IHH Leader Under Investigation for Funding al-Qaida

The director of the Turkish-based Islamist group IHH that was behind the deadly May 2010 flotilla raid is under investigation by Turkish authorities for allegedly funding al-Qaida.

The Turkish daily Habertürk reported Friday that prosecutors are investigating claims that IHH head Bulent Yildirim has been secretly "providing financial aid to al-Qaida via his foundation."

Yildirim played a key role in organizing the 2010 flotilla and directed IHH operatives on the Turkish-led Mavi Marmara ship to prepare for a violent confrontation with Israel. Nine activists died after they attacked Israeli commandos with clubs, knives and other weapons.

Yildirim and IHH have extensive ties to Hamas and provide the terrorist group with funding. The U.S. government verified IHH's ties to Hamas in June 2010 and the U.S. State Department said the organization was under investigation the following month. IHH is also a member of the Union of Good, designated in 2008 by the U.S. for supporting and transferring funds to Hamas.

U.S. court documents show that IHH had ties to al-Qaida. During the April 2001 trial of "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam French intelligence expert Jean Louis-Bruguiere said IHH played an "important role" in the al-Qaida planned bomb plot. Bruguiere also told the Associated Press in June 2010 that IHH was "basically helping Al Qaeda when (Osama) bin Laden started to want to target U.S. soil."

Bruguiere was part of a 1998 French and Turkish police raid at IHH headquarters in Istanbul, where they found weapons, explosives and bomb making instructions. Yildirim, who was also IHH's leader at the time, had directly conspired to "'recruit veteran soldiers in anticipation of the coming holy war [jihad]. In particular, some men were sent into war zones in Muslim countries in order to acquire combat experience,'" according to an intelligence document written by Bruguiere in the mid 1990's and cited in a 2006 Danish report.

In May 2011, IHH and other Turkish groups denounced the killing of Osama bin Laden and called for the condemnation of "American terrorism." In an interview with a Turkish Islamist television channel that same month, Yildirim described preparations for an upcoming flotilla, from which IHH later withdrew. "We are not afraid," and "even if we sacrifice shaheeds [martyrs] for this cause, we will have justice on our side," Yildirim said.

In September 2011, IHH members were involved with delivering aid to the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, which is tied to al-Qaida and fighting to overthrow the Somali government.

NC Man Found Guilty on Terrorism Charges

A federal jury Thursday convicted a North Carolina man on charges related to a plot to provide material support to terrorists and wage violent jihad overseas. Anes Subasic was charged along with seven other men in a 2009 federal indictment.

In a separate trial last September, Subasic was found guilty on two counts of unlawful procurement of citizenship.

"We must be ever vigilant in our prosecution of those who seek to visit terror on our way of life," U.S. Attorney Thomas Walker said in a Department of Justice press release announcing the verdict. "This prosecution demonstrates that commitment."

Subasic formed part of a North Carolina-based terrorist cell led by Daniel Patrick Boyd. Boyd pleaded guilty in February 2011 to conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country and to a charge of material support to terrorists. According to the superseding indictment, between 1989 and1992, Boyd traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan where he received military-style training in terrorist training camps. He also fought Soviet troops alongside the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

A 2008 conversation recorded between Boyd and Subasic showed the men holding "a coded conversation in which they discussed preparing to send two individuals overseas to engage in violent jihad." In another recording Boyd expressed his concerns to Subasic that the FBI might become interested in their plans.

According to the indictment, Boyd and his son Zakariya, along with co-defendants Ziyad Yaghi and Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, traveled to Israel in June 2007. The men wanted to die "as martyrs in furtherance of violent jihad." They returned to the United States a month later after they couldn't reach their destination. The men then turned to plotting attacks inside the U.S. leading Boyd to travel Virginia to scout the Marine Corps base at Quantico for a possible attack, court records show.

Boyd's two sons Zakariya and Dylan Boyd have pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The other co-defendants, Hysen Sherifi, Aly Hassan and Yaghi, were found guilty on similar conspiracy charges. Two other defendants indicted in the case have not been tried. Jude Kenan Mohammad is on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list and believed to be at large in Pakistan. Bajram Asllani was arrested in Kosovo in June 2010 but the European Union has rejected an extradition request.

Subasic faces up to life in prison for conspiring to wage violent jihad overseas.

Gaza Kindergarten Promotes Jihadi Graduation

A Gaza kindergarten celebrated its graduation with a show of mock violence towards Israelis, YnetNews reports.

