Judge Hits Iran with Second Huge Judgment from 1983 Attack

Iran's support for Hizballah is uncontroverted, so the Iranian government is liable for nearly $100 million in damages to two survivors of the 1983 Hizballah suicide bombing of an American Marine barracks in Beirut and relatives of a man killed in the attack, a federal judge has ruled.

It's the second major award ordered this year by Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. In the spring, he ordered $1 billion in damages be paid to surviving families of the dead Marines.

The litigation is still ongoing because Iran previously enjoyed sovereign immunity from punitive damages, but recent legal changes removed that protection.

A suicide bomber in a hijacked water truck crashed into the Marine barracks on Oct. 23, 1983, killing 241 American service members. "The resulting explosion was the largest non-nuclear explosion that had ever been detonated on the face of the Earth," the ruling said. "The four-story Marine barracks was reduced to fifteen feet of rubble."

Judge Lamberth entered a default judgment for the plaintiffs. He traced Hizballah's development and the pivotal role Iranian support, training and money played in it. Iran's goal was for Hizballah "to engage in terrorist activities in furtherance of the transformation of Lebanon into an Islamic theocracy modeled after Iran," Lamberth wrote.

Iran's role in the attack was proven by communication between its Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) and Iran's ambassador to Syria. It called for Hizballah "to take a spectacular action against the United States Marines."

Iran's support of Hizballah continues, Lamberth wrote, citing testimony from expert witness Patrick Clawson that Iran gave the group $200 million in cash in 2008 and has provided "many tens of millions of dollars" in weapons, including 40,000 rockets.

Lamberth ordered Iran to pay the survivors and their relatives a total of more than $93 million, including more than $61 million in punitive damages to Armando J. Ybarra and John E. L'Heureux, who survived the bombing, and to relatives of a man killed in the attack. Read Judge Lambert's ruling here. His $1 billion judgment from spring can be seen here.

American-born Flotilla Activist Saw Violence Coming

Evidence continues to emerge that the violence initiated by IHH activists on board the Mavi Marmara ship as part of a flotilla trying to break the blockade on Gaza was planned in advance. This time, the information was provided by a former U.S. marine who was involved in the fight with the Israelis.

"I knew before we set out that the Turks are not like the other Westerns, that there would be no passive resistance in this case," Kenneth O'Keefe, an Irish citizen who lives in the UK, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in an interview published on Friday.

When asked whether he observed the IHH operatives saw off beams on the ship in preparation for attacking the Israelis, O'Keefe replied, "I knew we would defend that ship. That was stated publicly a great many times. You have to be an idiot to board that ship and think it will be a ship of passive resistance."

O'Keefe also refrained from condemning Hamas during the same interview:

"I am against such [suicide] attacks in the same measure that I am against state terror. Hamas has not perpetrated suicide attacks for years now, and when they won the 2006 elections everyone who prevented them from taking part in the political process is as much to blame as they are for the violence that followed. You hate them because they are violent, but what do you do when they take part in the elections? You kick them out and push them into a corner."

O'Keefe believes that 9/11 was an "inside job" conducted by the U.S. government with the help of Israel. In January, 2004 he took pride in burning his American passport while in Amsterdam, stating:

"I charge the United States with being the number one terrorist on the face of the planet."

O'Keefe is currently in the United States on a speaking tour.

The Hyping of a Muslim College

Zaytuna College, a new institution in Berkeley, California, has attracted a lot of positive news coverage. But Stephen Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, wonders why and accuses the media for overlooking some key problems at the school.

Reports have called Zaytuna the "first Muslim college in the U.S." But Schwartz points out that the American Islamic College in Chicago opened in 1981. He asks why the college was "so favored by American media" when he sees it more as "a novelty, and not a very interesting one." The new college's proprietor, Hamza Yusuf [Schwartz refers to him as Hamza Yusuf Hanson], has not yet obtained enough financial support to develop the new college in the "ambitious way" that he initially proposed. Plus, Zaytuna College has only four faculty members and a limited offering of courses for students, Schwartz says.

"How can such an enterprise be needed, considering the plentitude of Middle East courses available at America's existing universities and colleges?" he wrote. The college will "presumably vindicate Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson's overweening narcissism while providing a platform for the Islamist ideology of his mentors."

Yusuf's mentor, Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, has been praised by the radical cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, well-known for his support of suicide bombings. In a February 2010 interview on BBC Arabic, Qaradawi said:

"I supported martyrdom operations, and I was not the only one. Hundreds of Islamic scholars supported these operations….They are forced to turn themselves into human bombs, in order to defend their land, their honor, and their homeland."

