Lebanese Flotilla Organizer Wants Jews Deported to Europe

Yasser Qashlaq, a leading organizer of the Lebanese aid flotilla about to set sail for Gaza, wants to return "the dregs of European garbage" from Israel to Europe.

"Whenever that criminal gang of Israeli pirates seizes a ship, I become more optimistic that the day will come when these ships will carry these dregs of European garbage back to their own countries," Qashlaq told the Hizballah television station Al-Manar in video translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "Let Gilad Shalit return to Paris. Let those murderers return to Poland. Once they are back there, we will hunt them down to the end of the world, and prosecute them for their massacres, from Deir Yassin to this day."

Then Qashlaq, a Palestinian businessman, said he would like to talk to the "Israeli people."

"To the settlers," the moderator interjected.

"Yes, to that gang of criminal murderers," Qashlaq replied. "Board the ship we are sending you, and return to your countries. Don't be misled by the Arab leaders or the moderate camp. You will never be able to make peace with us. Our children will return [to Palestine]. There is no reason for coexistence. Even if some of our leaders or regimes sign [peace] with you – we will never sign. Do not be misled by these regimes. Return to your countries."

As Qashlaq spoke, his fellow Al-Manar panelists could be heard chuckling with satisfaction.

Qashlaq has denied any connection to Hamas, Hizballah, or Iran. But he is reported to have written a fawning letter last summer praising Hizballah boss Hassan Nasrallah. Qashlaq told Nasrallah "that you have vowed not to leave us alone and kept this promise. You dedicated your life, and still do, to the protection of our business which is also yours."

"In the name of the Palestinian people…we stress that we are taking the path of resistance," Qashlaq added. "We ask Allah to extend your life and the lives of all who support Palestine and the noble resistance."

Smuggling Terrorism

While most discussions of border security inevitably focus on illegal immigrants, just as disconcerting is the threat that terrorists may infiltrate the United States through our porous borders with Mexico and Canada. And, according to a recent investigation by the House Committee on Homeland Security, that threat is rising. Officials believe that Hizballah militants have already been smuggled into the United States.

While Congress and law enforcement appear to be renewing their focus on the possibility that terrorists may sneak into the United States from Mexico and Canada, the issue is not new. Terrorists have long used our neighbors to the North and South as paths into America.

• In 2000, millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam was arrested after his attempt to sneak explosives across the Canadian border in order to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport.
• In October 2009, Abdow Munye Abdow lied to FBI agents during questioning over whether or not he had smuggled Somalis into the United States from Mexico.

According to Arizona authorities, about half of the individuals captured sneaking into the United States come from countries including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Sudan. Speaking about the trend, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl lamented "one wonders whether some of them are coming in here to commit acts of terror."

The current situation poses a two-pronged problem. We may not be catching all of the terrorists attempting to infiltrate the U.S. On the other hand, once we catch them, they are usually deported, giving them another chance to come in and carry out devastating attacks. As Senator Kyl describes the situation: "not only does this create an illegal immigration dilemma, but it also creates a terrorism threat."

Al Qaeda's "Gateway Drug"

Recent news out of Malaysia demonstrates yet another link in the long-standing nexus between global affiliates of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood and violent jihad. Although the Brotherhood has gone to great lengths to deny any connection to violence or global jihad— including dedicating a section on its English-language website to differentiating between Al Qaeda and the Brotherhood— a report Thursday in Malaysia's New Straits Times paints a different story.

According to the report, a Syrian named Aiman Al Dakak moved on from his early days as a Brotherhood member to join the ranks of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There, he is said to have received military training and maintained "close links with al-Qaeda top leader Osama Bin Laden." Staying out of the public eye until after 9/11, Dakak re-emerged in 2004 in Malaysia, where he arrived under the guise of a student visa. However, instead of leaving behind his violent history as a thing of the past, Dakak chose to use Malaysia as a base of operations:

"getting new recruits for al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, and in the process, attack[ing] places of worship here."

The report notes that Dakak specifically chose Malaysia because "the country's geographical location was ideal and the people… were generally friendly and unsuspecting."

This most recent example of a Brotherhood member-turned-violent jihadist—in essence, serving as the "gateway drug" in the path of Islamic radicalization—is just one in a long line. Al Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, began his Islamist career as a member of the Brotherhood. He later disavowed ties to the Brotherhood for renouncing Jihad as a means to establish the Islamic State, and the Brotherhood vehemently denied he was ever affiliated with the group.

