Imam that Tipped off New York Subway Bomber Leaves America

A New York Imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, has left the United States and agreed not to return as part of a plea agreement in connection with the attempted bombing of the New York City subway system that was thwarted by federal authorities last year.

Last September, federal authorities uncovered a plot to use at least a dozen small backpack bombs to devastate the subway system in New York—an attack which Attorney General Eric Holder called "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11, 2001." As the case unfolded, new details revealed that while U.S. authorities were investigating the attempted attack, local Imam Afzali inadvertently tipped off the prime suspect.

On September 10, detectives from the New York Police Department met with Afzali, who had served as an informant in the past. During the meeting, detectives showed Afzali photos of Zazi and others. The following day, Afzali contacted Zazi and told him that the police were asking questions about him. According to an affidavit filed in support of an arrest warrant, Afzali said:

"I want to speak with you about something…I want a meeting with you…You probably know why I'm calling you for this meeting…I was exposed to something yesterday from the authorities. And they came to ask me about your characters. They asked me about you guys.

I'm not sure if somebody complained about you. I'm not sure what happened. And I don't want to know…They said, 'please, we need to know who they are…what they're all about.' ... And I told them that they are innocent, law abiding…"

As a result of Afzali's actions, authorities, who had been recording Zazi's conversations, were forced to conduct hurried raids to prevent the fleeing of suspects and the destruction of evidence.

A week later, Afzali was re-interviewed by members of a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in New York. He lied to authorities, saying that while he spoke with Zazi's father he did not tell either Zazi or his father that the authorities had approached him or told him of the investigation. Consequently, Afzali was charged in a four count indictment with lying to federal agents.

In April, Afzali pled guilty to the charged offenses. At sentencing, he reportedly told the judge:

"I take full responsibility for my actions…Honest to God, it was never my intention to help those idiots for what they do in the name of Islam…I'm standing in front of you as a convicted felon, a lying imam, which is a physical, emotional and spiritual burden far greater than any sentence you could impose."

While avoiding a prison sentence of 8 years, he was given 90 days to leave the country or face deportation. Pursuant to that ruling, Afzali and his wife have left the country, traveling to Saudi Arabia en route to another country where they will settle.

Alomari Axed by Ohio Homeland Security

Ohio's Homeland Security division has fired multicultural relations officer Omar Alomari after learning he hid a past sexual harassment claim when he applied for the job, and then lied to state officials investigating his background.

In April, the website "The Jawa Report" uncovered information that Alomari had been fired from a previous job at Columbus State Community College for violating the school's sexual harassment policy. That prompted an internal investigation. The Columbus Dispatch reports that Alomari spent six years on the faculty, yet the state report found he did not include it on his original application.

The Homeland Security office is part of Ohio's Department of Public Safety. Alomari, 60, served as the department's community engagement director and was paid $76, 107. Records released by the Ohio Department of Public Safety Friday show Alomari was fired for:

"Dishonesty … when you applied for your current position with the Ohio Department of Public Safety/Homeland Security you failed to disclose your previous employment with Columbus State College on your application. You also failed to disclose that employment during your background investigation. When questioned about this during the administrative investigation you gave false information."

Just a month earlier, Alomari represented his department in a hearing before the U.S. House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment. Alomari testified about his efforts to combat radicalization. But those efforts included a 40-page Culture Guide related to Arabic and Islamic Culture. It defined jihad as the benign pursuit of personal betterment and said its meaning as a holy war is a European invention, spread in the West. In addition, Alomari wrote "Agents of Radicalization," a two-page brochure that explained terrorism is an expected societal reaction of the once proud and thriving Arab/Muslim culture, now in decline and conflict because of the stronger and aggressive West.

M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, slammed the brochure as inaccurate, with "bizarre revisionist history" and "classic Islamist propaganda." The brochure listed seven Muslim organizations the Ohio agency works with. All the groups have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or have their own history of extremist rhetoric, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim American Society.

A spokeswoman at the Ohio Department of Public Safety confirmed a Jawa Report article which said the department stopped using the brochures. Between March 2007 and April 2008, the department spent $239 printing 470 copies of "Agents of Radicalization."

Saudi Textbooks Continue to Radicalize Youth

It isn't yet known whether President Obama raised the issue of educational reform when he sat down with Saudi Arabian King Abdullah this week. Those who monitor Saudi textbooks say the President should have used the opportunity to press Abdullah to work faster in fulfilling a promise to rid schools of books teaching Saudi schoolchildren to hate the West and to engage in violence towards Christians and Jews.

Such textbooks are used in every school within Saudi Arabia four years after the Saudi government assured the U.S. that it would initiate a policy of educational reform. Those reforms were meant to erase the passages promoting violence and hatred from the curriculum.

