Good News and Bad News at the ISA

For years, critics have been on the Northern Virginia-based Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) to purge its textbooks of extremist and intolerant messages toward non Muslims and even Shiite Muslims.

Now the Hudson Institute's Nina Shea and the Institute for Gulf Affairs' Ali al-Ahmed report that they've privately secured copies of the school's Islamic studies textbooks used last fall and found they have been cleansed of instruction on jihad and sections justifying the killing of non-Muslims.

Shea and al-Ahmed had to hunt down their own copies of the textbooks because the State Department refused to release copies it has for inspection.

But too many unanswered questions remain before the authors can give the ISA a clean bill of health. In an article Monday at the National Review's website, Shea and al-Ahmed say that, after justifying their murder in years past, current textbooks say nothing about the treatment of people of other faiths, gays "polytheists" and "adulterers:"

"[I]gnoring the issue almost completely will not suffice to orient students toward the peaceful interpretation. One must wonder whether the books were even intended to do such a thing."

A book for seniors invokes Ibn Taymiyyah as an authority on moral issues. Ibn Taymiyyah, Shea and al-Ahmed write, was a 14th-century author who "extolled the militant jihad we call 'terror.' His fatwas were found in a recent study by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center to be 'by far the most popular texts for modern Jihadis.' Renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins wrote that Osama bin Laden cites Ibn Taymiyyah as a 'special hero.'"

The authors note that the ISA is seeking local government consent to expand. That request, absent more changes and more openness, should be rejected, they say.

Read the entire article here.

Schiff Denies Joining Democrats' Letter to Holder

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff is distancing himself from a letter signed by him and six other House Democrats last week urging Attorney General Eric Holder to meet with radical Islamist groups to hear their grievances toward law enforcement.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) reported on the letter Tuesday. After reading the story, Schiff's office contacted the IPT to say his name should not have been included and forwarded a letter Schiff sent to Holder saying the same thing.

The letter cited the FBI's use of informants who go into mosques as part of counter-terrorism investigations and complaints of religious profiling related to an investigation of young Somali Muslim men who have disappeared from the Minneapolis area and may have returned to Africa to wage jihad with the al-Shabab terrorist group. The concerns "raise legitimate questions about due process, justice, and equal treatment under the law," the letter said.

However, it remains unclear how Schiff's name and signature appeared on the letter in the first place. An aide to the Burbank Democrat said a Sanchez staffer brought the letter to their office and said Schiff approved of having his signature added to it. The staffers did not check with Schiff.

The aide could not say why Sanchez's staff had the impression Schiff was on board with the letter or whether Schiff was part of any earlier draft or discussion.

The aide also said he did not know whether Schiff agreed or disagreed with the letter's message. Schiff, he said, "still hasn't seen the letter" even though it was linked off the original IPT story that Schiff apparently read. The Congressman, a former federal prosecutor, asked that his name be removed out of principle because he had not authorized its use, the aide said, regardless of the content.

The IPT asked to speak to Schiff directly, but that was denied.

All the Wrong Moves

President Obama's overtures toward Muslims around the world and his administration's early hard line on Israeli settlements in the West Bank have prompted increasing concerns about the direction of America's Middle East policy.

A series of moves, or the lack of them, is only fueling the anxiety. The Jerusalem Post reports that Obama failed to appoint an envoy to monitor and fight global anti-Semitism despite a legal requirement to do so. The previous envoy, Gregg Rickman, left his post with the transition to a new administration.

The Post says the lapse raises questions about the administration's commitment to the task of fighting anti-Semitism. It quotes Rafael Medoff, director of the Washington DC-based David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies:

"At a time when anti-Semitism remains a staple of government propaganda in the Middle East, when violent anti-Semitic incidents are reported almost daily throughout Europe, and when even the streets of Washington are not untouched by anti-Semitism's violent potential, that is the wrong message to send."

Adding to the emerging fray is the administration's decision to give a Medal of Freedom to former Ireland President Mary Robinson. Jennifer Rubin notes that Robinson presided over the United Nations' Durban Conference, which was supposed to be about racism but instead morphed into an Israel-bashing fest. So bad was the tenor that the U.S., Germany and other nations boycotted the follow-up gathering in April.

