Juan Zarate is Easily Impressed

Absent testimony from any law enforcement officials, last week's Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on missed warning signs before the Fort Hood massacre was more anecdotal than insightful.

Former government officials and experts discussed identifying potential radicals in the military and ways to encourage people to report any concerns they may have. (Our video summary of the hearing can be seen here.)

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is crowing about praise its executive director received from one witness, a deputy national security advisor to President George W. Bush. Juan Zarate singled out comments in an article by MPAC's Salam Al-Marayati that Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting spree represented a defining moment for Muslim-Americans:

"We, as Muslim-Americans are the answer to this frightening phenomenon of terrorism and violent extremism. We own our own destiny, and it is fundamentally intertwined with our nation's destiny. Terrorism will be defeated with our work on the front lines, not in the battlefields, but in our mosques and community centers and youth associations."

Zarate called it "an incredible statement," and a sign that Muslim-Americans will lead the ideological battle needed to confront extremists and stop them from radicalizing future generations. Here's hoping Zarate is correct and that Marayati meant what he said.

The MPAC leader's overall record, however, indicates he may be more a part of the problem than part of the solution.

In the same article Zarate hailed, Marayati discounted the likelihood that Hasan carried out a terrorist attack, saying it was more likely Hasan "had a complete psychological breakdown and resorted to shooting anyone around him." He dismissed as speculative reports that Hasan was influenced by radicals tied to Al Qaeda.

This ignores the record available at the time Marayati's article was published, information that has only been solidified by subsequent disclosures. When the article Zarate praised came out, we already knew that Hasan had communicated with radical Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki and even attended Awlaki's Virginia mosque in 2001. The Washington Post already published a disturbing PowerPoint presentation Hasan gave at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on jihad and Islam and National Public Radio already reported that Hasan's radical views "freaked out" his colleagues.

MPAC's release, from spokeswoman Edina Lekovic, laments the "uphill battle, in which we have to fight for every single step forward." She cites those who call Hasan's rampage a terrorist act and concerns that his colleagues kept quiet about their anxieties about Hasan due to political correctness as part of that uphill fight.

That's taking ownership?

Remember that MPAC, with Marayati at the helm, has lobbied to have Hamas and Hizballah removed from the U.S. list of terrorist groups. Its 1999 position paper on U.S. terror policy even cast the 1983 Hizballah bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut "a military operation, producing no civilian casualties -- exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington's enemies."

Marayati has harshly criticized FBI terror investigations, especially those involving informants. He casts those caught plotting attacks as gullible dupes of FBI snitches who initiate any plots.

Contrast these mixed messages with the candor other Muslim Americans have taken in assessing the problem exposed by Hasan's attack and other recent terror plots.

M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and executive director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told numerous interviewers that American-Muslims needed to confront voices of extremism and intolerance in the United States. In an appearance on CNN, Jasser called on his fellow Muslims to "stop the ideologies that create individuals like" Hasan rather than engaging in "victimology, rather than just condemning something."

Similarly, journalist Asra Nomani wrote in the Daily Beast about the response often meeting whistleblowers within the Muslim community. Concerns are quickly shushed as fomenting divisions within the community:

"In that struggle, we whitewash the truth of men like Hasan responding defensively, rejecting any links to Islamic teachings and, ultimately, I believe, denying the reality of a radicalized ideology of Islam that sanctions violence. In this ideology, men like Maj. Hasan believe they are betraying their fellow Muslims if they fight for the U.S. Army in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Finally, writer/reformist Irshad Manji, director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University, immediately challenged Muslims not to whitewash Hasan's religious motivations for killing his fellow soldiers. In an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball, she also challenged Americans to stop being "tolerant of intolerance."

"I think it is very important to invest in reform-minded Muslims. I don't just mean moderates, Chris. I mean those who are willing to say, not only is this violence evil, but the fact that it is sometimes committed in the name of Islam means that we Muslims have to look inside ourselves and clean out house, even as some of us point fingers at the outside world."

From Manji's lips to Marayati's ears.

The Slippery Slope of Sanctioning Terror

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is taking some heat from a radical Muslim cleric who is upset with the group's swift condemnation of the Fort Hood massacre.

CAIR called Major Nidal Malik Hasan's murder of 13 people and his wounding of dozens of others "wanton and indiscriminate violence" that "no religious or political ideology could ever justify."

In a recent YouTube video, American Imam Bilal Abdul-Kareem faults CAIR for leaping to conclusions about the case and for condemning the attack on U.S. soldiers. He argues that Hasan may have been trying to prevent more U.S. forces from reaching battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and killing more Muslims.

