The Muslim Brotherhood in Its Own Words

A new translation of a former Muslim Brotherhood leader's book shows a strong commitment to jihad not only in defense, but in "realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world."

Palestinian Media Watch translation of Mustafa Mashhur's book, Jihad is the way, was featured in the Jerusalem Post Wednesday. Mashhur led the Egyptian-based Islamist movement from 1996-2002.

His ideology "contrasts sharply with the Egyptian MB's recent positions on violence, Islam's role in politics, and aspirations to political power in Egypt and abroad.

"We do not have a special agenda; we follow the trends and have often repeated that we are not seeking power or position, and will not nominate anyone to run for the presidency," said a Brotherhood statement on Feb. 7. Jihad is the way presents a different view of violently seizing power and establishing an Islamic state, which is seen by the MB as a religious obligation. "Additionally, without Jihad and the preparation towards it, the obligation cast upon every Muslim to establish an Islamic state and the Islamic Caliphate and to consolidate this religion, will not be realized," Mashhur wrote.

The book also reinforces concerns about the MB nullifying Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and destabilizing the region. "Jihad for Allah is not limited to the specific region of the Islamic countries, since the Muslim homeland is one and is not divided, and the banner of Jihad has already been raised in some of its parts, and it shall continue to be raised, with the help of Allah, until every inch of the land of Islam will be liberated, the State of Islam will be established," Mashhur wrote. "And the youth should know that the problems of the Islamic world, such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, or the Philippines, are not issues of territories and nations, but of faith and religion. They are problems of Islam and all Muslims, and their resolution cannot be negotiated and bargained by recognizing the enemy's right to the Islamic land he stole, therefore, there is no other option but Jihad for Allah, and this is why Jihad is the way."

The book fits more with other ideological and strategic texts of the MB, as opposed to recent and more pragmatic statements. The strategy of the American Muslim Brotherhood, as laid out by documents in the Hamas-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation, shows an organization committed to using civil society and state institutions to secure a renewed Caliphate. To topple secular government in America, the MB advocates "establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state, wherever it is."

Treasury Designations Target Haqqani Fundraisers

Treasury officials designated two Afghani men as global terrorists on Monday, saying they play significant roles in routing money and supplies to both the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Khalil Al-Rahman Haqqani "is among the … most important figures and fundraisers" in the "Haqqani Network," a Treasury statement said. The network, run by veteran Afghan rebel Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is tied to the Taliban and works in the lawless region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is has led attacks on U.S. forces and the Afghan government.

Khalil Al-Rahman Haqqani has been "responsible for the detention of enemy prisoners captured by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network," and "taken orders for Taliban operations from his nephew Sirajuddin Haqqani," the statement said. He also has traveled to the United Arab Emirates to raise money and has collected from donors in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China.

'Abd Al-Salam has collected thousands of dollars al-Qaida and the Taliban and served as an al-Qaida commander for securing weapons. He also has served as a communications conduit between al-Qaida and the Taliban, the Treasury statement said.

Part of Minnesota MAS-School Suit Settled

Minnesota school officials and a company supervising a charter school tied to the Muslim American Society reportedly have settled a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union, which believes the school's religious programs violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause.

Islamic Relief USA, which has supervised the Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), will pay the ACLU $267,500 to settle the lawsuit, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. The state isn't paying any money, but commits to new procedures to make sure other publicly-funded charter schools keep religious promotion out of their curriculum.

The school itself is not a part of the settlement. "The ACLU is many miles away from any settlement with TiZA," attorney Peter Lancaster told the Star Tribune. "We haven't really been able to agree on anything in the case."

The school is run by officials with the Muslim American Society's Minnesota chapter. Its defamation countersuit against ACLU was dismissed and last fall, a judge ruled that the school's behavior in the case "has not been consistent with a good faith search for the truth."

The settlement is expected to include a statement of facts about the school's operation that will be filed publicly. Islamic Relief's settlement payment should send a message "that sponsoring a [publicly-funded] religious school can be an expensive proposition," Lancaster said.

