Islamic chaplain is charged as spy

Washington Times ^ | 9/20/03 | Rowan Scarborough

[kattracks]

An Army Islamic chaplain, who counseled al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base, has been charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and spying, The Washington Times has learned.

Capt. James J. Yee, a 1990 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., was arrested earlier this month by the FBI in Jacksonville, Fla., as he arrived on a military charter flight from Guantanamo, according to a law-enforcement source.

[Sacajaweau]

I understood you. What I was suggesting is that the Clinton administration didn't look carefully enough at this guy, perhaps giving him "opportunity".

I have a feeling we put him in Cuba to catch him. We could keep him under surveilance a hell of a lot easier.

Wonder if he ever visited Moussaoui??

One article said his apartment in Florida was searched. Interesting place, that Florida. Atta, Malvo, Yee

Obviously, there's other people involved. Wonder who??

[piasa]

Since he spent four years in Syria, my dibs are on a connection to al-Zarqawi and Ansar al Islam. Zarqawi has long had a base in Syria.

[piasa]

Another interesting figure who has ties to Florida and Atta and Syria and so on is al-Marabh :

Since September 11, federal authorities have locked up more than 700 people, mostly Middle Eastern men, on immigration charges. Only a few dozen are considered to have strong ties to terrorism, and just one of those serious suspects was arrested in metro Chicago, Nabil Al-Marabh, a native of Syria.

[dagnabbit]

Good post. There should be absolutely no one on Guantanamo for these goat-punchers to talk to - other than Military Intelligence and CIA. I would, however, have no problem with intel types posing as mohammadian clerics, if that was useful.

[piasa]

"To investigators, the most puzzling place Al-Marabh lived is Tampa, Florida. The FBI is investigating whether Al-Marabh took flying lessons at small southwest Florida airports or whether he may have scouted flight schools for Marwan Al-Shehhi. Al-Shehhi and his cousin Mohammed Atta were flight school students at Venice Airport south of Tampa, where both obtained their pilots licenses. The only license we found in Al-Marabh's name was to drive a Tampa taxicab. "Everything he put in there (application) was totally common," said Greg Cox, Public Transportation Commission.
The cab application may have looked normal. Al-Marabh grinned for the license photo. He signed it as he always signed official documents, with his first name only: Nabil. But the I-Team has found that almost everything else on Al-Marabh's paperwork was false. He claimed to have lived in a ramshackle house from 1994 to 1997. But the owner says that he's never seen Al-Marabh.
Al-Marabh claimed to have lived in another apartment from 1997 to 1999, and worked as a mechanic in a service station. Those claims were also lies according to workers who say he was never there and they don't know him. Why did Al-Marabh make it all up? Authorities are still uncertain exactly what was he doing in southwest Florida, but his uncle Ahmad Shehab contends, he's no terrorist. "The first three weeks I kept asking, 'Why Nabil, why Nabil, why Nabil? Well,' I kept saying, 'maybe because he is Muslim, maybe because he is an Arab'."
Al-Marabh's association with Al-Qaeda terrorists didn't die with the skyjackers on September 11. Friday night at 10pm, the I-Team discovers links between Al-Marabh and three prominent bin Laden operatives who are still alive. (Hmimmssa, Jijazi, and Almrei)

(* My note : Another Syrian is linked to him) :

Hassan Almrei, 28, is a Syrian national like Al-Marabh. Almrei has been declared a "threat to national security" by Canada's National Intelligence Service and is being deported. Authorities say Almrei's honey and perfume business in the Middle East, helped finance Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. (* My Note : Not only that, but Al Marabh is interesting because of his hazmat license ) :

Federal sources say the heat from that Boston swordfight prompted Al-Marabh to move to Chicago, arriving with little notice at the suburban home of an uncle. The relative enlisted Al-Marabh to help install security cameras in a nearby convenience store where he later worked as a cashier. The storeowner says Al-Marabh told him he really wanted to make more money driving a tractor-trailer, and that Al-Marabh even had a hazardous waste hauling permit from Michigan and applied for a job at a southwest suburban trucking company. He was arrested before completing the process, and has spent the last five months at the Federal Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. For now he's charged with immigration violations.

Federal sources say they suspect Al-Marabh wanted to plant roots in Chicago, just as the 9/11 skyjackers had in Florida, blending into the landscape to disguise his real intent. But with the skyjackers are dead and Al-Marabh and his cohorts locked up, you may ask, "Where's the threat?" Well if Al-Marabh was a sleeper agent as authorities believe, they fear that he wasn't sleeping alone.

