Obama OIC Envoy to Address Brotherhood-linked Event

Rashad Hussain, President Obama's special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), will join representatives of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations at a Chicago conference next week. Hussain will join Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), on a panel discussing OIC relations with American Muslims.

Rehab is not the only conference speaker associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Others scheduled to address the conference include John Esposito, an academic sympathetic with the Brotherhood, and Safaa Zarzour, Secretary General of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

ISNA was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States. And CAIR was linked in court papers to a Brotherhood-organized Hamas-support effort.

According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, the conference, which begins Tuesday and ends on Thursday, will take place at the American Islamic College (AIC) in Chicago. A Hudson Institute report last year identified the AIC as "the first Islamic university in the U.S.," one that was planned by the Muslim Students Association (MSA). The AIC was once headed by MSA founder Ahmed Sakr.

The Chicago appearance is just the latest controversy during Hussain's brief tenure as special envoy to the OIC. In February, Hussain initially claimed he could not remember blasting the Justice Department for "politically motivated prosecutions" of terrorist suspects, including the case against Sami Al-Arian, who pled guilty to providing support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and served on its governing board.

After Politico provided quotes from a recording of the event to the White House documenting that he had made the speech in question, Hussain reversed himself and admitted making the comments.

In July, Hussain addressed ISNA's annual conference in Chicago.

Hamas Brutality Attracts Attention

The Associated Press has reported on a "secretive Hamas campaign to catch Palestinians spying for Israel," which has "ensnared some prominent Gaza residents, drawn unusual criticism, and highlighted the group's deep fears about being penetrated by agents of the Jewish state." To those who have tracked Hamas governance in the Gaza Strip, however, this action comes as no surprise.

According to the Jerusalem Post:

"Human rights workers who are in frequent touch with security officials estimate that more than 20 low-level Hamas operatives have also been rounded up as suspected collaborators in the September arrests. Detainees have been denied access to lawyers or family visits."

Such suspicions and harsh crackdowns have become standard within the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The terrorist organization has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards so-called "collaborators with the Zionist entity." In April, the terrorist organization executed two men by firing squad after they were "found guilty of working with Israel."

The vicious crackdown on Palestinian civilians is not limited to these extrajudicial killings, however. The organization has implemented wide-ranging policies aimed at Islamizing the Gaza Strip. The terrorist group has ordered lingerie shops to display "more modesty," in their wares; banned women from smoking hookah in cafes saying such actions "destroys marriages and sullies the image of the Palestinian people;" and shut down businesses that did not comply with the laws.

And Hamas has tried to prevent word of its actions from making its way into mainstream press. It recently blocked human rights activists from operating in the Gaza Strip, and prevented reporters from entering the area unless they agreed to sign a document stating that they would not criticize the government.

Despite all of this, criticism of Hamas remains practically non-existent. We previously reported on the double standard applied to actions undertaken by Israel and Hamas with respect to the Palestinian population of Israel, concluding that:

"while Israel is castigated for its actions, when it comes to Hamas aggression against the Palestinian people, the silence from American-Muslim organizations is deafening."

Reduced Punishment Still Angers Irvine Muslim Student Union

The University of California, Irvine, has reduced a year-long ban it placed on the Muslim Student Union (MSU) in June, prompted by a protest orchestrated by MSU students during a February speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on campus.

The suspension was cut from a full year to the fall quarter after the MSU appealed. The group will also be placed on two years of probation and must complete 100 collective hours of community service.

Police arrested 11 students the night of the speech, eight from UC Irvine and three from UC Riverside, for disturbing a public event. Despite evidence from internal email exchanges within the group, including a "game plan" which details how the disruption would be carried out, MSU denied responsibility for the disruptions.

UCI's suspension followed an investigation into the planned disruption of a February speech on campus by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The investigation found that MSU organized the disruptions in advance, and then lied about it to school administrators. MSU was found to have violated university conduct codes involving dishonesty, obstructing disciplinary procedures, disorderly conduct, "participation in a disturbance of the peace of unlawful assembly," said a May 27 letter from UCI Housing Senior Executive Director Lisa Cornish.

MSU still maintains that it did not sponsor the disruptions. Instead, MSU's attorney Reem Salahi claimed earlier this month that some group members participated in the protest, but they were deemed "guilty by association."

Rather than expressing relief about the reduced punishment, MSU members and representatives see the decision as an unjust defeat. Salahi called the decision a "disappointment" and Hadeer Soliman, MSU's incoming vice president, said members were "shocked and disappointed by the university's decision against MSU."

The Muslim Student Association (MSA) at the University of California, San Diego, expressed outraged over the decision. "We rightly recognize UCI administration's unwarranted methods as a draconian attempt to silence dissent in the UCI community as well as in the student bodies of other academic institutions," the MSA said in a statement posted on its website Monday.

MSU-UCI's website is advertising an event for October, called "MSU-UCI College Day 2010," despite the suspension.

Report: Yemeni Military has Awlaki Cornered

Reports out of Yemen claim that country's army may be closing in on American-born al Qaida cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki.

He is believed to be among dozens of al Qaida operatives in a Southern Yemen village that has been the scene of heavy fighting with Yemeni soldiers in recent days.

U.S. officials have not commented on the reports. Last December, after an airstrike killed 30 people, Yemeni officials erroneously said they thought Awlaki was among them.

He has been linked to a series of attempted terrorist attacks in the past year, including the Fort Hood massacre in which 13 soldiers were killed. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had extensive email contact with Awlaki before the shooting spree, which Awlaki publicly hailed as heroic.

In addition, he is considered to have been an inspiration in the failed Christmas Day airline bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the failed Times Square car bombing in May.

Awlaki is widely reported to be on a U.S. target list to kill terrorist leaders. The ACLU, on behalf of Awlaki's family, filed a lawsuit saying it would be illegal to kill him without charge. It is unclear what would happen if he is captured, and whether he would be sent back to the U.S. to face criminal charges.

In America, Awlaki served as an imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque outside Washington. A videotape from around 2001 shows him leading a prayer service sometime for congressional staffers. Before that, he was a prayer leader at San Diego's Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque.

Click here to see Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson discussing Awlaki's influence last month.

Ex-Jihadist Imam Slams Bin Laden, Ground Zero Mosque

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, a radical cleric who helped found al Qaida and worked closely with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's deputy, has morphed into a fierce critic of al-Qaida-style jihadism. In a new statement, reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Sharif takes on a host of issues including Osama bin Laden, al Qaida recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki and the proposed Ground Zero mosque.

Sharif, jailed in Egypt since 2004, said that building the mosque near Ground Zero "entails harm to the victims of these [9/11] bombings, who were killed in an operation that was contrary to the teachings of Islam, and reminds them and others of their grief."

Sharif condemned Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf as "a promoter of discord." He added Rauf's Cordoba House project as "a mosque of discord, and one is not allowed to aid in its construction in any manner even if the Americans were to agree to it, since [if it is built] this damage and discord will continue for generations to come."

He denounced Anwar al-Awlaki's calls for American servicemen to kill their fellow soldiers as "contrary to the principles of Islam."

During the 1980s, Sharif developed a reputation as one of the most hard line jihadists among the core group that founded al Qaida. Jarret Brachman, a North Dakota State University professor who is a senior U.S. government consultant on al Qaida issues, writes of Sharif: "His ultra-extreme definition of jihad, focused exclusively on martyrdom and eternal warfare, made even the godfather of global jihadism, Abdullah Azzam, wince."

Since then, Sharif has softened considerably. In 2007, Sharif went public with his concerns, issuing a manifesto called Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World, in which he argued that al Qaida has violated strict legal constraints governing the use of that violence. "One of the most significant of those is ensuring that other Muslims are not injured in the process. But al Qaeda, he points out, has built its post-9/11 reputation on killing Muslims."

"There have been four destroyers in human history who wanted to burn down the world in order to realize their imperial ambitions: Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, and Osama bin Laden," Sharif wrote.

Read more about Sharif's writings questioning jihadist terror here.

American Busted for Attempted Bombing in Chicago

The Justice Department has announced the arrest of an American for attempting to set off a bomb in downtown Chicago over the weekend.

Sami Samir Hassoun, a 22-year-old Chicago man, was arrested early Sunday morning by agents with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Hassoun reportedly placed a backpack which he thought contained a bomb into a garbage can and left the area intending for it to blow up. An FBI informant gave Hassoun the backpack and the bomb itself was inert, the statement said.

Prior to settling on the city target, Hassoun allegedly discussed a number of plots including a biological attack on the city, poisoning Lake Michigan, attacking police officers, bombing the Sears Tower, and assassinating the mayor.

Hassoun appeared in court on Monday, where he was charged with charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

Arab, Iranian Press Commemorate 9/11 with Conspiracy Theories, Jew-Bashing, America-Bashing…

The Middle East Media Research institute (MEMRI) reports that Arab and Iranian media organs marked the 9^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks with theories about U.S. government involvement and anti-Jewish conspiracies. For example:

Iran - The daily newspaper Kayhan, which is close to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, editorialized that the U.S. administration was "planner and executor" of 9/11. The terrorist strikes were "an inside job," serving a pretext for the West "to ignite war in the Middle East."

• Syria - Two columnists for the government organ Al-Thawra suggested the United States was the perpetrator.

Dr. Ibrahim Za'ir wrote that "American intelligence apparatuses" may have carried out the attacks in order to advance President Bush's foreign policy agenda. Za'ir said Washington sought "to start criminal wars under false slogans" like the global war on terror that followed 9/11.

Columnist Khaled Al-Ashhab suggested that "the U.S. itself or Israel" may have "perpetrated the attacks and attributed them to Al-Qaeda." He wondered what would happen if the world learned that the purported victim of 9/11 "is actually the criminal."

Other Syrian commentators suggested that 9/11 was little different from U.S. and Israeli military actions.

"The events of 9/11 in the U.S. were by any criteria a terror operation – as were the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the blockading of countries, and the imposing of sanctions upon them. The war against Gaza was also a terror operation, as was the aggression against Lebanon and the Freedom Flotillas," Teshreen Editor Samira al-Masalma wrote. "What do all these events have in common? The collective killing of innocent, defenseless civilians by the most abominable and destructive means."

• Saudi Arabia - The London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat published an article by Abd Al-Rahman al-Khatib stating that 9/11 was carried out by American officials or Mossad operatives. He wrote that some Jews "danced and sang with joy" over 9/11 and claimed that "none of the Jews" who worked in the World Trade Center's Twin Towers came to work that day.

In the Saudi daily Al-Yawm, columnist Maghazi al-Badrawi questioned whether al-Qaida and Osama bin-Laden had been involved in the attacks. Badrawi suggested that the United States was using its "status and influence in the world" to conceal the truth about 9/11.

• Kuwait - Writing in the daily Al-Siyassa, attorney Ahmad Yousef Al-Mlaifi claimed that the United States and American Jews were involved in 9/11. "What else, oh America. What else is left on Satan's agenda?" Mlaifi asked. ""Who wants to destroy America? The Jews found what they were looking for – [a tool to] carry out all their crimes across the world. They have turned America into a ladder by which they are accomplishing their goals, and into a pickaxe and a hammer by means of which they are destroying the peoples of the world."

Read the full report here.

British Intelligence Sees Al-Shabaab Threat Building

Britain is virtually certain to be attacked by terrorists inspired by the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab, according to the agency charged with countering covert threats to British security. MI5 Director General Jonathan Evans said Thursday that "a significant number of UK [United Kingdom] residents" were training in al-Shabaab camps in Somalia.

Independent experts have indicated that the number of British residents involved is currently in the "tens," but could grow to more than 100 in the next year or two. Evans said al-Shabaab's recruiting campaign "shows many of the characteristics that made Afghanistan so dangerous as a seedbed for terrorism in the period before the fall of the Taliban."

"I am concerned that it is only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-Shabaab," Evans added.

Al-Shabaab's leadership has made no secret of its global jihadist goals and its admiration for al Qaida. One of al-Shabaab's senior military leaders, an American citizen named Omar Hammami (AKA Abu Mansoor al-Amriki) has criticized some Somali radicals for having limited territorial goals, while by contrast al-Shabaab "had a global goal including the establishment of the Islamic Khilaafah [caliphate] in all parts of the world."

Hammami also discussed the organization's religious methodology, likening it to that of senior al Qaida terrorists like Osama bin-Laden and Abu Musab Zarqawi. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, al-Shabaab's now-deceased military commander, and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, al-Shabaab's intelligence chief, have vowed to join bin Laden's global jihad.

"All of us are willing to obey his commands," Hammami said of bin Laden. Asked by the New York Times if he considered America a legitimate target for attack, Hammami replied: "It's quite obvious that I believe America is a target."

Report Calls Shariah a Challenge for America, Fault Line for Muslims

A new report challenges government officials to reassess their view of "moderate" Muslims who support advancing Islamic law in American society. The Center for Security Policy Report, "Shariah – The Threat to America," was put together by a group including former CIA Director James Woolsey and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy.

In a Washington Times column promoting the report, the authors argue that American policy makers fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Shariah law and those who advocate it. Advocates "see the West as an infidel enemy to be conquered, not a culture and civilization to be embraced or at least tolerated."

Because they do it through incremental political and legal methods, and not necessarily through violence, government officials mistakenly characterize Shariah advocates as moderates worthy of cooperation.

Support for Shariah, or the incorporation of Islamic law into society, is a fault line dividing Islamists who seek a takeover of Western society and true Muslim moderates who embrace pluralism and the separation of mosque and state, the authors say:

"It is vital to the national security of the United States that we do what we can to empower Islam's authentic moderates and reformers. That cannot be done by following the failed strategy of fictionalizing the state of Islam in the vain hope that reality will, at some point, catch up to the benign fable of a thriving moderate Islam beset by a mere handful of aberrant "extremists." Empowering the real moderates requires a candid recognition of the faux moderates and the strength of their Shariah agenda, just as defeat of 20th-century totalitarian ideologies required a gimlet-eyed appreciation of their malevolent capabilities."

The full report can be read here.

Hawala Operator Charged in Times Square Bomb Attempt

Federal authorities have indicted a 44-year-old Long Island man for allegedly operating an unlicensed money transfer business between the United States and Pakistan, officials announced Wednesday. Mohammad Younis is accused of helping arrange transfers that aided the May 1 attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square.

Prosecutors say that Younis helped operate a money-transfer service known as a "hawala" since January. On April 10, he engaged in two separate hawala transactions with customers who traveled from Connecticut and New Jersey to meet him in Long Island.

"In each of the transactions, Younis provided thousands of dollars in cash to the individuals at the direction of a co-conspirator in Pakistan, but without knowledge of how the customers were planning to use the funds," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

One of those who received money from Younis was Faisal Shahzad, who in June pled guilty to a 10-count indictment charging him with various crimes in connection with his attempt to bomb Times Square.

Shahzad admitted receiving an April 2010 cash payment in the United States in to finance his preparations for the May 1 attack. He has said the April cash payment was arranged in Pakistan by associates of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an organization that has claimed credit for the Times Square bombing attempt.

Federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint earlier this month against TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud in connection with the December 30, 2009 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees in Khost, Afghanistan. Following that attack, the TTP released a video of Mehsud and the suicide bomber, Humam Khali Abu Mulal al-Balawi, discussing an attack against Americans.

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