Bridges Television Exec Guilty of Wife's Murder

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan was convicted of second degree murder Monday in the stabbing death and beheading of his wife Aasiya inside their Bridges Television studio in Buffalo. It took jurors just an hour to reach a verdict in the case in which Hassan demanded court permission to represent himself.

Hassan admitted killing his wife, but claimed it was in response to years of abuse from her, and not because she threatened to divorce him because of his abuse of her.

The couple created Bridges to help improve the image of Muslims.

He called his wife "a crazy, lunatic, out of control person" and said she was abusive because she had been physically abused as a child. A running update from the News notes that, in two hours of closing argument, Hassan never talked about the killing itself.

Prosecutor Colleen Curtin Gable went through the killing in detail, including a review of a surveillance video that showed the violence. Hassan was the abuser, she said, and he carefully planned the murder.

Hassan is scheduled to be sentenced March 9. His self-representation has made the case a fascination for people in Buffalo, with the Buffalo News calling the trial "the wildest and weirdest case anyone in Western New York can recall." You can see excerpts of his closing argument here.

Meanwhile, the prosecution of an alleged honor killing is wrapping up in an Arizona courtroom. The state is expected to rest Monday in the murder trial of Faleh Almaleki, an Iraqi immigrant who ran over his 20-year-old daughter in 2009.

Prosecutors say Almaleki thought Noor Amaleki had grown too westernized. The defense claims it was an accident and Faleh Almaleki merely wanted to spit on her boyfriend's mother, who also was run over and suffered severe injuries.

Last week, police officials testified that after the incident, Almaleki told them that he meant to hurt his daughter because she had moved in with her boyfriend's family, whom he considered a "bad family." Noor had broken off an arranged marriage with an Iraqi cousin.

Muslim Brotherhood Joins Egypt Negotiations

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood announced it will enter talks with Vice President Omar Suleiman about "the process of [President Hosni] Mubarak leaving office, the right to protest in public places and guarantees for their safety," an MB spokesman told Reuters. The negotiations are the first ever between the officially banned group and the government, reviving concerns about Islamist participation in the transitional and future governments.

"We have decided to engage in a round of dialogue to ascertain the seriousness of officials towards the demands of the people and their willingness to respond to them," a spokesman for the group told Reuters. The MB also said the move was intended to forestall any "foreign or regional interference in our affairs."

The Muslim Brotherhood is broadcasting a mixed message about negotiation and participation in a new government. MB leader Mohamed Badie "assert[ed] that the MB do not seek power and have no intention in its agenda in nominating any of its members for presidency or being part of the interim government," in a recent statement. However, a 2007 program by the group talked of a general Islamization of Egyptian society, with a determination made that women and Coptic Christians could not rise to become Egypt's head of state.

The move also comes at a time of crisis for Mubarak's ruling party, the NDP. Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, resigned from his position, as did other key figures including the NDP's secretary general. Assuming both the younger Mubarak's position and the secretary generalship, was Hossam Badrawi, a relative moderate who called for constitutional amendments to ease the way for candidates in presidential elections.

It is unclear if negotiations will succeed in ending the crisis, as key opposition figures missed a meeting with Vice President Omar Suleiman on Saturday. "The major players still haven't shown up," an unnamed US official said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "But they need to test the government's willingness to make major change.... The onus is on the opposition."

Irvine Students Charged with Disrupting Oren Speech

Each of the 11 students who disrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's speech at the University of California, Irvine in February 2010 were charged with one count of misdemeanor conspiracy to disturb a meeting and one count of misdemeanor disturbance of a meeting on Friday.

The charges could mean anything from probation and community service to fines to six months in prison, if convicted.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas explained that this is an issue that extends beyond free speech. "These defendants meant to stop this speech and stop anyone else from hearing his ideas, and they did so by disrupting a lawful meeting," Rackauckas said. "We cannot tolerate a pre-planned violation of the law, even if the crime takes place on a school campus and even if the defendants are college students."