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies President Cliff May summarizes the concern Obama critics have, that his settlement emphasis has come without commensurate pressure on the Palestinians:

"In particular, Obama has been pressing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make unilateral concessions to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.

The predictable result: Abbas has hardened his stance. One of his deputies, Kifah Radaydeh, said in a recent television interview: 'Our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means, and the goal is Palestine. I do not negotiate in order to achieve peace.' And a PA member of parliament, Muhammad Dahlan, this month said in another TV interview that Palestinians have a 'legal right' to terrorism."

At The Corner on the National Review website, Tevi Troy concludes in fairly blunt terms that the President is taking his support among American Jews for granted.

Shoe Bomber Handed a Legal Victory on a Platter

Richard Reid, the notorious Islamic "Shoe Bomber" terrorist convicted of trying to blow up a US trans-Atlantic airliner by detonating a bomb secreted in his shoes, is serving his federal sentence at the "Supermax" prison outside Denver, Colorado. In August 2007, Reid filed a motion in US District Court in Denver to remove Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) imposed on him by the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Reid claimed the SAMs denied him "various aspects" of his Constitutional rights.

SAMs are imposed on high-risk Federal prisoners because the BOP, and other government agencies like the FBI, believes that allowing those prisoners ready communication access to other prisoners or the outside world could lead to threats of or actual violence against innocent people or the nation. In the case of radical homicidal terrorists convicted of trying to, or actually committing, mass murder, such SAMs are a no-brainer.

As former Federal counter-terrorism prosecutor Andrew McCarthy outlines in The Corner for National Review, it appears the current decision makers at the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided terrorist Reid should have those SAMs removed. While DOJ under the Bush Administration opposed Reid's attempted legal efforts, the Obama DOJ, on June 9, filed a brief, two-sentence notice with the court that it would allow Reid's SAMs to expire on June 17. As a result, the federal court has stayed the remaining proceedings brought by Reid until no later than November, when the Government must file a report with the court identifying Reid's new "placement" status. It is likely that new placement status will be significantly less restrictive than his Supermax/SAM detention.

As Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines plane which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 writes in the Wall Street Journal:

"Reid's own SAMs on correspondence had been tightened in 2006 after the shocking discovery that three of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers at [Supermax] ADX, not subject to security directives, had sent 90 letters to overseas terrorist networks, including those associated with the Madrid train bombing. The letters, exhorting jihad and praising Osama bin Laden as "my hero of this generation," were printed in Arabic newspapers and brandished like trophies to recruit new members."

Will Reid be moved to a BOP facility that has lower security thresholds? And to what end? So Reid can pray with fellow Muslim prisoners, many of whom are also convicted terrorists? So Reid may communicate with family, "friends" and acquaintances on the outside...some of whom are quite possibly terrorists? Among those watching this unfold may be some of the passengers on that flight who Reid try to kill.

MAS, TIZA and the Congressman

Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), a Muslim, traveled to Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca late last year to make the hajj pilgrimage as required under the tenets of Islam. This was a personal and private trip, Ellison claimed in a July 23rd letter to the Minnesota Star-Tribune. He reported to the House Ethics Committee that his trip to Mecca was funded by the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS-MN), a non-profit organization.

Ellison's letter responded to a Star-Tribune report about the MAS-funding of his trip. The story also identified concern about how MAS-MN received "grants" totaling almost $900,000 from the MAS-MN Property Holding Corporation, a subordinate entity of MAS-MN. The holding corporation collected state rent money for the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a public charter school run by MAS-MN. The grants from the holding company to MAS-MN nearly equaled the amount it received in state rent money for 2006-07.

Taxpayer money did not finance his trip, Ellison said in his letter to the editor. The Star-Tribune cited a spokesman for TIZA who claimed MAS-MN stopped receiving Minnesota state rent money through its property holding corporation after 2007, and since Ellison made his trip to Mecca the end of 2008, no TIZA-related state money could have been involved in paying for Ellison's travel. Since 2008, the spokesman said, TIZA rent money from the state was paid to an entity called the Minnesota Education Trust.