Times Square Bomber Pleads Guilty

Faizal Shahzad, the naturalized American citizen from Pakistan whose car-bomb failed to detonate in Times Square May 1, pleaded guilty to 10 felonies in a New York courtroom Monday. The plea came with no promises from the government, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

"In admitting his guilt today," Bharara said, "Shahzad reminded us of the uniquely serious threat that our city faces every single day. I express my gratitude and admiration for the agents and detectives of the FBI and New York Police Department (NYPD) who dedicate their lives to the daily fight to keep this city, its residents and its visitors, safe from harm."

Shahzad "plotted and launched an attack that could have led to serious loss of life," Attorney General Eric Holder added, "and today the American criminal justice system ensured that he will pay the price for his actions."

Shahzad reportedly has been cooperating with officials since his arrest at JFK airport. After hearing the charges against him, he told the court "I want to plead guilty 100 times over," the New York Times reports.

He admitted leaving his Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square in hopes it would blow up. He claims to have acted alone. Terrorist attacks against the U.S. will continue, he told the court, as long as American troops remain in Iraq and Afghanistan and drone strikes don't stop against terrorist targets in Pakistan.

Shahzad could receive a life prison term at his sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for October 5.

Kosovo Arrests Eighth Suspect in North Carolina Terror Case

* Updated Jue 21:

A judge has rejected the U.S. extradition request for Asllani. European Union Judge Agnieszka Kolowiecka-Milar ruled that Kosovo does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. For details, click here.

An eighth suspect in a North Carolina terrorism case was arrested in Kosovo, Thursday.

Original post begins here:

The government alleges that several men, headed by ringleader Daniel Patrick Boyd, were planning to attack Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia and arranging travel plans to wage violent jihad abroad. The trial was originally set to begin in this fall, but has been postponed to September 2011 after several defendants requested more time to prepare. The case features an enormous amount of evidence, including 30,000 pages of documents, 750 hours of audio and video clips, and 5 million pieces of potential evidence.

According to the criminal complaint, the recently arrested suspect, Bajram Asllani, participated in the North Carolina-based conspiracy to wage jihad abroad when he "repeatedly tasked another co-conspirator with performing acts in support of the criminal objectives, solicited funds from the conspiracy to carry out concrete plans for the establishment of a base of operations in Kosovo" and "accepted money from the conspiracy for the purpose of enabling him to travel so that he could pursue the conspiracy's objectives." The complaint does not allege Asllani was involved in the plans to attack Quantico.

The complaint details that another defendant, Hysen Sherifi, established a relationship with Asllani when he visited Pristina, Kosovo in July of 2008. Asllani sent radical videos to Sherifi, asking him to translate them into English and distribute them to others. One video showed a suicide bomber attacking a convoy of American vehicles. Asllani also allegedly urged Sherifi to raise money to buy land in Kosovo which would be used as a base of operations for jihad. In April 2009, Sherifi came to the United States and collected $15,000 for the land.

But Sherifi was arrested before he could return and deliver the money to Asllani.

The complaint also mentions that this is not Asllani's first run-in with the law for terrorism related offenses. In 2009, he was convicted in absentia in a Serbian court for planning terrorist related offenses and subsequently sentenced to 8 years confinement.

In response to the arrest, David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security said:

"The facts as alleged in this complaint underscore the connectivity between extremists at home and abroad and the global nature of the terrorist threat we face. At the same time, the arrest of Asllani demonstrates how effective cooperation among international partners serves to address such threats."

The U.S. has submitted a request for extradition to bring Asllani from Kosovo so that he can be tried in Raleigh next year. Despite the nature of the charges and his previous conviction, a judge in Kosovo on Friday released Asllani from custody while he awaits the outcome of the extradition process.

He faces 40 years in prison if convicted.

Ending Blockade a Victory for Hamas

With Israel agreeing to ease its blockade of Gaza, Washington Times columnist Joel Mowbray is concerned that ending the embargo means both a military and morale boost for Hamas.

The embargo has meant the Gaza Palestinians were forced to choose between terror or economic success, without the fallout of a total humanitarian crisis, he writes. Statistics bear out that the primary victim of the embargo has been the economic livelihood of the Palestinians and their infrastructure, without generating hunger or other shortages of basic needs. The overflowing displays at area supermarkets, thousands of live smuggled goats for the sacrifices of Eid ul-Adha, and a population clamoring for Coca-Cola and automobiles all seem to contradict the notion that there is any starvation in the Strip.

Moreover, even Hamas has admitted that the blockade has had its intended effect. Deputy Finance Minister Ismail Mahfouz admitted that Hamas has been unable to meet its payroll, because Hamas is "having difficulties in getting the money in because of the siege." Mowbray notes January data from respected pollster Nabil Kukali of the Palestinian Center For Public Opinion, which found that Gazans' support for Hamas had dropped by 22% - making Hamas less popular in the territory than its counterpart Fatah.

Breaking the ability to maintain terror and economic success simultaneously was precisely the intention of the blockade, which only took effect following the 2006 election and 2007 coup of Hamas. Ironically, Mowbray writes, the international community, which initially did not oppose Israel's efforts, used the same measure to break the back of South Africa's apartheid regime.

An end to the embargo will be spun as a victory for Hamas, in the same way that Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Gaza in 2000 and Lebanon in 2005 were wins for Hamas and Hizballah respectively. Even more so, if the deaths of the violent flotilla martyrs are the straw that breaks the Israeli blockade, then the international community is effectively telling Hamas that its message has been right all along – martyrdom leads to victory.

Lieberman and MPAC face off over Terror Terminology

This week saw the renewal of debate over whether or not it is appropriate to use the descriptive term "Islamic" when discussing acts of terrorism. While this might appear to be a debate over semantics, the discussions between Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is an important facet of ongoing efforts to curb terrorism.

To paraphrase Sun Tzu the first rule in war is to know your enemy so that you can defeat it. Since the attacks of September 11, the United States has been engaging in an ongoing debate over who the enemy we are fighting is and how to combat it. The 2006 National Security Strategy identified our enemy as:

"the transnational terrorists [who] exploit the proud religion of Islam to serve a violent political vision."

By 2008, the Bush administration had shifted course, indicated by a Department of Homeland Security directive to refrain from using the words "jihadists," "mujahedeen," and "Islam" when referring to terrorism. We were critical of the Bush administration for their refusal to correctly identify the enemy the United States faces (see here and here).

The debate was renewed after the Obama Administration released the 2010 National Security Strategy last month. Absent from the document, intended to govern all U.S. counterterrorism efforts, was any mention of the Islamist ideology which has fueled acts of terrorism both in the United States and abroad. Since the release of the new report, the administration has been the subject of frequent criticism.

Senator Lieberman joined others to criticize the Obama administration's continuation of this failed Bush policy June 15th. Lieberman wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal "Who's the Enemy in the War on Terror?" which called upon the Obama administration to reconsider its current policies with regards to terminology:

"We must recognize the nature of the fight we are in, not paper it over. The United States is definitely not at war with Islam. But a group of self-identified, extremist Muslims has definitely declared war on us, a war which they explicitly justify by reference to their religion. Muslims across the world see the ideological nature of this struggle. I believe it is disrespectful to suggest they cannot understand these distinctions and act on them."

In response, Salam al-Marayati, MPAC's executive director, issued a letter to Senator Lieberman. MPAC was instrumental in having the terminology changed in the first place. In condemning the call to reconsider current policy, al-Marayati wrote:

"[Dropping religious labels] denies al Qaeda and its affiliates the religious legitimacy they severely lack and so desperately seek. For years, Muslim public opinion has decisively turned against Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups because of the immoral, unethical, and gruesome tactics they employ and because the vast majority of their victims have been other Muslims."

While the U.S. and the international community should do all that it can do deny legitimacy of any kind to al Qaida, it is also true that different enemies require different battle tactics. As Senator Lieberman argued:

"[T]he strategies and capabilities needed to counter the specific threat of violent Islamist extremism are very different from those needed to deal with white supremacist extremists in the U.S. or genocidal militias in sub-Saharan Africa….This war will not end when al Qaida has been vanquished—though that, of course, is a critical goal—but only when the ideology of violent Islamist extremism that inspires and predates it is decisively rejected."

Failed Times Square Bomber Indicted

Nearly a month and a half after attempting to set off a car bomb in Times Square, a federal grand jury in New York has returned a 10-count indictment against Faisal Shahzad.

Shahzad, who left a car bomb at 45^th and Broadway in Manhattan on May 1, was taken into custody at JFK Airport two days later after a dramatic manhunt. Details coming from the indictment confirm what law enforcement officials have already hinted at. Shahzad received explosives training in Waziristan from explosive trainers affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban in December 2009. After returning to the United States, Shahzad was given at least $12,000 in cash with which to carry out the attack.

Commenting on the new developments, Attorney General Eric Holder stated:

"The facts alleged in this indictment show that the Pakistani Taliban facilitated Faisal Shahzad's attempted attack on American soil….Our nation averted serious loss of life in this attempted bombing, but it is a reminder that we face an evolving threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available to the government."

