Association that I happened upon in 1992, for example, I was at a conference of a group that does very little, at least on the surface. MAYA runs conferences which other groups attend, and where speakers make speeches; it produces and sells an Arabic magazine, Almujtamaa, and it helps Muslim youths meet one another. At its Web site, you can download a "marriage application" in English or in Arabic. The organization does not issue many press releases, and those that it does are perfectly respectable.
After Sept. 11, 2001, MAYA promptly issued a condemnation of "these apparently senseless acts of terrorism against innocent civilians, which will only be counterproductive to any agenda the perpetrators may have had in mind." The release added the observation that "No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts."
Yet, as I have witnessed firsthand, MAYA’s conferences bring together many promoters of hate and violence, and serve as fund-raising opportunities for groups that funnel money to the families of terrorists, perhaps even to the terrorists themselves. I have been accused of anti-Muslim bias for charging MAYA and similar organizations with supporting terrorism. I do not mean to suggest that all members of MAYA are sympathizers. Much less collaborators. But I do believe that the organization must take responsibility for what happens at its conferences.
Direct Organizing
I should note here, however, that there are also far more purposively sinister organizations in this country. These include a Tampa and Chicago- based organization run in part by known terrorists of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network took control of a network of offices dedicated to supporting Afghan mujahideen and refugees, located in over 30 American cities including such major urban centers as New York, Boston and Tucson.
In some cases, the terror networks have been operated under their own names. One good example is the Advice and Reformation Committee, also known as ARC, set up by a man names Khalid al-Fawwaz. Al-Fawwaz has been indicted by the United States in association with the bombing of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the United States is currently seeking his extradition from the United Kingdom in order to put him on trial. Al-Fawwaz was tasked directly by bin Laden to create the Advice and Reformation Committee (ARC) in London to facilitate the propaganda efforts of bin Laden against Saudi Arabia for permitting American troops to be based on its soil. As bin Laden has made clear repeatedly, the American "occupation" of the country in which are located the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina, is one of the reasons why he declared jihad against all American citizens. Bin Laden himself is listed on the British articles of incorporation for the ARC.
On Dec. 2, 1998, U.S. prosecutors unsealed documents seeking the extradition of Khalid-al-Fawwaz. Among the unsealed documents were two invoices for telephone services billed to the Advice and Reformation Committee that were seized when authorities investigating the bin Laden organization searched al-Fawwaz’s London apartment. These invoices bore post office box addresses in Denver, Colo., and Kansas City, Mo Despite having at least two United States addresses, the ARC was never incorporated in the United States. If there are other branches of the Advice and Reformation Committee here, they are under no obligation to announce themselves.
A number of known organizations are closely linked to infamous international terrorist organizations. For example, the brother of the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and one of his top deputies (and eventual successor) came to America to help form and run an organization in Tampa and Chicago. On the other hand, the ties between terrorists and many of the mainstream Muslim groups are far more tenuous. The leaders of the Muslim Arab Youth Association are not suspected to be terrorists—but they are clearly proponents of militant Islam, and their group serves an important function as a venue for radical ideology to be disseminated in the American terrorist infrastructure. To paraphrase Mao, MAYA provides the sea in which the fish swim. But MAYA itself is not likely guilty of any criminal behavior.
I cannot overemphasize that the total number of terrorists in the U.S. is but a fraction of the total number of Islamic extremists, which itself is but a tiny fraction of the total number of American Muslims. There are peaceful and genuinely moderate Muslim-American leaders and organizations here, such as the Islamic Supreme Council of America and the Ibn Khaldun Society. If anything, it is precisely because extremism exists within otherwise legitimate, nonviolent organizations that it must be exposed. Some of these organizations, even as they pursue "civil right" and "humanitarian" causes, champion Islamic extremism.
One final bit of perspective: There are over 1,200 mosques in the United States, and anywhere from three to eight million Muslims (the figure is heavily disputed, although new studies clearly indicate the number at the lower end of the range). The vast majority of all American Muslims subscribe to the strong Islamic tradition of tolerance and human dignity. Yet for one key reason, the extremists have disproportionate influence. One prominent cleric argued in 1999 that "because they are active they took over…more than 80 percent of the mosques that have been established in the U.S."
Although our pluralist ideals tend to view this statement as an automatic exaggeration, the reality is far more sobering. The vast majority of American mosques are funded with Saudi Arabian money, and most of the funders subscribe to the Saudi doctrine of Wahhabism, an 18th-century ideology of extreme purity that supports the spread of Islam through violence. Local imams can be appointed by anyone who chooses to fund and/or found a mosque; hence, the influence of this minority ideology is well entrenched among American clerics.