Minnesota corporate records, however, show that Minnesota Education Trust is located at the same St. Paul address as the MAS-MN Property Holding Corporation. IRS non-profit tax returns for the Trust identified two organization officials. The president is listed as Asif Rahman. The other official is Asad Zaman.

The two men are listed in similar position on tax forms for the MAS-MN Property Holding Corporation. Zaman also is listed as the executive director for the TIZA charter school on its tax forms. On all those tax returns, TIZA claimed to have no affiliation with any other organizations. It also claimed none of its organization officials shared a relationship with officials in any other organization. Yet another TIZA board member, Hesham Hussein, is also a corporate official of the Muslim American Society in Minnesota. Rahman and Zaman are officials of the MAS-MN Property Holding Corporation and the Minnesota Education Trust. Rahman was previously identified as a local official of Islamic Relief, the charter school sponsor for TIZA.

The Minnesota Education Trust, in the tax form section for its stated primary purpose, claims "Charter School." Curiously, in the related section requiring a detailed description of its exempt purpose, the trust states:

"Charter school to promote the message of Islam to Muslims and non Muslims and promote understanding between them promote interfaaith (sic) activities and dialouge (sic) support schoools (sic) community centers mosques and orther (sic) organizations that serve the goals of the organization."

Apart from the education Trust needing some elementary spelling education, it might be inferred from its tax return that the Trust is, in fact, TIZA. Its officials are also officials of TIZA and the TIZA sponsor. The Trust boldly claims it is a charter school that exists "to promote the message of Islam," "to promote interfaith activities" and to "support...mosques." Charter schools are public schools that receive taxpayer money and are not supposed to be sectarian in nature. Yet the Trust/TIZA claims it exists to do just that - be sectarian.

Back to the issue of the Trust taking over the funding process to receive public money for TIZA rent. The trust supposedly received some $315,000 in state rent money from the property holding corporation as part of that funding transfer arrangement. Yet, the Trust and the holding company are administered by the same people and one of those is the director of TIZA. And another board member of TIZA is a MAS official. Yet TIZA consistently claimed no affiliation with any organizations on its tax returns.

Money is fungible. There's no way to know whether any of the state TIZA rent funds that were processed through the holding corporation to MAS-MN have been carried over to 2008 when Ellison made his Hajj.

A thorough review of the financial records for all these entities may provide answers.

Latest Guilty Plea Exposes the Flawed Reasoning of CAIR's Congressional Allies

A second Somali man from Minneapolis has entered a guilty plea in connection to a series of young men who are believed to have left Minnesota to join the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia.

Salah Osman Ahmed entered a guilty plea in federal court Tuesday in which he admitted traveling to Somalia in December 2007 to fight Ethiopians. Ahmed acknowledged attending meetings in Minneapolis beginning in October 2007 during which he and others were persuaded to return to Somalia to fight for al-Shabab. During his time in Somalia Ahmed helped build a training camp and learned how to fire an AK-47.

The plea is similar to one entered in April by co-defendant Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, who also admitted to training with al-Shabab, building a terrorist training camp, and learning to fire weapons.

Concerns that the investigation into missing Somali men in the Minneapolis area involved religious profiling were among the concerns listed in a letter uncovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism Tuesday from seven House Democrats. The representatives asked Attorney General Eric Holder to meet with nine Islamist groups to hear their grievances.

The FBI investigations "raise legitimate questions about due process, justice, and equal treatment under the law," the seven House Democrats wrote. If their pleas are any indication, Isse and Ahmed don't share those concerns. Neither do some members of the Somali-Muslim community in Minneapolis.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the groups Holder is urged to meet, has launched a campaign to make the Minnesota community wary of religious profiling in the FBI investigation and has even urged those approached by the FBI in Minnesota not to meet with the FBI without legal counsel present. Jessica Zikiri, CAIR-Minnesota's communications director told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the campaign is meant to "ensure that civil rights are protected."