At a 1996 Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) convention Yusuf said that America is "a country that has little to be proud of in its past and less to be proud of in the present. I am a citizen of this country not by choice but by birth. I reside in this country not by choice but by conviction in attempting to spread the message of Islam in this country."

He also made anti-Semitic statements in a 1995 video: "Jews would have us believe that God had this bias to this little small tribe in the middle of the Sinai desert and all the rest of humanity is just rubbish."

"I mean that is the basic doctrine of the Jewish religion and that's why it is a most racist religion, it really is," Yusuf said. Schwartz says that Yusuf has toned down his public statements since 9/11.

Two other faculty members at Zaytuna, Imam Zaid Shakir and UC-Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, have espoused radical statements more recently. During a 2004 rally, Bazian said "it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every –They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical—well, you haven't seen radicalism yet!"

Zaid Shakir, at a 2005 Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention in Canada, blamed the U.S. for terrorism:

"And the finger of blame will be pointed at all of those real or imagined terrorists scattered all over the world, and no mirror will be held up to see the terrorism that is being inflicted and has been inflicted on the people of the world because of the policies of the United States of America."

Shakir has made a host of other radical statements, such as assertions justifying Hizballah's 1983 bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, promoting conspiracy theories about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and condemning the legal and political system in America as "sinful."

IPT's Landman Testifies on Terror Financing Trends

While law enforcement has made tremendous strides cracking down on terrorist financing networks, new legislation is needed to help keep pace with emerging technology and informal money transfer networks, or hawalas, Stephen I. Landman, the Investigative Project on Terrorism's director of national security law and policy testified before a Congressional panel Tuesday.

Landman was among four witnesses presenting "A Review of Current and Evolving Trends in Terrorism Financing" before the House Committee on Financial Services Oversight and Investigations subcommittee.

He described a number of cases in which banks were used to route money to terrorist groups from charitable fronts and other supporters. When challenged in court, banks have argued in vain that they merely provided routine "financial services" not spelled out in legislation banning material support to terrorists. The legislation should be clarified on that point, Landman said.

He also described how informal money transfer networks, known as hawalas, are unregulated and have been implicated in a number of terrorism cases, including the recent indictment of a hawala operator accused of handling transactions for failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. In emerging trends, Landman described "stored value cards," akin to gift cards, which could allow huge sums of money to be moved without detection.

To see Landman's prepared testimony, click here.

Al-Arabiya Director Presses GZM Criticism

One of the under-reported aspects of the ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed Ground Zero mosque is the pointed criticism the project has drawn from Muslims outside the United States.

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, has been among the most vocal critics, casting the mosque fight as "the wrong battle" and saying there's no evidence to indicate it's an issue Muslims around the world are invested in emotionally.

In a column published last week in Ashaq Al-Awsat and highlighted by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Rashid confronts some of the assertions of mosque proponents head-on.

Muslim intellectuals and elites "all preferred to remain silent" rather than criticize the plan or assess what Al-Rashid calls "the damage caused to Islam, at the hands of Muslims in New York."

Proponents filled that void by falsely arguing "that Muslims worldwide would be furious if the mosque was built elsewhere, which is certainly not true," he wrote.

In contrast, Al-Rashid pointed to the strong condemnation American political and social leaders issued against the Florida pastor who planned to burn copies of the Quran on September 11. The response "clearly defended the feelings of Muslims," something Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and supporters of his proposed mosque have been unable to reciprocate:

"There should be one ethical position concerning both the humiliation of Muslims by burning copies of their holy book and the humiliation of the Americans with the construction of a mosque near the site of the crime committed by Muslims against others."

Rauf's claim that relocating the mosque could trigger violent reactions around the world "is not true," Al-Rashid wrote. "Whether the mosque was built in Manhattan, Brooklyn or elsewhere in New York, Muslims would not be irritated, rather they would be pleased. The funny thing is that the Imam said that his project - which would cost 100 million US dollars and has already caused great unrest in the U.S. - aims to enhance understanding and dialogue between Muslims and other faiths. Is this a joke?"

Stopping Radical Islamist Threats

News that Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris has changed her identity and gone into hiding in the wake of death threats and a fatwa from Al Qaida recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki continues to generate outrage.

Norris proposed – but did not follow through on – "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" to protest threats made against Comedy Central and "South Park" for an episode in which the Prophet was depicted concealed in a bear suit.