"We can't pretend - America is at war in Iraq - this is a declared open war. America is at war in Afghanistan. And Nidal Malik Hasan was reported to have been against these two wars," Abdul-Kareem said.

In that view, Hasan's actions were not criminal or terrorist acts, but legitimate acts of resistance against an enemy military installation:

"Those people who feel that this was an act of terror or this was a criminal act, I would [ask], would you say it is permissible to attack your enemy when they're still in their home country? Because this was a processing center for soldiers who were on their way to the theaters of war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. How did it become a wanton, indiscriminate, violent act? This was a military installation. It's not as if it took place in the middle of a park or a school or something of this nature.

… it is important that we keep in mind that America is a country at war with the Muslims in several different lands - Iraq, Afghanistan, help for the Israelis in Palestine, and so many other theaters of war including Somalia, Pakistan, where there are so many refugees. So I am curious to know how people can feel and say with a straight face that this was a terrorist act or this was a criminal act."

Some of that should ring a little familiar to CAIR officials, who have offered strikingly similar arguments when the terrorists target people other than American civilians. We've noted CAIR's willingness to speak out clearly against threats and attacks against the United States. But the group is far more nuanced, if not outright supportive, regarding other conflicts.

Following a 2003 Palestinian suicide bombing, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said he "would not criticize suicide attacks against Israeli soldiers. Instead, he spoke of Palestinians exercising 'the right to resist military occupation.'"

In 2004, rather than condemn attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, CAIR Research Director Mohamed Nimer affirmed Muslims'"right to self-defense" and noted that " CAIR criticized American bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq when the conduct of warfare contradicted Islamic values." [Emphasis added]

Even when four American civilian contractors were ambushed in Iraq in March 2004 and their bodies were burned, mutilated, dragged, and finally hung from a bridge, CAIR condemned only "the mutilation of [the] bodies," not the murders themselves and the terrorist murderers.

In 2001, CAIR co-founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad appeared at a press conference outside the State Department to rationalize Palestinian terrorist attacks as reasonable:

"What we urge, we urge the reduction of violence if it produces a result. But we should not pressure and blame the victims for resisting the occupation. Remember, it is the Israeli forces who come to the Palestinian neighborhoods and Palestinian towns and cities, and they provoke response… The aggression is coming from the Israeli side, not the Palestinians. The Palestinians are only responding to the root cause of the issue, which is the occupation." [Emphasis added]

Similarly, at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. in May of 2008 then-CAIR chairman Parvez Ahmed excused suicide bombings as responses to legitimate grievances:

"Suicide bombings are the product of modern political violence. Suicide bombings by Muslims are not the result of any Islamic ideology, but rather they are the result of social political conditions of occupations." [Emphasis added]

It is also interesting to note that as Abdul-Kareem deemed the wars abroad as a "war with the Muslims," so have CAIR officials. Their record is so deep on suggesting the U.S. is at war with Islam that we devoted an entire section to it in our CAIR dossier. For example, In a November 2001 Connecticut Post report, Nihad Awad was quoted saying:

"The question [of a cease-fire] is a political one. If this war goes on and the U.S. continues to bomb Afghanistan , it will lose… [credibility] in the Muslim world in terms of support. It will be seen by Muslims as a war against Muslims. It's a phenomenon right now in the minds of some Muslims." [Emphasis added]

So to CAIR, terrorism is bad, unless it shares the killers' grievances? Then, it's "legitimate resistance." Abdul-Kareem's ideology is disturbing and abhorrent. But at least he's consistent.

British Prisons Said To Facilitate Jihadism

A new report by Quilliam Foundation claims that British prisons are at risk of becoming incubators for radical Islamism unless measures are put in place to counter recruitment there.

According to the report, prepared by foundation staffer James Brandon, British prisons hold close to 100 people convicted or detained for terror-related causes. These include persons such as Abu Qatada, described by the British intelligence agency MI5 as "Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe."

Even though he is in the "supermax" segregation wing of a British prison, Qatada has been able to issue fatwas on the Internet calling for holy war and the murder of moderate Muslims. Last year, Qatada and Adel Abdel Bary, leader of the British branch of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, were able to smuggle out of prison fatwas supporting Al Qaeda attacks.

No less troubling is the fact that those inmates convicted or suspected of terrorism are recruiting a new generation of terrorists while behind bars. Using eyewitness accounts and official inspection reports, Quilliam found that leading Islamists are frequently "empowered" by prison staff who treat them as representatives of Muslim inmates. They use this authority to inflame their followers on the Internet and give television interviews advocating jihad. In some cases they use their power to intimidate fellow inmates into conversion.

Read the report here.

DOJ Investigates ICNA Official's Past

A former Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) president and secretary general is under federal investigation to determine whether he failed to disclose his history with a paramilitary group when he applied for U.S. naturalization.

Ashrafuzzaman Khan remains active with ICNA, which was founded to serve South Asian Muslims in the U.S. and follows the extremist ideology of the Jamaat-i-Islami, which advocates for revolution to create an Islamist state in Pakistan.

According to an online Bangladesh newspaper based in Washington, U.S officials wrote to Bangladesh's State Minister for Home Affairs in September requesting files related to Khan's role in a series of 1971 political murders. The bloodshed came during Bangladesh's fight for independence. The targets included university professors and a journalist. Khan is suspected of war crimes and of carrying out some of the killings. According to the News Bangla report:

"Ashrafuzzaman Khan's personal diary found in his residence contained the names of more than twenty Dhaka University teachers and staff. Also, the diary contained the names of a few other intellectuals who were either killed or who went missing in 1971."

Allegations about his role in the Bangladesh murders have dogged Khan for years. The government won't have to prove his guilt in order to try to strip him of his citizenship. It only must show he lied on his application forms when asked to list his past organizational connections. It has worked before.

The DOJ official making the request is Eli Rosenbaum, longtime director of the department's Office of Special Investigations who hunted Nazi war criminals in the U.S., often using deportation as a tool to send the accused back to their home countries to face justice.

Supervisor Issued Warning on Hasan

The first congressional hearing into the Fort Hood massacre opened this morning. U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is hoping to hear from federal law enforcement officials about their past knowledge of Nidal Malik Hasan's radical ties, but has thus far been stymied by the Obama administration, which argues such testimony could hurt their criminal investigation.

Before the hearing started, however, came news that an official at Walter Reed Army Medical Center did raise concerns about Hasan's behavior through official channels. National Public Radio (NPR) reporter Daniel Zwerdling obtained a scathing May 2007 letter sent to a credentials committee by the director of the psychiatric residency program at Walter Reed. While it did not express concerns that Hasan could pose a danger, the letter from Major Scott Moran casts Hasan as reckless and unprofessional and notes that Hasan was counseled for proselytizing to his patients:

"Clinically he is competent to deliver safe patient care. But he demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism. In his PGY-2 year, he was counseled for inappropriately discussing religious topics with his assigned patients. He also required a period of in-program remediation when he was discovered to have not documented appropriately an ER encounter with a homicidal patient who subsequently eloped from the ER."

See NPR's reproduction of the letter here and hear Zwerdling's report here. Shortly after the shooting spree that killed 13 people, NPR reported on a lecture on Islam that Hasan gave at Walter Reed that "freaked out" his colleagues because of references to non-believers being condemned to hell, beheaded of set on fire. "But what disturbed everybody was that Hasan seemed to believe these things," a source told the network. Hasan also delivered a presentation that seemed to justify jihad.

Zwerdling showed Moran's letter to two psychiatrists who indicated it rendered Hasan virtually unemployable in the private sector. "But sources say that when the Army sent Hasan to Fort Hood earlier this year, Walter Reed sent the damning evaluation there, too. So commanders at Fort Hood would know exactly what they were getting," Zwerdling reports.

Radical U.S. Muslim Group Defames Moderate, Defends Fort Hood Attack

A New York-based Muslim extremist group known for its unabashed support for violence against Jews and others posted a link on its website Tuesday branding American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) Executive Director, M. Zuhdi Jasser, a "murtad," or apostate. Being labeled an apostate – a Muslim who renounces Islam – is a very serious accusation, often resulting in a death sentence in many places throughout the Muslim world. And while this is not a certainty in all cases and contexts, it is troubling that Revolution Muslim (RM) thought it acceptable to bestow upon themselves the license to label a pious Muslim as such.

And it's not the first time the group has slurred Jasser this way.

RM's latest attack against Jasser came in reaction to a video, originally posted by AIFD, showing him and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) engaged in a Capitol Hill forum about Islam's internal struggle against radicalism. Rather than assessing the complete debate, RM elected to post just one segment (of nine) where, it says Ellison "gives the Murtad Zubi [sic.] Jasser a schooling." We at IPT News must have heard something completely different when we attended and reported on the forum last month.