"I love the resistance and the martyrs and Palestine, and I want to blow myself up on Zionists and kill them on a bus in a suicide bombing," said one of the kindergarteners participating in the event, which showed the children taking up arms to defeat Israel and liberate Palestinian prisoners.

"It is our obligation to educate the children to love the resistance, Palestine and Jerusalem, so they will recognize the importance of Palestine and who its enemy is," said the director of the Palestinian-Islamic Jihad-run kindergarten.

Gaza-based terrorist groups aren't the only ones involved in promoting extremism.

Although Palestinian rhetoric toward Israel remains generally violent, vigilant monitoring by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has embarrassed international funders of local extremism.

PMW revealed that the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center, funded by the United Nations, used the message "hold machine guns, not cigarettes" to promote an anti-smoking campaign.

It also exposed funding from the European Union, through the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office, for the pro-terrorism Palestinian charity PYALARA. On its weekly Palestinian Authority TV program for youth, the NGO glorified the bodies of recently returned suicide bombers as "the greatest role models for us" and "more honored than all of us."

As a result of the PMW's efforts, the website of Burj Luq-Luq's website was closed and PYALARA faces an investigation by one of its donors, the charity Save the Children UK.

Bin Laden Documents Tie Gaza-Based Terrorist Group to Al- Qaida

A document seized from Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan by the U.S. Army reveals correspondence between al-Qaida and the Army of Islam, according to a report released by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center earlier this month.

The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the United States Military Academy published and translated 17 documents from among the 6,000 captured on computers and hard drives in bin Laden's compound.

One from 2006 shows that the al-Qaida leadership corresponding with the Army of Islam, then a newly created Gaza Strip-based Salafi-jihad organization. Two of its operatives played a role in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006, and the group was responsible for the kidnapping of British journalist Alan Johnston.

The Army of Islam carries out attacks against Israel via the Sinai Peninsula and has been linked to the 2011 bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt.

In the letter, the Army of Islam asks an al-Qaida leader close to bin Laden about funding its jihad activities. The respondent notes that it is clear that the Army of Islam is in need of financial assistance and therefore it could an accept financial assistance even from an "infidel" country like Iran. The unidentified respondent wrote:

"If you are currently unable to support yourselves financially by legitimate means…then accepting funds from other organizations-for instance, from several Islamic organizations such as Hamas and the PIJ, or even nationalist movements [referring to Fatah] which cooperate with you in hitting the Jewish enemy – to be used for jihad and against the Jews – is better than abandoning jihad due to financial difficulties."

According to the Meir Amit report, "The Army of Islam has strong military capabilities compared with other Salafi-jihadist networks in the Gaza Strip, and apparently possesses large quantities of weapons."

In May 2011 the U.S. State Department announced the designation of the Army of Islam as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Palestinian Authority Urges Youth to Emulate Terrorists

Days after Israel returned the bodies of 91 militants to the Palestinians in a goodwill gesture aimed at resuming peace talks, a Palestinian Authority (PA) television program hailed the dead terrorists as role models to be emulated, according to a Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't part from them [the terrorists] or even embrace them," began the statement on the PA TV youth program, Speak Up. "But were satisfied standing before their bodies, standing up before their sanctified message: The homeland won't die, but we will die for it. These [Martyrs] are more honored than all of us... They are the greatest role models for us, not only because they fought and struggled for the homeland, but also because they went beyond the sacrifice [of] strain and effort, to the stage where they actually sacrificed their lives for the homeland."

In addition to PA TV, the program is co-produced by PYALARA, an NGO for youth funded by the European Union, Save the Children, and other international donors.

The remains of 79 militants, all with Israeli blood on their hands, were returned to the PA in the West Bank, where they were honored in a "national rally" for "martyrs" at the headquarters of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. At the ceremony, PA Secretary General Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim and the Mufti of the PA, Muhammad Hussein, urged the crowd to "follow in the path" of the fallen "martyrs."

The remaining 12 bodies were transferred to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where they were also given military honors.

While Israel and the United States hoped the gesture would "get the peace process back on track," the PA, like its terrorist counterparts in the Gaza Strip, seems committed to the path of violence to create a Palestinian state.

Just last month, on May 18, another PA TV and PYALARA program, Jerusalem Scenes, glorified terrorist prisoners serving multiple life sentences for orchestrating suicide bombings that killed innocent Israelis. The EU-funded program interviewed the family members of three terrorists in the "Silwan Cell," which was responsible for three terror attacks in 2002 that killed 35 people.