In the Los Angeles Times Monday, writer Ayyan Hirsi Ali called for legislation "making it a crime to threaten people exercising reproductive rights and permitting victims to sue for damages." The proposal, issued jointly by Hirsi Ali and Daniel Huff, director of the Middle East Forum's Legal Project, is modeled after the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

The prospect of civil damages helped tamp down threats and intimidation targeting abortion clinics and providers. Though the issues are different, the circumstances are similar, the two write.

"Existing state laws prohibiting intimidation are inadequate." Hirsi Ali and Huff write. Their proposed legislation would help "by focusing national attention on the problem and invoking the formidable enforcement apparatus of the federal government. Second, its civil damages provision would empower victims of intimidation to act as private attorneys general to defend their rights."

Hirsi Ali moved to America seeking refuge from similar threats against her life – threats which first were tacked on to the murdered body of Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh after the two collaborated on "Submission," a short film protesting the treatment of women in Islam.

She and Huff note the chilling effect such threats have on other creative expressions, citing several examples of pre-emptive censorship by those fearful of threats or actual violent responses.

"If we leave our artists, activists and thinkers alone to weather the assault," they conclude, "they will succumb and we will all suffer the consequences."

Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, meanwhile, calls out her peers for failing to speak out in Norris' defense. She quotes Awlaki's fatwa which said Norris "does not deserve life, does not deserve to breathe the air."

Kersten criticizes the relative silence about Norris' plight from fellow journalists, noting the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists have not issued statements.

It's a sign, she writes, that the media has "increasingly caved to threats from radical Islam. The new norm is a self-censorship consistent with Muslim teaching that Islam must be free from insult, though other religions may be insulted at all times."

HLF Fundraiser Visits Counterterrorism Operations Center

He was a fundraiser for a group convicted of providing material support to Hamas, yet Kifah Mustapha recently received tours of secure FBI facilities in and around Washington.

Mustapha's two-day trip earlier this month was arranged by the FBI's Chicago office, whose officials escorted Mustapha and about two dozen others on tours of the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia and FBI headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. A news report noted that Mustapha "asked some of the most pointed questions" during the trip to Washington, including queries regarding the FBI's use of deadly force and racial profiling.

While Mustapha describes an improving relationship with the Bureau, things aren't going so well between the imam and the Illinois State Police (ISP). Earlier this year, the ISP rescinded an offer to Mustapha to become the state's first Muslim police chaplain, citing his connections to the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). HLF was convicted in November 2008, along with five of its officials, of funneling money to Hamas.

The imam was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial under a list of members of the Palestine Committee and/or its organizations. Evidence showed that the Palestine Committee was a coalition of American Islamist groups and leaders created by the Muslim Brotherhood to help Hamas politically and financially.

Mustapha served as a fundraiser and Illinois representative for HLF until the U.S. froze the group's assets in 2001. Court documents show that Mustapha raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the organization. Additionally, he recalled personally donating money to HLF during a civil deposition. Mustapha also served on a volunteer committee for the Islamic Association for Palestine, a Hamas propaganda wing in the U.S.

The Chicago imam has also helped raise money for a group considered an inappropriate outreach partner by the FBI, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Mustapha has helped CAIR lead fundraising efforts at a 2009 CAIR-Michigan banquet, a 2007 CAIR-Chicago banquet and most recently, a CAIR-Chicago banquet in April.

In an April 2009 letter the FBI explained its decision to suspend formal ties with CAIR:

"until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."

Mustapha was a key fundraiser for an organization now convicted of funneling money to Hamas and has fundraised for an organization considered suspect by the FBI because of its leadership's ties to Hamas. Yet, Chicago's FBI office took the imam on a privileged tour of some of the most sensitive counterterrorism operations centers in the country.

The FBI did not pay for Mustapha's trip.

Viva Palestina Leader Loses Canadian Appeal

Former British parliamentarian and head of Viva Palestina George Galloway lost his appeal of the Canadian government's ban on his entrance into the country on Sunday.

Galloway was banned from entering Canada on March 20, 2009, based on a decision made by border security officials in accordance with the country's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In April of this year, Galloway's Canadian lawyers took the ban to the Ontario federal court in Toronto, arguing that it should be overturned because the decision was a result of the government's pro-Israel bias. Judge Richard Mosley had said he would need approximately a month before making a decision.

Judge Mosley ruled on Sunday that the government did not officially exclude Galloway and thus no appeal could be considered.