That was supposed to take two years. In 2008, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that only minor reforms had been made to the textbooks for the previous school year. Even today, the situation remains largely unchanged. It appears that while the Saudi government has removed many overt references to violence and jihad, the texts still remain largely intolerant.

In a letter to the President, Commission Chair Leonard Leo praised a recent Saudi fatwa against terror financing. For that to take hold, though, the Saudis need to do more to prevent radicalization. It noted the government's pledge on textbook reform "remains unfulfilled." Leo wrote:

"The Saudi government's ideology of extreme religious intolerance, including violence, is propounded in Saudi textbooks and other educational materials … the most recent State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom confirm that inflammatory content remains in the textbooks."

The National Review Online reported that the State Department's 2010 report on human rights "concluded, with diplomatic understatement, that Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks continued to contain 'some overtly intolerant statements' against various religious groups, that they 'provided justification for violence against non-Muslims,' and that reforms remained 'incomplete.'"

The Institute for Gulf Affairs translated and analyzed the 2009-2010 editions of the textbooks. It found an array of intolerant and violent lessons. The 12^th grade textbook teaches, "It is part of God's wisdom that he made the clash between truth and falsehood continues until the Day of Resurrection. As long as this clash endures, jihad continues." The 9^th grade textbook teaches, "The hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them… There is a Jew behind me come and kill him." It also says, "God will help Muslims… The Jews and Christians are enemies of the believers." Similar messages appear in books used by first graders.

These textbooks are used throughout the Muslim world, reaching as far as the Saudi Islamic Academy in Fairfax County, VA. As of 2008, the Saudi government directly ran 19 international schools. These schools receive funding and Wahhabi extremist education, identical to the education that students in Saudi Arabia receive.

Elementary and high school education in Saudi Arabia remains intolerant, and inspires violence and extremism. It shouldn't take four years to fix the problem.

Arab Journalists Come Out in Support of Israeli Flotilla Actions

Journalists in the Arab world have come out in support of Israel in the aftermath of last month's flotilla incident, which left 9 dead after Hamas-tied "humanitarian activists" attacked Israeli commandos with clubs, knives, and other weapons.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released excerpts from an interview with Magdi Khalil, an Egyptian-American writer, aired on June 15 on Al-Jazeera TV. Khalil explains:

"The Turkish ship, however, was organized by a known terrorist organization, which has appeared on the terror list since 1997. The IHH [The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief] is a terrorist organization. It was foolish of the Israeli defense minister to believe the Turkish prime minister, who said that these were peaceful people. The Turkish prime minister is an Islamist and should not be trusted to begin with."

Khalil's assertions have been confirmed by intelligence experts— IHH has ties to both Hamas and Al-Qaeda. The organization planted 40 IHH operatives on the Mavi Marmara ship to create a violent confrontation with Israel. Those who died have been celebrated as martyrs by IHH and its supporters.

Kuwaiti journalist Abdallah Al-Hadlaq reveals the double standard placed upon Israel in a column about how the "world is obsessed" with Gaza while ignoring grave tragedies occurring around the world.

Hadlaq explains that there is a "terrible silence, lack of consideration, and indifference that has overcome the world…with regard to more important and more valuable [issues] that merit attention far more than this murky piece of land called the Gaza Strip." Among the issues that Hadlaq mentions in his column published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan on June 19, released by MEMRI, include:

• The Darfur conflict, which has lead to the death of 300,000 people and 27 million refugees;
• the Arab Ahwaz province in Iran, "whose eight million inhabitants are oppressed, repressed and tyrannized by the totalitarian Persian regime that controls Tehran;"
• the Southern Kordofan province in Sudan, and the clashes between rivals leading to violence, expulsion, and exodus;
• and the "spiraling human crisis in Kyrgyzstan."

Hadlaq asks: "Are not the [three] islands belonging to the UAE that are under the Iranian Persian dictatorship's occupation worthy of more attention than Gaza and its residents?"

Hadlaq explains the motives behind organizers of flotillas to Gaza:

"Some of these defeatists and interested parties are constantly trying to use the slogan 'removal of the siege on Gaza' for political and media [purposes], and to exploit it for the benefit of their own private goals."

Hadlaq continues:

"In any event, the global exaggeration, which is headed by some of the defeatists and interested parties attempting to create an illusion among the public that the situation in Gaza is tragic, that the distress is great, and that there is a need for feverish action to remove the siege on it, will be revealed as a tool of fraud, and the events that follow will reveal the [true] intents and goals of the defeatists and the commoners who achieved fame. [Then] these ongoing supposed humanitarian efforts will be diverted from their false goal – that is, 'pacifist global humanist purposes' – [and will show their true colors of] violence, terrorism, extremism, and rigidity."

An Al-Shabaab Narco-Terrorism Connection?

The Al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab is now said to be raising funds through the trade of khat, a narcotic green leaf, Dutch media reports.