Jasser, a Navy veteran, is a devout Muslim who challenges radical Islamists and advocates a separation between religion and political ideas such as the spread of Shariah law.

RM's radical reaction is hardly surprising considering the group's record. As noted in an October 2009 Anti-Defamation League (ADL) "backgrounder" on RM, the group has, on numerous occasions, promoted attacks against Jews, Hindus, Americans, and other non-Muslims. In one recent case, "RM posted to its Web site a poem asking God to 'kill the Jews' and listing ways Jews could be hurt, including by burning 'their flammable sukkos while they sleep' and throwing 'liquid drain cleaner in their faces.'" Fox News reports that the post was removed and replaced with a more innocuous article soon after it caught the eye of the NYPD.

Similarly, just last week, RM posted a video on YouTube in which group member Abdullah As-Sayf Jones rants on the streets of New York City to passersby about the justification for Major Nidal Hasan's wanton act of violence at Fort Hood. In an effort to show Hasan's act had the moral upper-hand as compared to U.S. military actions overseas, Jones says:

"This did not take place at a hospital. This was not a civilian target. Not a school, not a hotel, nothing else. This took place at a military base….compared to American military tactics, in which they drive drones over the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, indiscriminately killing Pakistanis. A U.S. drone does not tell the difference [between legitimate targets and civilians]…but yet, here it is, the so-called terrorist making sure specifically to target military targets."

In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting, RM also posted a link to another controversial video – this one put out by a group called AIM Films – in which a man identified as Bilal Abdul-Kareem defends Hasan's killing spree as an act against an enemy in a state of war, rather than a criminal or terrorist act.

RM's mission, as stated on its website, includes uniting the "Muslim world…under the banner of Islam." In pursuing this mission, RM regularly pushes the limits of 1^st Amendment freedom of speech protections in showing support for violence. This strategy is very similar to yet another New York-based group, with whom RM shares membership and often cooperates: the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS). ITS, "an offshoot of a British group by the name Al Muhajiroun…that supports violence in order to create a global Islamic state," according to the ADL report, has openly shown support for Al Qaeda and has spewed hate against the FBI, CIA, and others.

Documentary Takes Viewers Inside Mumbai Attacks

HBO airs a documentary this week that takes viewers inside last year's horrific terrorist attacks in Mumbai. If it's anything close to what is described in the New York Post's preview, it is worth watching.

"Terror in Mumbai" includes details about the terrorist's communications during the attack that killed 164 people, including their handlers' urging them to kill more people and be sure that they die as martyrs when it's all done.

A child describes the scene at the Victoria train station, where his father, uncle and other relatives were among the dozens killed. The Post report also describes this scene:

"At Mumbai's Chabad House, a rabbi and his pregnant wife were shot at the instruction that any Jews killed were worth 50 times as much as anyone else. 'Just shoot them now,' the controller says, later adding impatiently: 'Go on! I'm listening. Do it.'"

Ten terrorists from the group Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the attack. In other calls featured in the program, the handler tells a terrorist "Don't panic. For your mission to end successfully, you must be killed. God is waiting for you in heaven."

The program debuts Thursday evening and will be aired many times after that. For a schedule, click here.

Bollywood Actor Cast in Real-Life Chicago Terror Plot

A top Bollywood film producer's son, Rahul Bhatt, may have been a close associate of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist David Coleman Headley (a.k.a Daood Geelani), according to news reports. Rahul Bhatt's name came up in FBI affidavits filed earlier this month, when two Chicago men were arrested on federal charges for their alleged roles in foreign terror plots that focused on high profile targets in India and Denmark, including the prestigious National Defense College in New Delhi, two leading Indian boarding schools, and facilities of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammed four years ago.

According to the affidavits, the name "Rahul" came up a few times in Headley's e-mail communications with a LeT mastermind in Pakistan.  The affidavits claimed "Rahul" is a reference to a prominent Indian actor.  It was earlier unclear whether "Rahul" referred to Bollywood actors Rahul Bose or Rahul Khanna, or whether the name referred to Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who has often played characters named "Rahul," and whose detention this past August at Newark International Airport generated controversy. The speculation surrounding the identity of "Rahul" ended only when Rahul Bhatt contacted the Mumbai police after learning of the terror suspect's arrest and informed them he knew Headley. The e-mail communications revealed the LeT mastermind was placing a higher priority on using Headley to assist in planning a new attack in India than on completing the "Northern Project," a reference to the planned attack against the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Headley allegedly asked the LeT contact: "When you say 'move forward' do you mean in the North Direction or towards Rahul."  The LeT member responded: "i [sic] mean towards Rahul," implying targeting India first.