"I am proud and pride myself on having a son in prison," said the mother of Wisam al-Abbasi, who is serving 26 life sentences for his membership in the cell.

"I always remember Alaa—a person of exalted moral values," the father-in-law of Alaa al-Abbassi told the PYALARA interviewer, referring to another "Silwan Cell" member serving 60 years in Israeli prison.

State Department Report Purges Religious Freedom

Sections covering religious freedom have been purged from the State Department's latest Country Reports on Human Rights released May 24, CNS News reports. The redactions are noteworthy since the 2011 report covers the Arab Spring which swept through parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Repression of minority rights and strengthening of Islamist forces in the region were among the outcomes from the revolutionary upheaval.

This is the first time the State Department has chosen to delete the section on religious freedom from human rights reports posted on its website. Instead, readers are directed to the 2010 International Religious Freedom Report or the annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that was released in September and covers events from 2010.

Former USCIRF Chairman Leonardo Leo criticized the omission.

"The commission that I served on has some real concerns about that bifurcation, because the human rights reports receive a lot of attention, and to have pulled religious freedom out of it means that fewer people will obtain information about what's going on with that particular freedom or right. So you don't have the whole picture because they split it up right now," Leo told CNS News.

Separating religious freedom from the human rights report might be a bureaucratic exercise, said Thomas Farr, who served in the State Department under both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. But he did not discount the possibility that "the Obama administration was downplaying international religious freedom."

Farr, who now directs the program on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy and the Project on Religious Freedom at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown, said the Obama administration has devoted far more resources to human rights issues than to religious freedom.

"(T)he ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, for example, who is the official charged by the law to lead U.S. religious freedom policy, did not even step foot into her office until two-and-a-half years were gone of a four-year administration," he said.

"Whereas other human rights priorities of the administration, such as the ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, were in place within months. So that tells you something."

White House Door Open to CAIR

A White House aide has acknowledged "hundreds of examples" of face-to-face meetings between Obama administration staffers and officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

These happened despite CAIR's well-documented roots in a Muslim Brotherhood-created Hamas support network. The record is so deep that the FBI cut off its outreach to CAIR, and a federal judge ruled there was "ample evidence" cementing the connection.

George Selim, director of community partnerships for the White House, responded to a question from Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro during an event Thursday. He declined to discuss the issue further.

In Munro's article published today, Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson slammed the White House for engaging "the group with the worst record of deception and the deepest ties to terrorists."

While CAIR officials deny it, records obtained by the FBI place the group and its founders squarely within a Hamas-support network operating in the United States called the Palestine Committee. That includes the presence of CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad at a 1993 conference in Philadelphia called to discuss ways to "derail" a U.S.-led peace initiative between Israelis and Palestinians.

Participants in that conference often spoke of the deal's impact on Hamas and how they have to hide their agenda when discussing the issue to Americans.

Nothing in CAIR's history indicates it ever withdrew from that network, which leaves the FBI wondering "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS."

But embracing CAIR may be part of a broader political strategy, especially in battleground states with large Muslim populations like Michigan and Illinois, Munro wrote.

He also referred to anti-Semitic views espoused by CAIR Michigan Director Dawud Walid, which were exposed earlier this week by the IPT. Walid preached about a slaughter of Jews by Muhammad's army. "It was a correct" decision, Walid said.

Va. Man Charged With Smuggling Cash to Hizballah

A man who tried to smuggle $100,000 inside a used car to go to the Hizballah terrorist group in Lebanon is charged with money laundering and bulk cash smuggling in a complaint unsealed in Alexandria Tuesday. Mufid Kamal "Mark" Mrad was arrested in a government sting for trying to smuggle the cash inside a used car.

FBI agents have been watching Mrad since May 2008, court records show.

A month later, a government informant told him that he had spoken to someone in Lebanon who wanted to do a "test run" of sending cash to Lebanon inside cars. Mrad suggested vacuum-packing the cash and hiding it inside a car tire. That would reduce the size of the bundle and, Mrad said, "dogs cannot smell currency when it is inside a car tire."