The Netherlands and the United Kingdom are the only two Western countries where it is legal to import the narcotic. According to Swedish police estimates, about 80% of the khat imported to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is smuggled into surrounding countries.

In an interview with a Dutch radio station, one Swedish former khat smuggler just released from prison, said that he used to be involved in sending money to Al-Shabaab. The ex-smuggler, who spent seven years as the right hand man of a Somali drug lord, estimated that twenty thousand Euros per week were sent to Somalia—eventually making its way to Al-Shabaab leaders seeking new sources of revenue to pay its militants.

Swedish police official Stefan Kalman said that the Swedish secret service recently received information that several Somali groups in the khat trade have joined Al-Shabaab. He described the khat trade as a great opportunity for Al-Shabaab to raise money.

Swedish MEP Olle Schmidt said that the position of the Netherlands on khat is a problem, and that he hopes that the new information about the link between the drug's trade and terrorism will be a "wake up call for the Dutch government."

The issue of narco-terrorism is a growing problem, not only for European law enforcement, but for U.S. officials as well. In 2002, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) established the Counter-Narco-terrorism Operations Center (CNTOC). This division of the DEA has cracked several cases since its establishment.

As recently as December of 2009, the DEA arrested several individuals suspected of trafficking cocaine throughout Africa as part of a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The men, Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idriss Abdelrahman, have been indicted in New York for conspiracy to provide material support to both Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).

In a March 2010 Congressional testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Anthony P. Placido, Assistant Administrator for Intelligence for the DEA, summed up the narco-terrorism phenomenon:

"As insurgents and terrorists become more heavily involved in the drug trade, hybrid organizations are emerging. These hybrids have morphed into one part terrorist organization, one part global drug trafficking cartel."

Palcido emphasized that these narco-terrorist groups, "represent the most significant security challenge facing governments worldwide."

Missouri Muslim Charity Director Pleads Guilty

On Friday, Mubarak Hamed, the former director of the now defunct Islamic American Relief Agency-USA (IARA) based in Columbia, Missouri, pled guilty to three counts of a federal indictment charging that he illegally sent more than a million dollars to Iraq in violation of U.S. sanctions, conspiracy, and tax violations. Federal agents raided IARA's offices in 2004, seized its assets, and said it was part of a global network of similar Islamic charities that supported terrorist organizations. As part of his plea agreement, Hamed admitted the U.S.-based charity was part of this international network, with the IARA branch based in Khartoum, Sudan.

Five defendants were originally indicted in the IARA-USA case and three have now pled guilty.  The remaining two, Abdel Azim El-Siddig and former Congressman Mark Deli Siljander, are expected to go to trial. It is not clear from Hamed's plea agreement if he will cooperate with the prosecution against the remaining defendants, but during Hamed's plea hearing an Assistant U.S. Attorney noted that Hamed might provide assistance to the government in "further proceedings."

IARA, and other similar Muslim "charities" that have proven to be support fronts for terrorists, are not without their supporters within the American Muslim community. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has steadfastly expressed support for IARA and condemned the government's investigation and prosecution efforts against it and similar charities, even though such law enforcement efforts have proven the true nature of the so called "charities."

Nor is the reach of IARA limited to Missouri and the hinterlands of Sudan and Iraq. A former Imam of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in northern Virginia, Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh, was the ex-regional IARA director in Baltimore. This latest conviction and Hamed's admission that IARA-USA was part of the international terrorist support network only further solidifies the radical Islamist linkage to other entities such as Dar al-Hijrah and demonstrates the subversive threat posed to the United States.

Two More Convicted In Toronto 18 Terror Case

An Ontario jury Wednesday convicted two men of participating in a jihadist plot targeting Canada. The pair, Steven Chand, 29, and Asad Ansari, 25, were the final persons to go on trial in the "Toronto 18" case in which al Qaeda-inspired terrorists plotted to bomb targets including a military base, the Canadian Stock Exchange and the Toronto offices of Canada's spy agency.

Canadian prosecutors said the pair attended a terrorist training camp in December 2005 in which attendees received firearms training. Chand was alleged to have accompanied another conspirator on a February 2006 reconnaissance trip in search of a safe house to be used for additional training, and introduced the co-conspirator to a criminal associate in the hope he could help finance the plot.

Defense attorneys claimed Chand thought the jihadist camp was about winter survival tactics. Ansari's lawyer tried to minimize the significance of the various jihadist texts, videos and images found on his laptop, claiming that he knew nothing about the true nature of the camp and that their client was doing nothing more than exercising his right to worship.

A jury rejected the defense arguments, finding the pair guilty on all counts. Read more about the case here and here.

Letter Suggests Kansas Charity Had Yemen Connection

The NEFA Foundation has published an original copy of a letter written by Ronald Rose, attorney for the Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW), a charity that once featured jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on its board of directors.

