Two South Florida brothers have pleaded not guilty to federal charges involving a disrupted terrorist plot.
Few details have been released about the alleged plot involving Raees and Sheheryar Qazi, two naturalized Pakistani immigrants. An indictment issued Nov. 30 charges them with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. Media reports indicate the men wanted to make explosives and had specific targets in mind.
In response, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) South Florida office told a local television station that the Qazi brothers prayed in area mosques, but were not well known in the South Florida Muslim community or among mosque leaders.
CAIR and its officials notoriously obfuscate in favor of Muslim terror suspects and attempt to deflect their terror actions away from Islam. In this case, Nezar Hamze's attempt to distance the Qazi brothers from the community may not tell the full story.
The Broward tabloid Red Broward reported Sheheryar Qazi appears to have been an online donor to the Islamic Center of Broward (ICB), a mosque with a heavy-representation of Pakistani natives on its board of directors. The ICB website has been down at least since the Qazi brothers' arrests.
Meanwhile, public records indicate the Muslim community around the Qazi brothers may be closer and more insular than Hamze suggested.
One of the former officials of the ICB, listed in its articles of incorporation of 2008 and the 2009 and 2010 annual reports, is Altaf Sattar. Sattar is also an official in a LLC called "Investment Group Five, LLC," which shares a listed address in Boca Raton with "Super Stop Stores, Inc" owned by Mahammad Qureshi.
Qureshi is a wealthy and somewhat infamous convenience store owner who founded the "Cricket Council USA" and who has been involved in a number of questionable business dealings leading to civil court actions and bankruptcy filings.
Super Stop Stores owns property where ICNA Relief USA Florida has its offices. ICNA Relief USA is affiliated with the Islamist organization Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), an Islamist group with a long record of advocating ultra-conservative theology.
ICNA Relief Florida's registered agent, Abdulrauf Khan, also runs a nonprofit called "Community Fest Florida, Inc." The Community Fest's listed address is the same as ICNA Relief Florida. Community Fest Florida was incorporated in October 2012. Its vice president is CAIR's Nezar Hamze, who assured us the Qazi brothers are not well known in the south Florida Muslim community.