Interestingly, CAIR's campaign has triggered a backlash from within the Minnesota Somali community. Family members of the youth who have traveled overseas to Somalia accuse CAIR of hindering the FBI investigation surrounding their missing family members. At least three of these missing youths have been reported as being killed in Somali over the past few months. In response to these deaths family members have rallied against CAIR in several protests.

In June, the Somali community of Minneapolis protested outside of a CAIR Minnesota event. The protesters were the friends and family of Burhan Hassan, one of the Minneapolis youth killed in Somalia. The protesters believed that an unhampered FBI investigation could lead to answers about their missing relative and protect Somali youth.

The rally outside of the CAIR event included about 50 people who held signs and chanted "CAIR out! Doublespeak out!"

Ifrah Hassan, Burhan's mother's cousin, held a small child during the protest and told reporters, "I don't want my son, when he's 18 years old, out of nowhere going someplace else." She added, "We need to find out who did this."

One of Hassan's relatives, Osman Ahmed, heavily criticized CAIR during the rally, saying that CAIR is "supporting the groups we suspect of recruiting our kids." "We refuse to be silent," he said. Ahmed also added that he believed that CAIR aligned itself too closely with mosques where some believe the missing boys may have been convinced to leave.

Ahmed has testified before the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security Committee in Washington D.C. earlier, in March of 2009. During his testimony he accused the Minneapolis based Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, which has worked closely with CAIR, of recruiting children to join Al-Shabab.

The family protested again on Independence Day, July 4, 2009. During the protest, flyers were handed out containing a strong statement of condemnation for CAIR:

"CAIR's provocative and dangerous actions will not be tolerated and have led many in the Somali American community to believe that they are intentionally shielding from prosecution members of a network which has been providing material support to a terrorist group, in this case funds and the trafficking of American youths to Al-Shabaab."

While the House Democrats and the Hamas-linked CAIR continue to complain about alleged violations of civil rights, the FBI's investigation continues to unfold, providing more answers to questions surrounding the disappearances of Minnesota Somali youth.

In Raleigh, Seven Accused in Terror Plot

Seven North Carolina residents have been arrested and charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and "conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad," the Justice Department announced Monday. The seven – six U.S. citizens and Hysen Sherifi, a 24-year-old Kosovo native and legal permanent resident of the United States – are accused of preparing to engage in violence and die as martyrs.

According to the indictment returned July 22 by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, the group obtained assault weapons and conspired to provide money, transportation, training and personnel to carry out terrorist attacks. Some defendants allegedly tried to radicalize others into believing that "violent jihad was personal religious obligation," the Justice Department said in announcing the indictment.

The government alleges that from 1989 to 1992, defendant Daniel Patrick Boyd traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to "receive military style training in terrorist training camps for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad" and fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. In 2006, he went to Gaza "and attempted to enter Palestine in order to introduce his son to individuals who also believed that violent jihad was a personal obligation on the part of every good Muslim."

In 2007, Boyd and several other defendants left the United States for Israel and tried again unsuccessfully to engage in violent jihad. According to the indictment, after returning to the U.S., Boyd twice made false statements to federal agents about who he had planned to meet during his trip to Israel.

In 2008, Boyd allegedly solicited money to enable two other individuals to go overseas to engage in violence and showed codefendant Sherifi how to operate an AK-47 assault weapon. In April of this year, Boyd purchased multiple rifles. On June 10, 2009 and July 7, 2009, Boyd and a number of his codefendants "practiced military tactics and the use of weapons on private property in Caswell County, North Carolina. "

Over the past three years, Boyd "has conspired with others in this country to recruit and help young men travel overseas in order to kill. Given the weapons allegedly involved in this conspiracy and the seriousness of the charges, the many agents, analysts and prosecutors who were able to bring about this case and safely remove these defendants from our streets deserve special thanks," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division.

Read more about the indictment here and here.

