Free Republic

The recent terror case of a "gentle" third-grade teacher from the D.C. suburbs shows the danger is at once closer and harder to ID than you think. The enemy is hiding not in the shadows, but in plain sight, and may even wear a smile. Hundreds of Muslims last week flocked to a federal courtroom to show their support for the affable and soft-spoken Ali Asad Chandia of Maryland as he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting terrorists. Friends say anti-Muslim prosecutors railroaded a "law-abiding" and "peaceful" brother. "He is a dedicated teacher," said one. "A great...

The Yemeni-American imam who's been under renewed scrutiny after the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, preaches against alcohol, birthday parties, black magic and extramarital sex. He also supports armed struggle — jihad — against the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has encouraged extremist insurgents in Pakistan and Somalia. None of that sets Anwar al Awlaki, 38, apart from other militant Sunni Muslim clerics — and even many mainstream ones — in the Middle East. Awlaki uses digital means to spread his views, however, through a blog, lectures on YouTube and Facebook pages with more than 1,000 fans....

The American-born Jihadist cleric Anwar Awlaki likely played an important support role in the September 11 attacks nearly ten years ago, according to a new book that examines the threat of home-grown terrorism. The book, “The Next Wave,” by Fox News national security reporter, Catherine Herridge, reveals new documents that find Mr. Awlaki was nearly arrested after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon for providing false information on his passport application. Today Mr. Awlaki is one of the leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Mr. Awlaki is also the only known American citizen on a...

India and the US wanted Jaish-e-Mohammed deputy chief Abdul Rauf Azhar to be designated as a ‘global terrorist’ A month after Beijing shielded Pakistan-based deputy leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Abdul Rehman Makki, an international terrorist, it has done an encore. It has vetoed a similar joint proposal at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), again by India and the US, to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) deputy chief Abdul Rauf Azhar as a “global terrorist.” He is the younger brother of JeM founder Maulana Masood Azhar, another murderous jihadist. India was understandably incensed at China, castigating it for its “double speak” and...

A Pakistan-trained terrorist, described as global quartermaster for the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, has been sentenced to nine years in prison after he admitted to charges of conspiring to provide funds for terrorist activity. Mohammed Ajmal Khan, 31, who trained in Pakistan and travelled widely in furtherance of terrorist aims, had made available a significant source of funds from an "unidentified but undeniably terrorist-related source," Justice Fulford said in his judgement on Friday. The Coventry-based Khan allegedly used millions of pounds raised by supporters in the UK to purchase Kevlar body armour, firearms and hi-tech surveillance equipment which were funnelled to rebels...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Maryland man was charged with conspiracy to help a terrorist organization, part of an investigation of the "Virginia jihad network" that has so far resulted in 10 convictions, U.S. law enforcement officials said Friday. Ali Asad Chandia of College Park, Md., is named in a four-count indictment alleging he conspired to provide material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in 2001. Chandia was arrested Thursday at his home, assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said. The indictment was returned on Wednesday and unsealed Friday after Chandia's arrest. Also charged is Mohammed...

Anthrax: Source of Fishy, Shaggy Dog Stories Pleads Fifth December 20th, 2007 by Ross E. Getman In October 2007, the former Criminal Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Daniel Seikaly, was deposed in the civil rights action by Steve Hatfill about whether he was the source of leaks relating to Steve Hatfill in connection with Newsweek and Washington Post stories about the use of bloodhounds and the draining of ponds in Frederick, Maryland. Attorney Seikaly pled the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in connection with most substantive questions. Attorney Seikaly has had a very distinguished career....

A Metro Transit police officer has been arrested and charged with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, marking the first time a U.S. law enforcement officer has been accused of trying to aid the terrorist group. Nicholas Young, 36, of Fairfax, Va., was arrested Wednesday morning at Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Washington and his employment was terminated. Young, at the request of an undercover federal agent, sent codes for mobile messaging cards that Young believed would be used by Islamic State fighters overseas to communicate, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

<p>A now-defunct New Jersey firm that offered investments to wealthy Muslims, including housing developments in suburban Maryland, raised millions of dollars for what law-enforcement authorities describe as a "who's who" of international terrorists and Islamic extremists.</p> <p>BMI Inc., founded by Soliman S. Biheiri, an Egyptian convicted of immigration violations, reported more than $25 million in projected revenues and leases as early as 1992 in a business that solicited real-estate investments and offered leasing services for Muslims in what authorities said was a scheme based in Virginia and Maryland to raise cash for terrorists.</p>

A Saudi national who served as director of the Virginia office of the Muslim World League (MWL) has been deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on immigration charges. ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said Abdullah Alnoshan, 44, of Falls Church, was returned to Saudi Arabia over the weekend. He was arrested in July by ICE and FBI agents assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A criminal complaint charged Alnoshan with conspiring to commit immigration fraud by using fake employment documents to enter, exit and live in the United States. Alnoshan also was accused of seeking to deter...