Long before Sept. 11, 2001, investigative journalist and terror expert Steven Emerson was warning the U.S. government about the imminent threat radical islamists posed to this country. In his Jan. 25, 2000, testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, Emerson highlighted the stunning array of terrorist kingpins who had set up shop in the United States.
"The list of major international terrorists and militants allowed to enter the United States in recent years or actually granted green cards and citizenship," he told the congressional committee, "is nothing less than staggering." They included:
Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, head of the Egyptian Al Gamat Al Islamiya, and convicted leader of an interdicted plot to bomb U.S. landmarks, bridges, and tunnels in New York.
Musa Abu Marzook, one of the top three officials of Hamas (who founded and operated a "think tank" in Chicago and Virginia)
Ali Mohammed, a top lieutenant to Osama bin Laden (and not insignificantly, enrolled as a Special Forces sergeant at Fort Bragg)
Wadih el Hage, secretary to Osama bin Laden.
Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (who served as a professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa).
Sheikh Abdel Aziz Odeh, spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (who visited the United States multiple times for fundraising and political recruitment without any knowledge of the INS)
Ayman Zawahiri, leader of the Egyptian Al-Gihad organization, lieutenant to Osama bin Laden and conspirator in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Rashhid Ghannoushi, head of the Tunisian Al-nahdah.
Anwar Haddam, a leader of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)
Leith Shbeilat, a militant Islamic leader implicated in assassination plot against Jordan’s King Hussein.
Khalid Mishal, a top leader of Hamas, who, in his speeches in the United States, has called for stabbings.
Kamal Hilbawi, a spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood, who has called for attacks on American targets and who has encouraged carrying out of suicide bombings.
Yusef Al Qaradawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and active supporter of Hamas and other violent groups, who has called for suicide bombings and taking over the United States.
Qazi Hussein Ahmed, leader of Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, a militant group that supports violent "jihad" or holy war.
Ramzi Yousef, the top organizer of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Sheikh Abdulmunem Abu Zant, a militant Jordanian Islamic cleric, who has routinely called for violence.
Ishaq Al-Farhan, a leader of the militant Islamic Jordan Action Front who has issued numerous exhortations to carry out violence.
Wagdi Ghunium, a militant Islamic cleric from Egypt, who has called for jihad against Jews and other "enemies of Islam."
Jihad In America - Interview With Author Steven Emerson
Are Jihadists Infiltrating U.S. Military? - Worldnetdaily
US Has Given 50,00 Visas Since 9-11 To New Visitors From The Middle East
U.S. Encourages Immigration From Terror-Sponsor States
State Department granted visas to 7,000 Illegal Alien men from countries in which al Qaeda is active
Why would George W. Bush and his wife pose for a photograph with a man who stated the following?
"Let us damn America. Let us damn their allies until death. Why do we stop?"
Professor Sami Al-Arian - Source
What is going On At The University of South Florida - Bill O’Reilly
Bush's Terrorist Buddy
Laura and George W. Bush (3rd and 4th from left) with Islamic
Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian (third from right) and family
(son, Abdullah "Big Dude" Al-Arian, is on far left).
Bush's Terrorist Buddy - Part 2
How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost
"We’re not looking for individuals of any particular religion or from any particular country."
FBI Director Robert Mueller - SOURCE
FBI Chief Mueller Expresses Support For Muslim Group
"Freeh placed his trusted associate Robert Hanssen into his last position with the FBI as counter-intelligence director in New York City. The same Robert Hannsen later confessed to being a Russian spy."
Source
Terror cells at liberty to strike - Washington Times - 9/18/02 - Bill Gertz
Hope all is well with you.
NOW US ADMITS HUNTING HIJACKERS 3 WEEKS BEFORE ATTACK; TERROR CELLS ESCAPE THE BIG FBI DRAGNET
Bahrain riots targeted Americans - Men told to destroy U.S. restaurants, hotels serving liquor
Heck yes, they need more money. That's the problem. LOL!
"Crave death....Make sure that nobody is following you...Bring knives, your will, ID's, your passport....Pray: 'Oh God, you who open all doors, please open all doors for me, open all venues for me, open all avenues for me.'
These were some of the handwritten instructions found in September 11 ringleader Mohamad Atta's abandoned luggage. If he could send a message from hell--where he surely went after he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center--Atta would have good news for his band of homicidal brothers around the world. The doors to America are still wide open."
Invasion - Chapter 1, page 3.
Excellent post..I expect to find in the smokey back room shortly..must not disturb the sheeple people
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