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WORLD’S “MOST DANGEROUS ISLAMIST” ALIVE, WELL, AND LIVING IN PENNSYLVANIA FEDS TURN BLIND EYE TO MOUNTING HOMELAND SECURITY THREAT by Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. The most dangerous Islamist in the world is neither Afghani nor Arab. He comes from neither Sudan nor Somalia. And he resides in neither the mountains of Pakistan nor the deserts of the Palestinian territories. This individual has toppled the secular government of Turkey and established madrassahs throughout the world. His schools indoctrinate children in the tenets of radical Islam and prepare adolescents for the Islamization of the world. More than 90 of these madrassahs have...

The battle over the role of Islam in a Minnesota public school is heating up again in a federal courtroom in St. Paul. The conflict began in January 2009, when the ACLU of Minnesota sued Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy -- a K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine -- for violating constitutional prohibitions against government endorsement of religion. TiZA since has fought tooth and nail -- erecting procedural barriers to prevent the ACLU from investigating what goes on behind its doors. The school's tactics have gone far beyond the usual rough-and-tumble of lawyers in our adversary...

Federal officials have dismissed a complaint that the Minnesota Department of Education discriminated against black and Somali students at a metro-area charter school. The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights said there was not enough evidence of discrimination against students at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) based on their race or national origin. The school serves about 500 K-8 students, including many from immigrant families, at campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine. Federal officials conducted the probe in response to a complaint filed last fall by Nathaniel Khaliq, president of the St. Paul chapter of the National Association...

We've written a number of times about Minnesota's Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a charter school that appears to be Muslim in all but name, and is closely affiliated with, if not an alter ego of, the radical Muslim American Society. The American Civil Liberties Union is engaged in litigation against TIZA, in which the ACLU alleges that the school unconstitutionally promotes religion at taxpayer expense. That litigation has gotten quite bitter. Our friend Kathy Kersten has done more than anyone else to shed light on TIZA and its relationship with the Muslim American Society through her columns in the...

A federal judge has rejected claims that the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota defamed a charter school that the ACLU has accused of promoting Islam. As a public school, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) is a governmental body and can't sue for libel, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank said in an order dated Wednesday. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against TiZA in January, claiming the charter school promotes religion in violation of the Constitution's First Amendment. The school, which has campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine, has denied the claims.

A 36-year-old Richfield man charged with making terroristic threats during an argument with another man in Wright County has been arrested at O'Hare Airport after skipping out before his trial was to begin this month, authorities in Minnesota said today. Ismail Alqawasmi remains in custody after his arrest at 8 p.m. Thursday, the Wright County Sheriff's Office said. The Chicago-Sun Times reported that Alqawasmi flew into the United States from Amman, Jordan, on Royal Jordanian airlines and a customs official conducting a name check found the warrant on a law enforcement data base, according to police. Alqawasmi was searched and...

TiZA is for Trouble by: Bethany Stotts, September 03, 2009 This August, Minnesota Department of Education [MDOE] officials said they will be investigating the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy’s use of state “lease aid” grants. The charter school has been paying rent to Muslim religious organizations. Chas Anderson, deputy commissioner of MDOE told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the inquiry was sparked by a January American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, reported Tony Kennedy on August 29. “TiZA spokesman Darin Broton said the school will cooperate, but he accused officials of conducting a politically motivated investigation,” he wrote. “[Broton] said the department...

State officials are examining whether public money has been improperly used to pay for Islamic mosques on charter school campuses in Blaine and Inver Grove Heights. Chas Anderson, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, said officials will study Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy's (TiZA) use of state "lease aid'' grants, which were created more than a decade ago to help charter schools rent adequate facilities. "If it is subsidizing a mosque, in our view, that would be a violation of state and federal law,'' Anderson said. The probe is the latest in a series of church-vs.-state conflicts involving TiZA...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said it will file suit today against a publicly funded charter school, alleging that it is promoting the Muslim religion and that its directors are using a holding company to illegally funnel taxpayer dollars to a Muslim organization. The suit was to be filed this afternoon in U.S. District Court against Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, known as TIZA, and the Minnesota Department of Education, which the ACLU says is at fault for failing to uncover and stop the alleged transgressions. The suit names the department and Alice Seagren, the state education commissioner, as...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Another area of American society where a double standard is being applied by liberal journalists and activists is in the matter of religion and the requirement that there be no government support of it. If a public school student dares to utter a Christian prayer or put up a poster mentioning Christianity, the ACLU will sue the school principal and the city involved. If public school property were mistakenly to be used to host a Christian-oriented event, there would be outrage and more lawsuits. As we also know, if the ACLU were to carry such a case to a successful...

CAIR comes to the rescue of Minneapolis tax-funded Muslim school By Michelle Malkin • April 15, 2008 As I have reported over the years, there are many good reasons to be wary when CAIR and other Muslim grievance groups start banging the drum about being victimized by Islamophobia. Now, the usual suspects seem engaged in the usual tactics to distract from the controversy over the Minneapolis tax-funded Muslim school exposed by Star-Tribune columnist extraordinaire Katherine Kersten. Just as the state has launched an investigation of the school, here comes CAIR: The Minnesota chapter of a national Islamic civil liberties group...

Minnesota taxpayers are footing the bill for a charter school that reportedly violates the law by promoting religion — Islam. Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) in Inver Grove Heights regularly holds prayer sessions and includes study of the Koran in its curriculum, even though charter schools are public schools and must not endorse or promote religion, according to columnist Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. She writes: “TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is ‘establishing Islam in Minnesota.’ The building also...

An Inver Grove Heights charter school has received harassing and threatening calls in the wake of accusations that it blurs the line between religion and state by promoting Islam, the school's director said Friday. The city's police are investigating and will put extra patrols in the area as a precaution, said Police Chief Chuck Kleckner. He said the school's director contacted the department Friday morning. Asad Zaman, the director and founder of Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), said that he and the school received several derogatory phone messages and e-mails. The school came under fire last month after Star Tribune...

A Twin Cities charter school is making changes after accusations that it endorsed Islamic studies at taxpayer expense. Since 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS investigated TIZA Academy in Inver Grove Heights on Wednesday, the school's attorney has said several changes would be made. The most noticeable -- an American flag now flies over the school for the first time since the academy was founded in 2003. The attorney told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that it was a difficult day for staff and parents, as people from across the country inundated the school with threats and messages of hate after hearing what substitute Amanda...

Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion. Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers. TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain -- is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis. The school is in huge demand, with a waiting list of 1,500. Last fall, it opened a second campus in Blaine. TIZA uses the language of culture rather than religion to describe its program in public documents. According to its mission statement, the school "recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of the eastern world (Africa,...