Earlier this month Headley was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on his way to Pakistan, where he was to meet with Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of Al Qaeda's infamous 311 Brigade and the Azad Kashmir section of the Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) that has carried out deadly attacks in Kashmir.  Headley's collaborator and partner in crime, Tahawuur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, allegedly helped arrange Headley's travels overseas and used his Chicago-based immigration business to provide cover for Headley's trips to surveil potential terror targets abroad. Rana in fact helped Headley to obtain a visa for Pakistan so that he could travel to the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to attend a terrorist training camp and meet with leaders of the Laskar-e-Taiba (LeT).

News reports further claim that between 2006 and 2009 Headley ran an immigration office out of Mumbai to facilitate U.S. and Canadian visas for semi-skilled and unskilled Indian workers.  The immigration office is thought to have served as a front group for terrorist activities.

It has also been reported that prior to the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Headley visited every target site of the attacks, including Nariman House, the Jewish Chabad center, Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, and the Taj and Trident hotels.  While at Nariman House in July 2008, Headley is said to have posed as a Jew – a claim backed up by the FBI's seizure of a book in his possession called How to Pray Like a Jew.

The Legal Battle in the Case of Nidal Malik Hasan

The U.S. government has announced its intention to seek the death penalty in the case of Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with 13 counts of murder in connection with the massacre at the Ford Hood, Tex. military base November 5.

Because the killings occurred on a military base and Hasan serves in the U.S. Army, he is subject to the military justice system which is governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).  Hasan is represented by an attorney, retired Army Col. John Galligan, and the Army will also provide the accused with a military counsel free of charge.

The next step is a hearing under Article 32 of the UCMJ which entitles the accused to a "th[o]rough and impartial investigation of the charges against him." A military officer will then investigate whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed with a court martial. The officer will make a recommendation to a "convening authority" – a military commander with the power to order a general court martial – the most serious kind. The convening authority decides whether the death penalty will be sought.

A military judge would be appointed to preside over the case and it would be heard by a jury comprised of military personnel referred to as "panel members." All must outrank Maj. Hasan. The prosecutor must be a military lawyer (a judge advocate).

Ordinarily the trial would take place at Ft. Hood. But Galligan has already questioned whether Hasan could get a fair trial there, and it is possible that trial could be moved to another base.

At the trial, both sides would have the opportunity to present witnesses and cross-examine the other side's witnesses. In a capital case, Hasan must be found guilty by all 12 jurors. Similarly, all 12 must agree for the death penalty to be imposed.

Once a verdict is agreed to, Hasan could turn to the U.S. Army  Court of Criminal Appeals and then to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which is made up of  five civilian judges appointed to 15-year terms by the President of the United States. If he loses the second appeal, he could turn to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final ruling.

Read more about the legal process in the case here and here and here.

CAIR in a Nutshell

It might be pride, it might be a stubborn adherence to its core ideology, but Fox News reports that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) could find itself back in the FBI's good graces by making a simple declaration distancing itself from a terrorist group.

Despite CAIR's insistence that it has "a clear record of consistently and persistently condemning terrorism," of all forms and by all players, it cannot bring itself to say it won't support Hamas, Fox reported. It cited an anonymous FBI official who explained:

"We wanted them to basically sit down and say that they didn't support (Hamas) and they intended to refrain from future support. That's really nothing fancy, other than an ideological rejection of Hamas. They don't want to (do) that."

The FBI broke off relations with CAIR last year, after evidence in the terror-financing trial against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development included numerous exhibits tying CAIR to a Hamas-support network in the United States called the Palestine Committee. In a letter to inquiring U.S. senators earlier this year, an FBI official explained "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."

Politico reports that a federal judge denied CAIR's effort to be removed from a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.

The rebuff of the FBI would be the latest in a long history of CAIR's refusal to criticize of condemn Hamas despite its lofty claim of standing against terror.

That record has been ignored by media outlets and those who rushed to the group's defense in the wake of a new book that provides an insider's account of how CAIR misleads the public and works to stymie law enforcement. CAIR has sued the book's authors for trespassing and theft but has yet to allege any falsehoods in their account.

CAIR has condemned the Fort Hood massacre. But for years it has touted the notion that the U.S. was at war with Islam, a theory believed to be a factor in radicalizing some Muslims and something that reportedly fueled Nidal Malik Hasan's rampage.

CAIR's track record suggests that it considers some attacks on civilians acceptable when it agrees with the attacker's politics.

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