The defendants are Mohamed Mohy-Eldeen Abdelgany, 23; Khalid Gahgat Akari, 19; Aslam Abbasi Akhtar, 23; Joseph Tamim Haider, 23; Taher Mutaz Herzallah, 21; Hakim Nasreddine Kebir, 20; Shaheen Waleed Nassar, 21; Mohammad Uns Qureashi, 19; Ali Mohammad Sayeed, 23; Osama Ahmen Shabaik, 22; and Asaad Mohamedidris Traina, 19.

All 11 students are scheduled to be arraigned on March 11. Their attorney, Jacqueline Goodman, said they will plead not guilty.

The university disciplined the students, but the details have not been released. University spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon said university officials believed they "thoroughly and fairly investigated and adjudicated the matter last year. Conduct violations were addressed fully, consistent with the guidelines of the student code of conduct. Since the university's resolution of this matter in the summer of 2010, our community has continued to build bridges of understanding and foundations for respectful and meaningful dialogue."

The charges are generating a heated response. As the website Anti-CAIR reported, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) signed onto a letter that suggests the prosecution "may in fact lead to more disruptive and perhaps violent forms of political protests, since less non-violent and less disruptive protests would by this new precedent carry nearly the same criminal exposure."

Court Upholds Florida Doctor's Terror Conviction

The 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Friday upheld the terror-support conviction of Dr. Rafiq Sabir, a doctor living in Boca Raton, Fla. In 2007, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for providing material support to al-Qaida. Sabir was convicted after a five-week trial in which prosecutors presented evidence that he and a friend, Tarik Shah, conspired to provide the terrorist group with medical assistance and martial-arts training.

Sabir was arrested in a sting operation involving an al-Qaida "recruiter" who was actually an undercover FBI agent. At a May 2005 meeting, Sabir and Shah took an oath of loyalty to the terrorist organization, pledging to follow the orders of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They were arrested eight days later.

Sabir told the undercover agent that he would be spending two years working at a hospital in Saudi Arabia and that he had considerable freedom of movement there. Evidence presented at trial showed that al-Qaida had been waging a terror campaign inside Saudi Arabia since May 2003. Sabir wrote down his telephone numbers in code and gave them to the agent to provide to the "brothers" in Saudi Arabia.

In secretly recorded conversations, Shah said he had trained Muslim fighters and that he would like to learn about "explosives and firearms" and "chemical stuff." At one meeting, he smiled at a girl standing nearby and told the undercover FBI agent: "I could be joking and smiling and then cutting their throats in the next second."

Read more here.

Galloway Endorses an Islamic Revolution in Egypt

Former British MP and Viva Palestina leader George Galloway slammed the United States, Britain and President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday in a fiery speech he delivered at a Stop the War Coalition meeting in support of the Egyptian revolution in London.

"Mubarak is not a person without status, he has a status. And that status is murderer, torturer, dictator and he should be on trial," Galloway told a cheering crowd.

Galloway insisted that "we have no need to be going around saying that this is not a Muslim revolution," because "a very significant number of the population of Egypt support the Islamic Movement of Egypt and that Movement has no need to hide itself under a bushel."

Galloway offered advice to Egyptian protestors:

"This revolution must go forward to victory, or it will go back to defeat. And if it goes back to defeat, all these dictatorships who starve their people, who prostitute their countries in the interests of America and Israel and Britain and other imperialist countries will breathe a sigh of relief."

"But if that revolution goes forward," he continued, "the gates of Rafah will come down. The siege on Gaza will be over. The Palestinian national movement will be able to be reunited instead of being divided. And the hand of the Palestinian people under siege and occupation will be immeasurably strengthened by an Arab Egypt, a patriotic Egypt, a nationalist Egypt once again."