Shahzad faces life in prison if convicted of the charged offenses. There is still no word on the progress of the State Department process to designate the Pakistani Taliban—the group that underwrote the attack—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Medical Examiner: Marks on Imam Not Dog Bites

Wayne County Medical Examiner Carl Schmidt took issue this week with an independent autopsy report of Imam Luqman Abdullah which concluded that marks on the imam's face and arms were caused by an FBI canine.

Abdullah was shot and killed by FBI agents during a raid last October when agents attempted to arrest him on conspiracy and weapons charges. FBI agents say that Abdullah fired three times before they returned fire. Since then, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has waged a campaign to cast the shooting as excessive and inappropriate.

Among the claims is a theory that Abdullah may have fired simply to protect himself from an attack by an FBI dog at the scene of the arrest. CAIR's Michigan chapter hired pathologist Cyril Wecht to do a second autopsy based only on the original autopsy pictures. It was released earlier this month.

In addition to pointing out what he believed to be dog bites, Wecht's report disputed the original autopsy's claim that the imam's jaw was broken from a fall, concluding instead that it was broken as a result of the dog's attack. He publically questioned Schmidt's report, asking why he didn't include the dog bites and lacerations. Now he is saying that the Wayne County Medical Examiner needs to explain where "those jagged, irregular-shaped lacerations come from."

Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press that "there is nothing you can point to that shows it's a dog bite."

"When a dog bites, it punctures," Schmidt said. "If you look at the pictures, he has no puncture wounds on his cheek." He also presented pictures of an actual dog bite victim, showing what Abdullah's face may have looked like if a dog had bitten him.

Despite criticism due to the independent report, Schmidt stands firms in his original conclusions that the marks just don't look like dog bites and that the fractured jaw was from a fall, not the force of an attack. "We can only describe what we see," he added.

An affidavit submitted by an FBI agent placed Abdullah as a leader of a radical group whose "primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state within the borders of the United States."

Islamists Place Cause over Character at UCI

When it comes to chutzpah, you've got to hand it to Islamist organizations denouncing the University of California-Irvine (UCI) for its one-year suspension of its Muslim Student Union. A school investigation concluded that the MSU organized disruptions of a February speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and lied about it.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California on Tuesday blasted UCI, claiming the school's actions would stifle free speech and worsen the quality of life for Muslim students.

The Islamist groups didn't defend or criticize the behavior of the students during Oren's February 8 speech. His remarks were interrupted at least 10 times by students who attacked Oren as a murderer and a war criminal. Instead, they attempted to change the subject.

MPAC issued a press release quoting the organization's boss, Salam al-Marayati, urging UCI's leadership "to reach a constructive conclusion on this case that preserves the MSU's many positive contributions to campus life."

Hussam Alyoush, executive director of CAIR's Greater Los Angeles area chapter, said that "irrespective of the MSU's role in sponsoring or organizing the protests against Ambassador Oren, the University's heavy-handed recommendation only serves to stifle Muslim students' free speech and prevent legitimate criticism of human rights violations and other injustices."

Barring a student group "based on the actions of a few individuals is unprecedented, and would send the wrong message to university campuses all across the country who seek to create space for free speech and dissent," said Dr. Maher Hathout, chairman of the Islamic Shura Council.

They overlook a critical point. Read the UCI report and note the first violation listed:

"Other forms of dishonesty, including but not limited to fabricating information [and] furnishing false information.."

In other words, they lied. Though MSU officials denied it in advance, and at every point after, internal emails show "The disruptions were planned, orchestrated and coordinated in advance by the Muslim Student Union," the UCI report said.

They lied to their fellow students and to school administrators. MSU officials urged members to join in the lie and stick to the cover story. Disruptors acted individually and that MSU had nothing to do with it, the story went. None of the statements critical of UCI's action acknowledge this.

What lesson will these students, these future leaders, draw from this? Go ahead and lie – we'll have your back? The cause is more important than character.

The UC-Irvine campus has long been plagued by allegations of anti-Semitic behavior. Jewish groups cite numerous incidents in the recent past, including the display of a poster equating the Star of David with a swastika, the defacing of an Israeli flag in a dorm room, the vandalizing of a Holocaust memorial, and a 2006 program sponsored by the Muslim Student Union entitled "Holocaust in the Holy Land" and "Israel: The Fourth Reich."

Read more about the UCI Muslim Student Union's history of radicalism and anti-Semitism here and here.

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