In recent statements, officials from CSSW's head office in Yemen denied any link to Awlaki or an affiliated organization he managed in Kansas.  A far different picture emerges from Rose's 1995 letter to the Internal Revenue Service:

"A similar organization exists in the nation of Yemen whose goals are the same. In many cases, application for benefits will be submitted through the organization in Yemen and contributed funds will be routed through this organization to the ultimate recipients."

Rose later continued:

"The role of the charitable organization in Yemen will be to act as an agent or facilitator for the distribution of benefits from the Society."

In the letter, he added that decisions by CSSW's U.S. branch about who is to receive benefits would be made by the group's board of trustees "with assistance from representatives of the charitable organization in Yemen as well as representatives of various boards of directors of Mosques throughout the United States."

The organization's Form 990 filing, seen here, lists Awlaki as a vice president of CSSW. The charity is reported to have been founded by Shaykh Abd-al-Majid al-Zindani, named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the Treasury Department.

Hamas Radicalization in the 21st Century

With Hamas' Al Aqsa TV is being banned throughout Europe, Hamas is increasingly turning to the Internet to undertake its recruitment and indoctrination strategy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a web-based magazine for children, Al-Fateh. Hamas denies that it runs the website, but reporting by the Middle East Forum has established that such refutations are simply a ploy to prevent the website from being taken down by its host countries.

Due to the Palestinian Authority's continuing control of the formal education system in the Gaza Strip, Hamas has had to rely on informal methods to radicalize children and create the next generation of adherents to Hamas' radical ideas. The Al-Fateh website brings that mission into the 21^st century, preaching "ideals" such as the denial of the existence of the state of Israel and glorification of martyrdom.

The Al-Fateh website places a large amount of anti-Israel and pro-Jihadist material at the fingertips of children surfing the web. The website never calls Israel by its actual name, referring to it instead as the "Zionist entity," "the cursed state," the "state of the monstrous entity," the "criminal state," the "alleged entity," and the "thieving usurping entity." Al-Fateh calls for the violent destruction of Israel, describes Jews as 'the lowest of the human race,' and even makes statements that call out to God to kill the Jews. The website's violent rhetoric is not limited to Israel, however, at points threatening the United States:

"We are currently subjugated by the Jews, the Americans, and the British who occupy our holy land of Palestine, in Iraq, and in many Arab and Muslim states…it is [incumbent] upon us, the lion cubs of Arabism and Islam, to be prepared to fight those abject people and to liberate our country from occupation."

The website uses high quality graphics and multimedia presentations to appeal to young audiences. But, Al-Fateh is only one example of terrorist organizations continued utilization of the Internet for recruitment and radicalization. Similar uses of developing technologies can be found throughout the Internet.

A music video on YouTube called "When We Seek Martyrdom" encourages violence through a play that shows Israeli soldiers killing innocent Palestinian children and then the children to violently attack Israeli soldiers in an act of revenge. All of this is reminiscent of Hamas' knock-off Mickey Mouse—Farfour. On the show Farfour preached many radical ideas, adherence to the tenets of Islam, hatred towards Israel and the West, and the importance of committing acts of terrorism.

Pakistani Court Convicts Five Americans of Plotting Terror

Five young Muslim men from the Washington, D.C. area received 10-year prison sentences from a Pakistani court Thursday, after being found guilty of plotting terrorist attacks.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys said they planned to appeal the outcome. Prosecutor Rana Bakhtiar said his appeal would seek longer prison terms.

"We are surprised," defense attorney Hassan Katchela was quoted saying in the New York Times. "We were not expecting this decision. The families want to challenge the verdict in high court."

The men disappeared in late November and were caught in Pakistan about a week later. They later claimed they were trying to make their way to Afghanistan to engage in relief efforts, but Pakistani authorities say emails and other communication showed they intended to join Taliban forces fighting American troops.

Their story changed over time. After their families discovered them missing and turned to law enforcement, it was disclosed that Howard University dental student Ramy Zamzam, considered the group's leader, left behind a "disturbing" farewell video. Leaving a Pakistani court in January, Zamzam told a reporter ""we are not terrorists…we are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."

They also made repeated claims that they were tortured in custody. Pakistani officials deny this, noting American consul officials had repeated visits with them and no formal complaints of mistreatment were ever filed.

U.S. law enforcement officials are believed to have conducted their own investigation, but have held off any decisions to see what happened in Pakistan. The Times report said officials believe they have "considerable evidence suggesting that the men had been radicalized and planned violence."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which helped the families report their sons' disappearance, argued that they should be released if Pakistan sent them back to the United States.

"Charging them and throwing them in jail is not the solution," CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said in December. "The government has to show some appreciation for the actions of the parents and the community. That will encourage other families to come forward."

On Thursday, Awad said the families "are in a state of shock" over the verdicts.

Newer Postings   |   Older Postings