In another meeting, the informant told Mrad that he had $100,000 that he needed laundered and returned to Lebanon. "It's not a problem," Mrad said. "What's a hundred thousand? It's nothing. A hundred thousand is nothing." Mrad also explained hiding cash in cars sent to Lebanon was a common practice among some Shia Muslims. "[T]he Shiites are all sending the same way….How do you think the money from Africa is getting to Beirut? What do you think, man? It is all the higher-ups. They're being paid money."

Mrad received $3,000 from the informant as partial payment for his help.

In April 2010, Mrad and the informant went to a towing officer where the car supposed to be carrying the cash awaited shipment to Beirut. When Mrad asked the informant to clarify whether the money was going to Hamas or Hizballah, the informant said it was going to Hizballah. Mrad responded, "I know they are for Hizballah!"

Mrad met with a second government informant at a restaurant in Fairfax in February. The informant told Mrad that he had "seven cars stuck at the port of Baltimore" and the government had frozen his bank accounts. He told Mrad that he needed his help to send $500,000 to Beirut. Mrad checked the informant's collar and shirt seams to see if he was wearing a wire. Not finding anything, Mrad confided in the informant that he had "placed money inside cars for Hizballah with two Shiite guys who are friends of ours, for 10%." He expressed concern that "a lot of people are recording stuff and are informants these days."

The case is similar to the recent prosecution of an Ohio couple, Hor and Amera Akl, who pleaded guilty in a scheme to deliver up to $500,000 to Hizballah for anonymous donors in the United States. Hor Akl was sentenced to six years in prison and his wife Amera Akl to 40 months for providing material support to Hizballah.

Violence Against Apostates Surges in Middle East

The beheading of a young Christian convert in Tunisia raises questions about a wave of religious radicalism sweeping the Middle East, writes Islamic affairs expert Raymond Ibrahim for Gatestone Institute. The rise of Quranic literalists in Arab governments and as vigilantes means that "blasphemers" are now risking death or prison for perceived insults to Islam.

Graphic video of the murder was broadcast last week by liberal Egyptian talk show host Tawfiq Okasha on his "Egypt Today" television show, along with his commentary about what the rise of extremists means for his country. The footage shows Islamist extremists executing an unrepentant Christian convert, while a narrator chants prayers and supplications against apostates and Christianity.

According to Ibrahim, the visibly distraught host asks the audience, "Is this Islam? Does Islam call for this?" He then makes reference to Egypt's newly dominant Islamist parties and questions how such people can govern the nation.

The question is a resounding one in light of recent religious violence and political persecution against those who leave Islam. Others, like Saudi citizen Hamza Kashgari, have been forced to repent or face death for expressing their personal views.

Based on traditional beliefs that blasphemers and apostates must be executed, extremists are acting out a punishment that had been absent from the modern Middle East, although highly popular. In a 2011 Pew opinion poll, 84 percent of Egyptians and 86 percent of Jordanians stated they supported executing individuals who abandon Islam.

Many popular scholars are also coming out in support of the punishment, albeit in an Islamic state. And as the Middle East's fledgling democracies are turning Islamist, some envision that the rules apply in Islamic democracies.

Anti-Semitism Surging in France

Three Jews were attacked Saturday night in Southeast France by 10 men wielding a hammer and an iron bar. Two of the victims, both wearing yarmulkes, were hospitalized in what the French Interior Ministry is calling an act of anti-Semitism.

This latest attack comes on the heels of a report released June 1 by the French Jewish community's protection service, known as the SPCJ, which documented a surge in anti-Semitic attacks throughout France in March and April. The impetus is believed to be the March 19 shooting at a Jewish day school in Toulouse, in which Muslim radical Mohamed Merah claimed the lives of three children and a rabbi.

The report states that the Toulouse shooting "triggered an explosion" in anti-Semitic attacks in France, with more than 90 incidents occurring in the ten days immediately following the shooting. In total, the Interior Ministry logged 148 anti-Semitic attacks in March and April, with 43 classified as violent. In the same months last year, only 14 violent attacks were recorded against Jews.

The last violent incident documented in the interim report occurred April 30 in Marseille, when self-identified Palestinians accosted a Jewish man and his girlfriend while promising to "exterminate" the Jews. The man sustained internal bleeding from the attack.

The report also noted 105 incidents of intimidation and threats against Jews in March and April, compared with 54 in the corresponding months in 2011.

SPCJ said the escalation in anti-Semitic action in France is "deeply worrisome" and that it demonstrates that some of the perpetrators feel "empathy" towards the Toulouse shooter, Merah.

For the full SPJC report, click here.

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings