Informant Testifies in Synagogue Bomb Plot Trial

James Cromitie, the alleged ringleader of a plot to bomb synagogues in New York and shoot down a military plane using a Stinger missile, told an undercover informant he wanted to blow up New York synagogues to vent his anger against Jews, according to dozens of secretly recorded conversations played for the jury at his trial this week.

"I don't care if it was a whole synagogue of men," Cromitie bragged to the FBI informant, Shahed Hussain. "I will take them down."

"The worst brother in Islam is better than 10 billion [Jews]." "Without hesitation, I will kill 10 [Jews]" "and then I will have to think 20,000 times before I kill one Muslim," Cromitie told Hussain according to another recording.

Hussain testified in federal court in Manhattan on Monday that he worked as an undercover informant for the FBI and secretly recorded conversations with Cromitie over several months.

Continue to full text of posting...

Ground Zero Mosque Backer Gave to Hamas-linked Charity

Donations totaling $6,050 by a key investor in the proposed Ground Zero mosque to a Texas-based charity later shut down for financing Hamas is attracting scrutiny in New York.

Charles Leaf, a reporter for Fox 5 in New York, first reported on the 1999 donations by Hisham Elzanaty Thursday evening. The money went to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), then operating legally but already the subject of law enforcement and media investigations.

For example, its financial and family connections to Hamas Deputy Political Director Mousa Abu Marzook had been documented three years earlier by the Dallas Morning News. The report also cited the presence of Hamas leaders at HLF rallies and fundraisers.

The U.S. Treasury Department shut down HLF in 2001 and the charity and eight leaders were indicted in 2004. Jurors convicted the five defendants who remained in the U.S. and HLF of conspiring to provide material support to Hamas in 2008.

Elzanaty holds a "significant investment" in the property near Ground Zero where plans call for a $100 million, 13-story mosque and cultural center. He also is the guarantor of a separate project with Sharif el-Gamal, who owns the Burlington Coat Factory property where the mosque is to be built.

Elzanaty's attorneys say his HLF donation was meant to help orphans and that he didn't know about connections between the charity and Hamas.

On Friday, the New York Post followed the story, citing a court record of Elzanaty's contributions provided by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The exhibit is available online through the Dallas federal court.

Day Four in United States v. Seda

EUGENE, Ore. - Prosecutors neared completion of their case Thursday in the prosecution of Pete Seda, accused of hiding $150,000 sent out of the country with the intent of benefiting Chechen mujahideen.

Government witnesses described how the money started with a donation to Seda's organization, the al Haramain Islamic Foundation. It came from London, then moved to Oregon and New York and ultimately to Saudi Arabia, where it possibly made its way to Chechen mujahideen. "A bizarre financial transaction," is how federal investigators described it.

The donation came from a wealthy Egyptian named Mahmoud el-Fiki. El-Fiki contacted al Haramain with the intention of making a donation "as Zakat [charity] in order to participate in your noble support to our Muslim brothers in Chychnia." The donation itself would not have raised any eyebrows; it was what Seda did with the money that attracted scrutiny.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Cardani told jurors in his opening statement about Seda's attempts to withdraw the money. He said that "if everything was on the up and up, this would have been a very simply transaction." But as a string of witnesses described, it was anything but.

Continue to full text of posting...

Pakistan Taliban Leader Charged in CIA Attack

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday filed a two-count criminal complaint against Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in connection with a suicide bomb attack in December 2009 that killed seven CIA employees at in Afghanistan. The complaint charges Mehsud with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. In a parallel effort, the State Department designated the TTP, commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban as a terrorist group and announced a cash reward of $5 million each for information on Mehsud and another Taliban leader Wali Ur Rehman.

The designation was announced by Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism, at a news briefing Wednesday. "The TTP is very much part of the most dangerous terrorist threat the United States faces," Benjamin said.

Formed in late 2007, the TTP is a loose umbrella of Pashtun and Punjabi terrorist groups from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North West Frontier Province that joined hands under a common banner to force the withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the FATA region and establish Sharia rule in the tribal territories. The coalition also seeks to fight U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and wage attacks against American targets and Pakistani government and civilian targets. The Pakistan Taliban has been alleged to be behind the December 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The group has also claimed responsibility for the failed Times Square bombing in May. Hakimullah Mehsud took over the TTP leadership following the death of his cousin and top Taliban commander from South Waziristan Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile strike in August 2009.

Continue to full text of posting...

More Muslim Mosque Criticism

The director-general of the London-based Al-Arabiya TV criticized President Obama for supporting the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in an August 16 column published in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

"On the one occasion I commented on the issue of the 'Ground Zero Mosque,' I conveyed the general opinion that Muslims (globally) in this instance are not concerned with the issue, since they did [not] ask for it, pay for it, and moreover are not concerned with every issue," Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote in a follow up piece on August 29^th.

Al-Rashed rhetorically asks, "Are Muslims indeed in a state of anger because the mosque will be built near the site of the (September 11) attacks? My conclusion is no, and there is a great deal of evidence (to support this)."

Al-Rashed supports his assertion with the following statement:

"There was not a single demonstration on any Arab street. We did not hear mosque imams addressing the Ground Zero mosque saga, and making it their Friday prayer sermon. Likewise, the issue was not adopted by intellectual or even religious institutions. Nothing was written against it except a handful of articles, and it has not become a contentious issue in various media."

Rather, Al-Rashed, explains there are "political opinions adopted by some Muslim radicals, and their Jihadist attitudes, declared in the name of each Muslim individual in the U.S. and around the world. This is deception and we must dismiss it."

Furthermore, the Ground Zero Mosque could backfire against American Muslims:

"For many Muslims, building a mosque near the same land upon which three thousand people were killed by Muslims is not a necessity. Most comments from readers rejected the idea of building the mosque for fear of it turning into hatred against Muslims. They are right…"

While Al-Rashed thinks the owners of the project "have good intentions," they are not "taking into account the serious nature of (constructing) a mosque at such a particularly sensitive time and place. It's like a Jewish group [trying] to build a temple in Tahrir Square in Cairo today; can you imagine the public reaction in Egypt?"

Canada's Forgotten Terrorist Plot

Toronto, Canada could have been the original "ground zero" of Islamist terrorism in North America, the Toronto Star reminded readers Tuesday.

In 1991, five members of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra movement were indicted for conspiring to blow up the India Centre cinema and the Vishnu Hindu temple. Jamaat ul-Fuqra originated in Pakistan, and its followers adhere to the teachings of Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani. The group advocates the use of force and violence in trying to reach its goal of purifying Islam.

The Fuqra members' alleged plan was to destroy the buildings simultaneously during the Hindu Festival of Lights, when they were expected to be at full capacity. The attack, had it been executed, could have killed up to 4,500 people.

When several of the Fuqra members tried to enter the United States in 1991, U.S. border guards found aerial photos, videotaped interiors, entry plans and instructions for bomb-building. Though five suspects stood trial, none were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Only three were convicted of conspiring to commit mischief endangering life. They were sentenced to 12 years in prison.

At the time of the 1991 Fuqra prosecution, it appeared to be an isolated incident. As the Star points out, "only now can it be seen as a part of a series of alleged and proven cases of homegrown Islamic terror in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa."

Continue to full text of posting...

Day Three in United States v. Seda

EUGENE, Ore. - "I think they wanted things to be closer to the way they were in Saudi Arabia." That's how one witness described the evolution of al Haramain Islamic Foundation (AHF) into a radical organization whose leadership reportedly funneled money to Chechen terrorists.

Over the past two days, jurors heard from two converts to Islam who both met defendant Pete Seda—charged with filing false tax returns and failing to disclose the withdrawal of over $100,000 in cash from the United States—while he was head of the Quran Foundation.

And while their experiences differed in the details, they dovetailed in their description of an organization and a man who shifted from moderate to increasingly radical.

Barbara Cabral, a hair stylist at the local JCPenney who converted to Islam after having met Seda, described how she and her late husband used to travel to Seda's Ashland home to attend weekly prayers. Daveed Gartenstein Ross, who grew up in Ashland and converted to Islam while in college at Wake Forest, said he first met Seda when he began attending Friday prayers at Seda's home, out of which he ran the Quran Foundation. He eventually came to work for the organization.

Both witnesses told jurors how they noticed a change when Seda and his congregants got involved with the Saudi-based al Haramain Islamic Foundation. Speaking of the new facilities that were purchased with Saudi money, Cabral recalled that "it was nice to have a place to go…a permanent location."

Despite this "generosity," both witnesses told similar stories of the radicalism they had witnessed at the Ashland property. Of note, were the occasional sermons of Hasan Zabady, who Cabral called "very negative." She recounted how Zabady referred to the United States as the "devil's land," and urged Muslims to "move to an Islamic land." Gartenstein-Ross echoed her testimony, saying that he remembered Zabady arguing that "Muslims would become corrupted living in the West."

Continue to full text of posting...

Day Two in United States v. Seda

EUGENE, Ore. - "There are no terrorism charges in this case." So said attorneys from both the prosecution and defense teams during opening statements in United States v. Seda on Monday. Despite those words of caution, the bulk of Tuesday's testimony involved plenty of discussion about terrorism in Russia and the Caucuses. That's because although the area has been plagued by decades of violence, whether the jury views Chechen fighters there as freedom fighters or terrorists may very well determine the outcome of the case.

