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Ottawa pulls Saudi group's charity status Tax violation: Muslim World League being sued by 9/11 families Stewart Bell National Post Monday, December 01, 2003 TORONTO - Federal regulators have revoked the charity status of the Canadian branch of a Saudi organization that has faced longstanding allegations of ties to terrorism. A notice in the government publication Canada Gazette said the Muslim World League (MWL) is one of several charities that "have not met the filing requirements of the Income Tax Act." The revocation came into effect on Nov. 15, but the organization, dedicated to promoting Islam, was still calling itself...

Compassion is the best response when humanity faces the problem of evil, writes Edward Spence."Why did you do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you?" asked a woman in India this week, a heart-wrenching question asked in common these past few days by Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Christians. Nothing could have prepared us for what happened when the tsunami unleashed its terror. So we seek answers where answers are hard to come by, in either secular or sacred realms. Traditionally, the Judeo-Christian God, considered the most supreme and perfect being in the universe, has been ascribed...

NewsFlash Home | More Washington State News   Couple requests prepaid calling cards — for soldiers in Iraq 11/7/2004, 3:28 p.m. PT The Associated Press     PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) — Local newlyweds made an unusual wedding-gift request: They wanted prepaid international telephone calling cards.Tony Clayton and Jeana Johnson-Clayton are sending the nearly 60 cards they received to U.S. military personnel in Iraq, so the troops can call home during the holidays.The bride's son, Chris Johnson, is serving in the Marine Corps and will be deployed early next year, she said."We thought about our friends who have sons...

<p>CHICAGO (AP) -- Federal prosecutors accused a Syrian-born American of once leading a Muslim charity that the Treasury Department calls a terrorist group, and said he tried to help Osama bin Laden get a nuclear weapon.</p> <p>The government said Mohamed Loay Bayazid was president of the suburban Chicago-based Benevolence International Foundation in 1994, about the same time he is accused of trying to get uranium for al-Qaida.</p>

BAGHDAD: As Iraq's public health system struggles to provide good medical care, some private hospitals are doing free surgery for patients who need it. One such patient was a teenage girl with an umbilical hernia, Intesar Kamil, the doctor who operated on her said. The hernia was so painful, the girl could hardly walk when her family brought her to the Dijla Hospital in Adamiyah, in western Baghdad, Kamil said. While a hernia operation is considered to be relatively easy, it costs about US $200 to perform in Iraq and the family couldn't afford it. "Many people cannot afford even...

<p>MIAMI (CNN) -- Federal officials in Miami told CNN Saturday they had arrested a south Florida Muslim activist with ties to "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.</p> <p>Adham Amin Hassoun was arrested during a Wednesday night traffic stop by members of South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force, according to FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela and Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman Rodney Germain.</p>

<p>Gen. Douglas MacArthur (search) (1880-1964) was one of the greatest -- and arguably the greatest -- military leaders ever produced by the United States.</p> <p>He graduated first in his West Point class of 1903, rose to the rank of brigadier general in World War I, and served as Army chief of staff in the 1930s. During World War II, he was the top commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific (search), masterminding the liberation of the Philippines (search) and the island-leaping strategy that outmaneuvered Japanese forces. He became a five-star general, the highest rank in the U.S. army (and one not held by anyone alive today).</p>

AMSTERDAM - A Saudi family of bankers which have been accused of financing islamic terrorism, seems to do a large portion of their funding from the Netherlands. The family owns an investment company in Amsterdam, which has funded 'islamic investments' for well over a billion dollars. The firm is known as Al Rajhi Investment Corporation bv, located in the Drentestraat in Amsterdam-Buitenveldert. The firm is owned by the Al Rajhi Banking & Investment Corporation, one of the biggest financial institutions of Saudi Arabia. In annual reports of the Dutch branch there are huge investments, described as 'loans' to 'international organizations'...