Sentences Lengthy for 'Virginia Jihad' Wednesday June 16, 2004 3:01 AM By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A Maryland man convicted of traveling to Pakistan and seeking to fight with the Taliban against the United States just days after Sept. 11 was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison. Masoud Khan was one of three people sentenced Tuesday on charges they trained for holy war against the United States by playing paintball games in the Virginia woods as part of a ``jihad'' network. Prosecutors said Khan's actions were worse than the other suspects because he also traveled...

For those interested in examining “terrorist attacks committed on American soil” and hate crimes, the Crime Museum in Washington, D.C., is the place to be starting on Wednesday. In addition to offering information on recent attacks, the museum's "Domestic Terrorism and Hate Crimes" exhibit will display objects from the wrenching incidents. From the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for example, there will be a runner’s medal and a bib from one of the victims. Letters from the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, will also be on display, as will a Virginia Jihad Network rifle that was confiscated in 2003. The exhibit will also...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Sensitive national-security information was mistakenly released by the Treasury Department to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but no criminal statutes were violated, records show.</p> <p>Mr. O'Neill drew on some of the material -- part of a cache of 19,000 documents -- for a memoir released in January that was critical of President Bush. When a document stamped "Secret" was displayed on a CBS "60 Minutes" episode concerning the book, the Treasury Department sought an investigation.</p>

The suicide bombings in London raise questions of assimilation for the 3 million Muslims in the US. WASHINGTON - It's called the "Virginia Jihad" case: Iraqi-American medical researcher Ali al-Yimimi, who preached in northern Virginia mosques and disseminated his radical thinking on the Web, was sentenced to life imprisonment last week. His crime: inciting followers, many of them young American-born Muslims, to a violent defense of Islam and war against the United States and its intervention in Islamic countries. Mr. Timimi's sentencing in an Alexandria, Va., courtroom came against the backdrop of the London bombings, which British police now say...

Virginia Muslim leader gets life in prison "Islamic Scholar Sentenced to Va. Prison," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in: ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A prominent Islamic scholar who exhorted his followers after the Sept. 11 attacks to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison. Ali al-Timimi of Fairfax was convicted in April of soliciting others to levy war against the United States, inducing others to aid the Taliban, and inducing others to use firearms in violation of federal law. The cleric addressed the court for 10 minutes before his sentencing....

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 eavesdropping program did not compromise its prosecution of an American Muslim cleric convicted of soliciting treason and convincing some of his followers to join the Taliban, prosecutors said. But defense lawyers are not satisfied with the government's claim, and on Friday a federal judge held a closed-door hearing and allowed attorneys for Ali al-Timimi some latitude to investigate the government's conduct. Al-Timimi, of Fairfax, a U.S.-born Muslim who studied under prominent fundamentalist clerics in Saudi Arabia, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year for soliciting treason and urging some...

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators that he and his brother were influenced by the Internet sermons of the notorious preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, Daniel Klaidman reports. Plus: the feds now know who “Misha” is.

House Panel to Ask for NSA Spying Probe A congressional panel will ask the National Security Agency's internal watchdog to investigate whether the super-secret spy agency eavesdropped without warrants on a Muslim scholar and later hid that evidence in a 2005 terror prosecution that got him a life sentence.The House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and the judge overseeing the case want the NSA's inspector general to find out if the government failed to disclose evidence that might have cleared the name of a Northern Virginia spiritual leader Ali al-Timimi, Rep. Rush Holt (D- New Jersey) told the New York Times.That...

Team Obama's Justification For Killing A 16-Year-Old American In A Drone Strike Is StunningMichael Kelley | Oct. 24, 2012, 2:04 PM Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to President Obama's reelection campaign, recently became the first person on Team Obama to address the killing of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, Conor Friedersdorf of the The Atlantic reports. Abdulrahman was the son of New Mexico-born cleric and al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Alwaki. Both were killed in separate drone strikes last year. A reporter asked Gibbs: "Do you think that the killing of Anwar al-Alwaki's 16-year-old son, who was...

On Friday, March 30, 2012, Hisham Y. Altalib visited the White House. According to visitor logs, Altalib was received by Joshua DuBois, the director of President Obama's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Four days later, White House officials welcomed a foreign delegation of the radical Sharia-enforcing Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt. The White House meeting with overseas Muslim Brotherhood leaders was reported in April by a few mainstream journalists and questioned loudly by conservative media. But the White House confab in March with U.S.-based Altalib -- which appears to be a prep session with the global Muslim Brotherhood's American...