Given his support for Hamas and Hizballah, it's no surprise that Galloway advocates an Islamic revolution in Egypt. Galloway was declared persona non grata by the Egyptian military in January, 2010, barring him from entering the country again. Accused of being a national security threat, Galloway was refused entry into the country during Viva Palestina's fourth land convoy to Gaza.

A Call for Tougher Canadian Immigration Scrutiny

Canada's skyrocketing immigration is creating new security challenges that should prompt the nation to consider more direct steps to try to weed out those who may bring radical Islamist ideology with them, an intelligence expert testified Thursday.

David B. Harris, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service chief of strategic planning, told a Senate committee in Ottawa that the rate of immigration – 250,000 people per year – is creating more enclaves in the country, diluting the normal pattern in which "a newcomer's radical tendencies might more readily have been overwhelmed by Canada's ambient liberal-pluralist atmosphere."

Canada's population grew from 29 million people to 34 million people in just over a decade. Many of them come from Muslim majority countries that have extremist movements. In many cases, those immigrants may have been escaping from that radical ideology. But others might be importing it.

As an example, Harris noted 20,000 new permanent residents from Egypt, where a recent Pew poll found overwhelming support for Islamic law tenets such as the death penalty for adultery and for converts from Islam, and 20 percent support for al-Qaida.

"Does extremism travel well?" asked Harris, who now directs the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program for INSIGNIS Strategic Research. "A 2007 Environics poll says 12 percent of Canadian Muslims could justify a Toronto-18 type plot calling for mass-casualty attacks in Canada, including invading Parliament and beheading the prime minister. That means that between 49,000 and 119,000 Canadians could justify making war on fellow Canadians."

That isn't helped by two organized Islamist groups in Canada: the Muslim Association of Canada, which openly declares allegiance to Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Canada, which Harris said is "known for its divisive, poorly documented insistence that Muslims are subject to broad-ranging persecution in Canada."

His concerns, he said, are shared by moderate Muslim groups in Canada. See the entire testimony here.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that the U.S. and Canada are about to unveil significant changes regarding border and security cooperation between the two countries.

Iran Hails Egyptian "Revolution"

Iran has endorsed the Egyptian uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. More than 200 members of the Iranian Parliament signed a statement calling events in Egypt a "holy revolution" inspired by Iran's revolution. PressTV, the quasi-official Iranian news agency, reported that the parliamentarians "described Iran's support for the Egyptian revolution as a spiritual one, based on common historical principles."

The agency added that Egypt had been regarded as the center of "freedom-seeking Islam" in the 20^th century until "disloyal leaders" acted "to serve the interest of those who usurped Muslims' rights."

"Thanks to the Islamic Revolution, Islam and Shiism is (sic) cultivating the world and this revolutionary culture is Islamic," one Iranian MP declared, adding that the victory of the Iranian Revolution "has turned it into a paradigm for the populace of Arab states…Today we can see the influence of the Islamic Revolution on the public opinion in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia."

The deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, gloated that the uprising in Egypt could damage Israel. "If Egypt and the Mubarak Administration collapse, the Zionist regime will have no support and a string of changes will occur," he said, speaking at ceremonies commemorating the 32^nd anniversary of the Iranian revolution.

In an interview, Salami called the unrest in Egypt a "manifestation of the [Iranian] Islamic Revolution in the Middle East region and the world of Islam."

Iran has long been hostile to Mubarak and his predecessor, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (assassinated in 1981), for establishing piece with Israel. IDF Lt. Col. (Ret.) Michael Seagall writes that in 1982, "Iran issued a postal stamp in memory of Khalid Islambouli, Sadat's assassin, and even named a street after him in Tehran. In Tehran's Martyrs' Museum, he is remembered along with Ahmed Yassin, Yehye Ayash [a Hamas bombmaker assassinated by Israel], [Palestinian Islamic Jihad founder] Fathi Shuqaqi, Hizbullah's former Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, and Imad Mugniyah. Iran hopes that Islambouli's standing in Iran will sway the Egyptian street and help turn the Middle East into Islamist territory under its influence."

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