<p>In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, Sami Omar al-Hussayen led fellow Muslims as they joined an emotion-charged candlelight march remembering the dead. The Saudi graduate student in computer science at the University of Idaho helped organize a blood drive for victims. He issued a press release on behalf of the Muslim Students Association, stating that the small town of Moscow's Muslims "condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious acts of terrorism against innocent citizens."</p>

Canada bankrolled man's aid agency during that time U.S. authorities have tied a Canadian aid worker to the al-Qaeda terrorist network as far back as 1988, almost a decade before the Canadian government cut off funding to his Ottawa-based Muslim charity. Evidence unsealed by a U.S. judge in Chicago shows Ahmed Said Khadr had dealings with senior al-Qaeda leaders while being financed by the Canadian International Development Agency. Although CIDA stopped giving aid money to Mr. Khadr in 1997 after he was arrested for allegedly bombing an embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, the documents allege he was working with al-Qaeda long...

Switzerland has added three organisations, including the Islamic charity, Benevolence International Foundation, to its list of suspected supporters of terrorism. The economics ministry said it imposed financial sanctions and travel restrictions on the groups, in line with United Nations regulations. Meanwhile, the Swiss Federal Court has approved a request for legal assistance from the United States which accuses Benevolence International of funding the al-Qaeda network. The case involves the transfer of $1.4 million (SFr2 million) from a Swiss bank to the Foundation in Chicago. However, the banking documents remain blocked in Switzerland for the time being, pending a decision by...

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has acted to freeze the assets of an organisation suspected of raising funds to help Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terror network build a nuclear bomb. Financial institutions were ordered to freeze funds belonging to the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) at midnight. BIF's chief executive Enaam Araout was recently indicted in the USA for operating it as a racketeering enterprise and providing material support to organisations including al-Qa'eda. "Strong evidence" existed to link BIF with al-Qa'eda and bin Laden, said the Treasury. This includes personal contacts between senior BIF officials and al-Qa'eda operatives involved in the 1998...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Federal officials on Wednesday announced the indictment of the head of a U.S. Muslim charity, charging he used donations to fund terrorism around the world. Syrian-born Enaam Arnaout, who has been in custody since last April, engaged in a "multinational criminal enterprise that for a decade used charitable contributions of innocent Americans -- Muslims, non-Muslims and corporations alike -- to support al Qaeda" as well as turmoil in Chechnya and "armed violence in Bosnia," the Justice Department said. The indictment, announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft at a Chicago news conference, largely repeated charges made against Arnaout...

Fifteen thousand feet high in Kashmir and armed with a Kalashnikov–that was not how friends thought Jibreel al-Amreekee would end up. All of 19, the restless kid from Atlanta had grown up in a wealthy family attending Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home pulpit of Martin Luther King Jr. A soft-spoken youth with long dreadlocks, al-Amreekee had a passion for sky diving and reading books on the world's religions. One religion that drew his interest was Islam, and while he was at North Carolina Central University, that interest grew into a calling. By 1997, he had converted and was spending his...

U.S. gets OK to pursue trial of Islamic charity By Laurie Cohen and Stephen Franklin The government won a first round Monday in its terrorism-related criminal case against a Chicago-area Islamic charity and its leader, who has been in jail for two weeks on perjury charges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Ian Levin ruled that federal prosecutors could proceed with their case against Benevolence International Foundation of Palos Hills and Enaam Arnaout because they had presented compelling evidence that the charity funded Muslim rebels in the separatist Russian region of Chechnya. Levin said the evidence is at odds with Arnaout's sworn statements...

U.S. Links Charity to Chechen RebelsBy Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer The head of a U.S.-based Islamic charity who is suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden is in jail facing a grand jury investigation after the FBI showed he had lied about his support for Chechen rebels. Federal officials accused Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, and his Benevolence International Foundation of perjury last month for claiming they did not provide support to "people or organizations known to engage in violence, terrorist activities or military operations of any nature." Arnaout, 39, was arrested April 30. He had been under...

<p>May 3, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - An Islamic charity accused of helping Osama bin Laden has raised thousands of dollars from unsuspecting U.S. companies and their employees through a tax-exempt federal program, The Post has learned.</p> <p>A newsletter of the Benevolence International Foundation boasted that some Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, PepsiCo, Compaq, Nokia and American Express, donated to the Illinois-based charity through matching contributions from some of their employees.</p>