"Mr. Galloway chose not to present himself at the border for examination and did not seek the exercise of ministerial discretion in the form of an exemption or a temporary residence permit," Mosley wrote. "As such, no final decision was made regarding his admissibility. There is, therefore, no decision which this Court can review."

The judge did note, however, "It is clear that the efforts to keep Mr. Galloway out of the country had more to do with antipathy to his political views than with any real concern that he had engaged in terrorism or was a member of a terrorist organization."

The efforts were those of Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who declared that Galloway would not be allowed to enter the country if he attempted to do so. At the time, Ali Alykhan Velshi, the spokesman for the Minister, said:

"We're going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to [Galloway]…who actually brags about giving 'financial support' to Hamas, a terrorist organization banned in Canada."

Galloway planned to speak in Canadian cities in March, 2009, following his first Viva Palestina convoy, during which his group delivered over $1 million of aid to the Hamas government in Gaza. Instead, he spoke to his Canadian audience via video link, and came to the United States for various speaking tours throughout the year, visiting over a dozen cities around the nation.

Galloway is also banned from entering Egypt, when he was declared persona non grata by the Egyptian foreign ministry in January of this year, during the third Viva Palestina convoy.

Despite this ban, and Egypt's stated refusal to overturn it, Galloway plans on entering Egypt with the fourth Viva Palestina convoy, currently en route to Gaza, which hopes to enter the Gaza Strip via the Egyptian port of El-Arish next month.

Proposal Broadens Law Enforcement Access to Bank Records

Some banking and privacy advocates are upset by an Obama administration proposal that would require the disclosure of all money transfers sent to and from the United States. Currently, only transfers of more than $10,000, or which otherwise attract suspicion, must be reported.

But the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) hopes the new requirement would help identify more transfers used in terror financing and other forms of organized crime. Banks already have to keep such data, but not report it, a FinCEN statement said.

The changes wouldn't take effect before 2012, and must undergo a public comment period first. In a story Monday, the Washington Post cited several critics who took issue with the proposal, primarily on privacy grounds.

The increased data, however, would help investigators identify criminal conspiracies. Though the 9/11 hijackers received $130,000 in overseas transfers, for example, none triggered reporting requirements in existing law.

"With this data, we'll be able to establish baseline numbers so we can then spot what's abnormal and suspicious," FinCEN spokesman Steve Hudak told the Post. "John Smith may use a bank to wire money abroad in amounts that don't raise suspicion. But he may be using 10 banks to wire significant funds to dozens of counties."

The proposal emanates from the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the FinCEN statement said. That act called on the Treasury Secretary to study the feasibility of adding the requirements and "if the Secretary determines that reporting of such transmittals is reasonably necessary to conduct the efforts of the Secretary against money laundering and terrorist financing."

"Lady Al Qaida" Receives 86 Year Sentence

A Pakistani scientist educated in the U.S. was sentenced to 86 years in prison Thursday for attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and federal agents in Afghanistan in 2008. Aafia Siddiqui, 38, was found guilty of all seven charges against her, including two counts of attempted murder, following a 14-day trial in Manhattan federal court in February.

According to the indictment, Siddiqui grabbed a U.S. Army officer's M-4 rifle and fired it at another officer and other members of a U.S. interview team at an Afghan police compound in July 2008. A Warrant Officer heard Siddiqui, also known as "Lady Al Qaida," shout "Allah Akbar!" before firing.

The U.S. team had traveled to Afghanistan to interview Siddiqui following her detention by Afghan authorities. The Aghans said they seized handwritten notes from Siddiqui that referred to a "mass casualty attack" in the U.S. and listed several landmarks including the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The notes also detailed ways to construct "dirty bombs" and discussed ways to attack "enemies," that included "destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and destroying gliders."

The FBI accused Siddiqui of supporting Al Qaida although she was not charged with terrorism.

Evidence presented at trial showed Siddiqui received training in the handling and shooting of firearms while a student in Boston. Siddiqui, who earned graduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in biology and neuroscience, has denied receiving any such training or having any familiarity with firearms.

Her lawyers claimed she was mentally ill and suffered from schizophrenia, but Siddiqui has denied the claim: "I'm not paranoid. I'm not mentally sick," she told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman. Defense lawyers also alleged Siddiqui was tortured while in custody but Siddiqui herself refuted the allegation saying: "I am not sad. I am not distressed … they are not torturing me."

Islamist groups in the U.S. including the Muslim American Society have come out in support of Siddiqui claiming her "conviction is seriously flawed and her kidnapping and detention is a grave violation of human rights and international law."

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