- Source : "Chicago's Ties to Terrorism," ABC7 I-Team, January 2001 , http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/013102_ss_tiestoterrorism.html

[piasa]

syrian-florida bump

[MeekOneGOP]

Jesse ? Islam ? ...

[Cindy]

re post no.406...


Been reading this thread today off and on.
Noticed all your hard work connecting the info dots.

I will be looking forward to see what the actual charges are (if any) against Chaplain Youseff Yee.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for the excellent timeline!!!

[piasa]

You're welcome... just think, all of this was going on while Clinton pandered...

[Alamo-Girl]

I don't see evidence that Clinton spent the necessary time (or resources) on national security...

[Fred Mertz]

1991 : (KENTUCKY : YEE CONVERTS TO ISLAM, COMPLETES AIRBORNE SCHOOL IN KY) Yee converted to Islam in 1991 and left the Army after completing airborne school at Fort Knox, Ky. - "Military confirms Muslim chaplain had secret papers ,"...

Thanks for your efforts on the timeline. I'll try to revisit it tomorrow.

A few comments: there is no airborne school at Fort Knox. There is a motor officer course which he might have attended. I don't believe he converted to Islam until the mid-to later nineties. Like I said, I'll try to come back tomorrow. I think Yee was a normal officer who did his time, experienced something in Gulf War I and then went to Islam after he went to Syria.

Thanks again for developing the timeline...it needs scrutiny and refinement. You might want to post it as its own thread and you'll get lots of help.

[piasa]

A few comments: there is no airborne school at Fort Knox. There is a motor officer course which he might have attended.

Glad you pointed that out. I believe the article is in error- the other article cited said he was there learning vehicle maintainance, which would make more sense :

1991 - ? : (KENTUCKY : YEE'S MUSLIM CONVICTIONS DEEPEN WHILE STATIONED AT FT. KNOX, KY, WHERE HE WAS STUDYING VEHICLE MAINTAINANCE ALONGSIDE VISITING EGYPTIAN ARMY OFFICERS AT FT KNOX, KY) The newest Muslim chaplain is James J. Yee, a Chinese-American and a West Point graduate who was born into a Lutheran family, took an interest in Islam in college and deepened his convictions while stationed at Fort Knox, Ky., where he was studying vehicle maintenance during the month of Ramadan alongside four visiting Egyptian army officers.- "Military Clerics Balance Arms and Allah," NY Times, Oct. 7, 2001

[piasa]

Speaking of Egyptians, here's some info which may be related, or more likely not, concerning the Seattle Cell up in the Ft Lewis area. The Seattle Cell (Ujaama, Osman, etc) was the cell which was interested in the ranch in Bly, OR. this cell was visited by two Egyptian-born men from the UK Mosque in London associated with Abu Hamza /al Masri..

(As opposed to the Portland Cell, which was the cell which went on the jaunt to Afghanistan through China)

Has anyone found out the names of those two Egyptians or anything else about them?

[Michael2001]

There's a big difference between what Muslims tell us and what they tell each other.

[piasa]

Update:

CHAPLAIN ARRESTED TO PROTECT LIVES

[Happy2BMe]

Jessie Jackson - The Darling of Terrorists Everywhere.

Tnx - Meek!

Have a Great Week.

[MeekOneGOP]

You have a great week too ! ...

[Shermy]

http://www.amafandvac.org/article.php?sid=11

"...Yee says the terrorist attacks and killing of civilians are strictly forbidden by Islamic law, separating the perpetrators from the body of Islam, not the other way around.

"There is," Yee says, "only one Islam."

He has had to explain to field commanders that the five mandatory daily prayers take only a few minutes a day. He gave a base-wide briefing and slide show on Islam two weeks ago.

He often cites the following passage (Sura II, 155-157) from the Quran:

"Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere, who say, when afflicted with calamity: 'To Allah we belong and to Him is our return'; They are those on whom(descend) blessings from Allah and mercy, and they are the ones that receive Guidance."

[El Gato]

My question is how, from the many applicants for West Point, some congressman chose to back someone whose roots were in the Mid East.

His roots are not in the mid-east, they are in New Jersey, and somewhat farther back, in China. Some think Africa as well by his appearance in a single photograph. IMHO, in other photos he appears completely ancestorially Chinese, or at least Asiatic.