Life Sentence for Virginia Man Who Plotted to Kill President Bush

A Fairfax, Va. man who plotted to assassinate President George W. Bush, provided material support to Al Qaeda and conspired to recreate the 9/11 attacks in a new hijacking scheme was sentenced to life in prison Monday.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali originally was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2006. The 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, but rejected the sentence as too lenient. The appellate court determined that the trial judge improperly tried to keep Abu Ali's sentence in line with others who did not cause the death of any Americans. The judge's reliance on John Walker Lindh, who plotted fought with the Taliban but didn't execute attacks against Americans, was misguided, the 4^th Circuit found:

"Though the district court accurately noted that Abu Ali never "injured any people" and "no victim was injured in the United States[,]" this should not trivialize the severity of his offenses. Plotting terrorist attacks on the civilian population and conspiring to assassinate the President of the United States are offenses of the utmost gravity, and the Guidelines and for that matter any other measure of severity manifestly treat them as such. Had Abu Ali's plans come to fruition, they would, according to his own words, have led to massive civilian casualties and the assassination of senior U.S. officials."

...

"It was only because of his arrest that he was forced to desist from further execution of his plans. Thus, the defendant should not benefit simply because his plans were disrupted by Saudi officials before he could see them through."

According to a Washington Post report on Monday's sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee:

"I cannot put the safety of the American citizenry at risk," he said, citing Abu Ali's "unwillingness to renounce the beliefs that led to his terrorist activities."

Before receiving his sentence, Abu Ali told Lee that the judge would some day face judgment too, from Allah. Abu Ali was the 1999 valedictorian at Northern Virginia's Islamic Saudi Academy, a school which has been criticized for presenting radical content in textbooks.

Read the appellate decision here. To see excerpts from Abu-Ali's statement to Saudi officials who originally arrested him, click here.

Pipes on Newsweek's European "Fantasy"

Newsweek published an essay, "Why Fears Of A Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong," which labels concerns about an insidious march toward Shariah in Europe as alarmist and rabble-rousing. "European governments, which are now almost entirely center-right, have been slamming doors to further immigration from Muslim countries," writes William Underhill.

Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum was asked to reply. Here's what he said:

Three schools of thought compete to predict the future of Europe, those of "Eurabia," "expulsion," and "symbiosis." The first two make grimly plausible arguments about an ancient civilization either disappearing or standing up for itself, but these pessimistic expectations remain minority viewpoints. In elite European circles, especially, a wide consensus holds that symbiosis, assimilation, good feeling, compromise, and muddling through will prevail.

Underhill, a hitherto little-known reporter, has got the fur flying with a provocatively titled article that argues for a happy outcome on the basis of two points: Muslim birthrates in Europe are declining and many Muslims "appear strangely content with the established [European] order."

Even granting his arguments, however, Underhill ignores so many other factors as to render his analysis useless. He says not a word about Muslim immigration, legal or illegal, nor about European emigration; nothing about the development of Muslim no-go zones, enclaves, street muscle, Shar'i courts, madrassahs, and slaveholding; not a peep about hijabs, jilbabs, niqabs, burqas, nor honor killings and harems; and he stays silent about Islamist intimidation in schools and hospitals, about the curtailment of freedom of speech, and government patronage of Islam.

In brief, while we may not know where Europe will end up, Underhill's implied symbiosis is a fantasy.

Honor Killing Suspected in Deaths of 3 Canadian Sisters

In another troubling sign that honor killings are taking root in the West, police in Kingston, Ontario are charging the parents and a brother of three teenaged girls and their father's first wife, all of whom were found dead in a submerged car June 30.

During a news conference Thursday, Police Chief Steven Tanner described the murders as a "senseless and needless loss of innocent life. The four victims in this case, three of which were teenage girls all shared the rights within our great country to live without fear, to enjoy safety and security and to exercise freedom of choice and expression and had their lives cut short by their own family."

Mohammed Shafii is charged with the deaths of his daughters, ages 13, 17 and 19, and his first wife. The day they died, he reportedly went to the police to report that his car had been stolen. He also identified his first wife as his cousin. Also charged are Shafii's second wife - the mother of the dead girls - and his son.

The cause of death has not been disclosed.

Earlier this year, the founder of Bridges Television in Buffalo was charged in the beheading of his wife. The New York National Organization for Women chapter president called Aasiya Hassan's brutal murder "a terroristic version of honor killing."

In Sweden, police are trying to determine if women who died in falls off balconies were pushed off in honor killings.

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