While at its core this is a criminal tax case, the intentions of the defendant are integral to the case. Pirouz Sedaghaty, also known as Pete Seda, is charged with charged with conspiring to move $150,000 out of the United States without declaring it as required, and with filing false tax returns to hide the fact that the money ever existed.

Whether jurors determine the he knew he was financially supporting Chechen rebels and falsified his tax returns to hide it could decide the case.

The prosecution called numerous witnesses to demonstrate that Chechen militants are violent extremists engaged in acts of terrorism; that Seda knew it; and that he surreptitiously used his position as director of the al Haramain Islamic Foundation to finance the militants.

Jeremy Christianson, a former computer forensic expert with the IRS, testified about his receipt of five hard drives that had been seized from Seda and from al Haramain during a 2004 search and how he had been tasked with recovering data that according to investigators had been destroyed. Christianson told the jury how he was able to recover most of what was sought, including entire email accounts that included information related to the defendant's alleged support for Chechen mujahideen.

Defense attorneys attempted to show that investigators and prosecutors had selectively seized evidence and oversold its cache to jurors. Lawyers pointed out that photos, books, and videotapes that had been seized were only a small selection of the materials present at Seda's home. As they explained, investigators ignored everything except a fraction of material that would make Seda appear to be a radical Muslim.

Investigators uncovered numerous emails that urged Muslims to contribute to Chechens. In one such appeal via the Sheeshan e-group on November 17, 2000, the author of the email attached a fatwa titled "The Islamic Ruling on the permissibility of Martyrdom Operations" in Chechnya, calling on Muslims to support the mujahideen in any way they can.

Another email, dated January 24, 2000, included "Frequently Asked Questions" about the Chechen mujahideen. An excerpt:

"Q: How do I send donations to the muslims in Chechnya?

A: "There are many relief organizations and individuals collecting money for the Chechen cause, all over the world. Only a fraction of this money actually reaches those in need. We have seen the rise of many 'official' Chechen personalities who go round mosque to mosque, collecting money for the 'Jihad.' No one knows their history and few people in Chechnya even know who these people are.

[…]

If you work for or know someone who works in a reputable aid organization, inform them that the Mujahideen are in urgent need of doctors, medical personnel and medical supplies."

Defense attorneys argued that there is no way to know who was present when the computers were used or who had access to them. Moreover, the presence of radical material on Seda's computer does not prove that he subscribed to those beliefs.

See coverage from Day One of the trial here.

Hamas Launches Attack on Eve of Washington Peace Talks

Four Israelis were shot dead by Hamas terrorists on Tuesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is en route to Washington, D.C., for a new round of peace talks.

The victims include two men and two women, one reportedly pregnant. While in a car near the West Bank city of Hebron, terrorists fired upon the passengers and then shot the occupants at close range.

A statement from Hamas' military wing, Ezzedeen Al- Qassam Brigades, said, "Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron."

Senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement "Hamas blesses the Hebron operation and considers it as a normal reaction to the occupation crime and a proof of the failure … to abort the project of resistance."

"Any time one human being takes out a weapon and fires and kills other human beings it's a tragedy," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said following the attacks.

Commenting on the timing of the attack and the upcoming peace talks, Crowley stated:

"We are cognizant that there could be external events that can have an impact on the environment. We also are cognizant that there may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to sabotage the process."

Echoing Crowley, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the attack "is likely an attempt by the low-life terrorists to prevent the diplomatic process and to hurt the chances of the talks opening in Washington."

On Wednesday, Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with President Obama separately. Later, they will attend a White House dinner, joined by King Abdullah of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Formal talks will take place on Thursday at the State Department.

Abu Ubaida, spokesman for Hamas' military wing promised more violence, "Our men have returned safely to their bases," and "This attack is a chain in a series of attacks, some have been executed, others will follow."

Imam's Suit Questions Existence of Palestine Committee

An Illinois man has sued his state police, claiming his 1^st and 14^th Amendment rights were violated when the police rescinded its offer to make him the first Muslim chaplain for the Illinois State Police.

Kifah Mustapha was subject to additional scrutiny after the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported on his ties to organizations involved with financing and supporting Hamas. The lawsuit calls the report defamatory and blasted IPT Executive Director Steven Emerson as a "zealous Islamophobe."

Court records in a Hamas-support trial in Dallas identified Mustapha as a member of the Palestine Committee and/or its organizations. The Committee was created by the Muslim Brotherhood to help Hamas politically and financially. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the target of the Dallas prosecution, was an arm of that committee, records show.

The IPT report prompted an additional background investigation by the Illinois police. Several months later, the agency revoked Mustapha's appointment.

Continue to full text of posting...

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings