DHS: Hamas-Tied NJ Imam Must Prove Why He Shouldn't Be Deported

Evidence being used against him in the Department of Homeland Security's effort to deport him is the product of torture and is not credible, a Hamas-connected imam testified Tuesday in a Newark, N.J. immigration court.

Mohammad Qatanani is imam at the Islamic Center of Passaic County. Immigration officials have been fighting to deport him since 2006, alleging he failed to disclose connections with Hamas when he applied for permanent residency. When he came to the United States 10 years earlier, he claimed he had never been arrested or belonged to any terrorist groups.

That history makes Qatanani subject to deportation, DHS says.

Tuesday's hearing centered on Qatanani's October 1993 arrest and conviction by an Israeli military court on charges he provided support to Hamas. He claims Israeli authorities detained him and never charged him.

"No lawyer prior to 2008 ever told me that I had a conviction," Qatanani said.

U.S. Immigration Judge Judge Alberto Reifkohl ruled in 2008 that the bulk of the evidence and testimony introduced by the Department of Homeland Security was not credible and granted Qatanani permanent residency, better known as a "green card."

The Justice Department's Board of Immigration Appeals sent the case back to Reifkohl in October 2009, finding that he erred rejecting the credibility of evidence and government testimony.

In addition, DHS attorneys bolstered some of the evidence obtained from Israeli officials, including two confessions which include statements Qatanani made about his Hamas connection. Three additional witness statements came from people who told Israeli officials that Qatanani recruited them to join Hamas.

Qatanani claims he never was given translations of the Hebrew-language Israeli court records and never knew what they alleged. "There is no confession to my understanding" Qatanani said Tuesday.

He also disputed that the signatures on the documents were his, saying instead they were "similar" to his signature. DHS evidence was able to match the fingerprints on the documents to Qatanani.

He claims he was mistreated in Israeli custody, but never signed any documents he thought were confessions, describing them as "finishing papers."

The legal standard in immigration court is less stringent than a criminal conviction. This means DHS only needs to show that Qatanani had associations with Hamas that he hid on his visa application. Under immigration law, the Qatanani has the burden of proof to show he is not a terrorist, said Department of Homeland Security Deputy Chief Counsel Chris Brundage.

It's impossible for Qatanani to get around the fact he lied when he said he never had been arrested, Brundage said.

No ruling was issued before the hearing recessed. It is scheduled to resume next month.

Report Outlines Growing Link Between Counterfeiting and Terrorism Financing

Terrorists increasingly are diversifying their funding sources to support their violent and nefarious activities. That includes various criminal activities.

A new Union des Fabricants (UNIFAB) report, commissioned by the French government, highlights the important relationship between terrorism and counterfeiting in particular. The criminal-terrorism nexus manifests itself in several forms, but the main elements include: cooperation between terrorist groups and organized criminal elements, and crimes by terrorists which are conducted to finance their own operations.

Since 2001, profits from cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting account for over 20 percent of illicit financing for terrorist groups, the report says.

Terrorists' reliance on counterfeiting has attracted further attention with the rise of Islamic State terrorist networks. Without a formal state sponsor, and facing considerable setbacks in Syria and Iraq, ISIS may start to rely more on crime to fund operations. The terrorist organization also extensively recruits European operatives with criminal backgrounds.

Individual terrorists and cells depended on profits from selling counterfeit goods on numerous prominent occasions. For example, the Islamist terrorists responsible for the January 2015 attack in Paris earned money from drug trafficking and counterfeit sales, including Nike shoes. The Belgium city of Molenbeek, home to a disproportionate number of radical Islamist terrorists and sympathizers, is strongly associated with counterfeit activities. In 2012, for example, authorities there seized about three tons of counterfeit clothes, perfumes, and other accessories. The UNIFAB report suggests that law enforcement agencies in France and abroad need to stop treating counterfeiting as simply "petty crime" and understand it frequently bankrolls terrorist activity.

The report outlines counterfeiting activities by prominent terrorist organizations. Hizballah for example, has exploited counterfeiting methods on several occasions, including in 2003 when Lebanese authorities found containers full of counterfeit automobile parts worth over $1 million dollars intended for Hizballah supporters. In 2006, U.S. authorities arrested 19 people who were part of a counterfeit drug network spanning five countries and involved significant profits for the Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization.

Though Hamas' criminal financing operations are well documented, the report also describes Fatah and the Palestinian Authority members' suspected involvement in illicit financial activities and cooperation with criminal networks. Interpol believes that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations earned between $300 and $500 million in the last decade from illicit activities and smuggling counterfeit goods worldwide.

While the internet and the rise of virtual currency, such as BitCoin, allow for illicit transactions to remain anonymous, terrorists still rely on traditional and clandestine networks such as the Hawala (trust in Arabic) system to transfer money undetected. Counterfeiting is very profitable, carries relatively lax legal consequences and involves less risk compared to other financing activities. Beyond raising critical awareness, the report outlines key recommendations for law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies.

Click here to read the full report.

Dar al-Hijrah Board Member Pens Muslim Brotherhood Tribute

A politically connected, longtime board member at the Falls Church, Va., based Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center effusively praised the Muslim Brotherhood in a Facebook posting Wednesday.

Esam Omeish was forced to step down from a state immigration commission by then Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine in 2006 after video of him praising Palestinians for fighting the "jihad way" became public.  He also served as president of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a group founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in America.

While MAS officials denied that connection, Omeish praised the Egyptian-based organization with ultimate designs on a global Islamic state.

"We have not known of the people of Islam ... those more just in understanding, wider in approach and closer in application than the Muslim Brotherhood," Omeish wrote. "We have not known of humane brotherliness and its people, (and we are affiliated with all men whom Allah has created a propensity for love, mercy, an upright disposition, good morals and honorable character) better in ethics, of gentler parts, deeper in adherence to duty, nobler in morals among all their sons, and everyone of their actions than the Muslim Brotherhood."

Omeish was responding to a posting by Hani Elkadi, co-founder of Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice and Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights. Elkadi seemed to admit his own Brotherhood affiliation on Facebook in a March 9, 2015 Facebook post showing an cartoon of a man holding a sign with the Brotherhood logo and the words which translate to, "I am [Muslim] Brotherhood and I'm not threatened."

Omeish visited the White House and State Department numerous times and posted pictures of himself with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on his Facebook page. State Department officials featured Omeish in a 2008 video about American Muslims.

In February, Omeish sent an open letter to President Obama asking him to support the al-Qaida linked Revolutionary Council of Derna.

He endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood branch in his native Libya in a 2012 IRIN News article, saying that although it came in a distant second in Libya's 2012 elections, it "may be able to provide a better platform and a more coherent agenda of national action."

IPT Story Prompts ADL to Retract Ellison DNC Endorsement

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison's 2010 comments about Israeli political influence, first reported Tuesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, are "deeply disturbing and disqualifying" to his bid to become head of the Democratic National Committee, the Anti-Defamation League announced in a statement Thursday afternoon.

In remarks given at a private fundraiser, Ellison, D-Minn. implied Israel enjoyed disproportionate and inappropriate control over U.S. foreign policy. The IPT obtained a recording of those comments:

[AV] 837 [/AV]

"The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right? When the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything changes. Can I say that again?"

In Thursday's statement, ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said Ellison's comments expose a belief that American policy is driven not by the country's best interests, but by "religiously or national origin-based special interests ... Additionally, whether intentional or not, his words raise the specter of age-old stereotypes about Jewish control of our government, a poisonous myth that may persist in parts of the world where intolerance thrives, but that has no place in open societies like the U.S."

Greenblatt defended Ellison last week against criticism of his past association with the Nation of Islam and his close relationships with Islamist groups like the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), both of which were created by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ellison "long ago ... disassociated himself from the [Nation of Islam] and apologized for its anti-Semitism," Greenblatt wrote. And, "we have seen no concrete evidence of any link between Ellison and the Brotherhood."

"He has been outspoken about anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in his role as a congressman. Local Jewish leadership in his district speaks highly of him," Greenblatt wrote.

But the 2010 comments exposed by the IPT changed all that. Bipartisan support for Israel, "our most important ally in the region, a democracy whose emphasis on equality and commitment to the rule of law stands in stark contrast to the anarchy and authoritarian regimes that prevail in much of the Middle East" is vital, Thursday's statement said. The next head of the Democratic Party should "have fidelity to these timeless ideals at all times."

The DNC is expected to choose its next leader in early 2017.

Brooklyn Imam Linked to Qaradawi Group Calls for Sisi's Head

A Brooklyn imam issued what appeared to be a call to behead Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi last Wednesday at an event sponsored by the pro-Muslim Brotherhood group Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice (EAFJ).

Sisi has led Egypt since a July 2013 coup toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government led by then-President Mohamed Morsi. Brotherhood supporters in the United States have condemned the move, which was prompted by massive street protests against Morsi's rule. They demand his reinstatement.

"[O]nce people pledge allegiance to a Muslim ruler, it is forbidden to struggle against him and remove him, and if anyone removes him, he should be beheaded," Islamic Society of Bay Ridge imam Sheikh Mohamed Elbar told the EAFJ gathering in Arabic. "Do you know who ought to be beheaded? Who should be stricken with the sword or hanged or detained? He who came to fight, and not the legitimate president [Morsi]."

The Investigative Project on Terrorism obtained a recording of the event, held at the Muslim American Society (MAS) Center in Brooklyn.

Elbar belongs to the International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by radical Muslim Brotherhood cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi.

Qaradawi issued a similar threat against Sisi on Al-Jazeera shortly after the 2013 coup: "[I]f he, who has disobeyed the ruler, does not repent, then he must be killed. There is a legitimate ruler (in reference to Morsi) and people must obey and listen to him."

Elbar's mosque has a long track record of extremism dating back to the 1990s. "Brooklyn Bridge Shooter" Rashid Baz, killed Hasidic student Ari Halberstam in 1994 after hearing a sermon at the mosque calling for revenge on Jews for an incident in Hebron.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time EAFJ was connected to threats of violence against Egypt's military leaders.

In February 2015, EAFJ board members Hani Elkadi and Mahmoud El-Sharkawy, who appeared alongside Elbar and Sharaby at last week's event, each posted a communiqué from the Popular Resistance Movement (PRM) which has launched attacks against Egyptian police and other targets.

It features an image of a blood-red map of Egypt with a fist superimposed over it. It claims responsibility for targeting two police cars. "God, martyrs, Revolution," it said.

PRM claimed joint responsibility with ISIS's Sinai Province for an attack near Cairo that left eight police officers dead last May.

Child Jihadist Calls on Malala to Renounce Western Education

In an audio message allegedly posted by al-Qaida in Pakistan, a young girl jihadist calls on Malala Yousafzai to renounce Western education and adopt the path of Allah as laid out in the Muslim holy book Quran and the Sunnah (teachings of the Prophet Mohammad).

Yousafzai's activism on behalf of education for girls made her a target for radical Islamists. She was shot in the head by a masked Taliban gunman in 2012 while riding her school bus home.

In 2014, Yousafzai, then 17, became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up against Taliban attacks on western education in her hometown in northwest Pakistan.

The new recording indicates Yousafzai remains a target, and that jihadists are indoctrinating children into supporting terror and opposing education.

"It takes a person close to Allah, only creator, and guides us to fulfill the purpose of our creation and that is to establish Khilafah on the earth of Allah," the girl jihadist, identified as Hafsa Khurasani, can be heard telling Malala.

Blogger Carol Anne Grayson identifies Khurasani as the 5-year-old daughter of Taliban commander Adnan Rasheed.

Only "following the law of Allah can bring happiness in our lives and peace in this world" and is the "right education," the girl said.

"The one you call education is not the right education because you got it from the Kuffar [infidels] who are jahil [ignorant]."

The education Malala promotes "is producing men and women who are destroying the world," Khurasani said, while her path creates "men and women who are constructing the world" and "aspire to make the world a peaceful heaven."

The message concludes with Khurasani calling on Malala to "come back home" and join her and her sisters at their madrassa in Khorasan, a region dominated by hard-core al-Qaida jihadists that relocated to Pakistan following the 2001 defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Paris Jihadist Manages to Grow More Radical in Prison

One year after jihadist commandos massacred 130 people in coordinated attacks across Paris, France remains under a state of emergency. Heavily armed gendarmes patrol the city streets, prepared for the next attack that even politicians admit is sure to come. And the one jihadist who survived the Nov. 13 attacks, Salah Abdeslam, rests in French prison, becoming more radicalized than ever.

This, at least, is what his former lawyer, Sven Mary, told Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant in a recent interview. "He has a beard now," Mary said. "He has become a real fundamentalist Muslim. He had been just a street kid with Nikes."

Abdeslam's brother Mohamed had a similar reaction when he visited Salah recently. "I had the impression he had radicalized further," he told French RTL radio, adding that Salah "was a different person now."

But where Mohamed Abdeslam blames prison conditions for his brother's retreat into radical Islam, Mary points to earlier influences. The Belgian-Moroccan Abdeslam, whose full role in the attacks has never been clearly determined, was arrested near his home in the Molenbeek district of Brussels on March 18, and extradited to France a month later. His Belgian jail cell was near that of Mehdi Nemmouche, the terrorist who murdered four people at the Brussels Jewish Museum in June 2014. The two were able to communicate between their cells, shouting to one another.

Still, Mary agrees with Mohamed Abdeslam that French prison conditions may have played a role. "They're not physically torturing him," he told the Volkskrant, "It's not Guantanamo Bay. But they do punish horrors with mental torture."

Media attention also has helped stimulate his former client's radicalization in recent months, Mary believes. "People gave him a status of heroism by saying he'd been the brain" behind the attacks, he said, referring to early reports that Abdeslam may have been one of the organizers of the terror plot. "He's come to believe it himself. He's been placed in a position where he can only gain respect as a martyr. He's become the stereotypical terrorist."

As a result, Abdeslam refuses to speak to investigators. He won't talk to his attorneys, including Mary, who consequently quit the case in October. "He said that Allah will watch over him," Mary said at the time.

Fortunately, given the gravity of his crimes and the mass of evidence against him. Salah Abdeslam is unlikely ever to be released. But his silence leaves survivors of the attacks, and the families of the victims, struggling for answers they may never find. Worse, his deepened devotion to jihad means that he will likely never divulge what information he might hold of future plots. In this, a year after the attacks, the one surviving terrorist is not done fighting his jihad.

Germany's Military Probes Growing Threat from ISIS Infiltration

A growing number of radical Islamists are infiltrating Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, raising concerns of an insider attack, reports the UK Sun.

At least 80 suspected ISIS sympathizers were uncovered recently, forcing senior levels of Germany's military counterespionage service to issue a high-level probe focused on instituting background checks on all new recruits.

In the past, Germany's Ministry of Defense expressed concern that no background checks are required for soldiers in unclassified positions – a policy that enabled dozens of radical Islamists to enlist and receive military training and weaponry.

Military officials fear that a network of ISIS "sleepers" are joining the armed forces to eventually attack fellow soldiers and conduct sophisticated strikes against German society.

These reports come amid a rising ISIS threat to Germany, including deadly attacks in July and several terrorist plots foiled in the last few months.

On Thursday, German police apprehended a Syrian man suspected of planning a terrorist attack on an airport in Berlin. The man entered Germany last year as a refugee.

Several prominent examples of Islamist infiltration within the U.S. military also have caused immense concern.

A Muslim army soldier killed two comrades and injured 14 others after throwing a live grenade in a tent in Kuwait prior to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In 2009, U.S. Army major and psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hassan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood because he believed that no Muslim could faithfully serve in the U.S. military.

Three years later, Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo was arrested before he could carry out his plans to wage a second attack on Fort Hood personnel. Abdo saw it as a religious duty to retaliate for American military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual Leader Continues Promoting Violence Against Israel

Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi openly called for violence against Israelis Wednesday and promoted the destruction of the Jewish state on several online platforms.

Marking the anniversary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which promised to create a Jewish state, Qaradawi tweeted a message inciting violence against Jews.

"Will the usurped rights of our Umma [global Muslim community] and its wounded holy places the Jews despoiled be restored save by the might of the Mujahideen and the determination of sincere men? #Balfour_promise," wrote Qaradawi, according to an Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) translation.

Invoking the term "Mujahideen" blatantly signals Qaradawi's willingness to encourage Palestinians seeking to carry out violent jihad against Israelis. The accompanying photo features a masked Palestinian terrorist preparing to launch a rocket at Israeli communities.

Qaradawi also promoted an initiative outlined by the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine terrorist group. Among the initiative's recommendations for Palestinian leadership is "the withdrawal of recognition of the state of the Zionist entity," and "national liberation," an IPT translation of the post from Qaradawi's personal website said. For Palestinians, "the priority is to resist the Occupation," Qaradawi wrote.

Terms such as "resistance" are often code words for violence against Israeli military and civilian targets. "Occupation" to Qaradawi, the Islamic Jihad and many other radical Palestinians, refers to all of Israeli territory – not limited to the West Bank and Gaza.

By lending support to this manifesto, Qaradawi once again proves that the global Muslim Brotherhood movement is dedicated to the long-run erosion of the Jewish state.

Despite this incendiary rhetoric, Qaradawi is falsely hailed as a moderate by Islamists in the United States, Europe and their supporters.

Qaradawi has called for Muslims worldwide to take up arms against Israel on numerous occasions in the past. In 2014, he wrote: "For the sake of Al-Aqsa mosque, blood will flow, and Muslims will expend lives and money, and sons."

He also cited an apocalyptic hadith often invoked by Islamists inciting Muslims to kill Jews:

"The Messenger of Allah (May Allah bless him and grant him peace) has informed us, when he said: "The Hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, with Muslims fighting them until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees saying: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah, this Jew behind me, come kill him.'"

Violent Incitement, Not Grievance, Drives Knife Wielding Palestinian Kids

Israeli security intercepted a plot Wednesday involving two 8-year-old, knife wielding Palestinian children seeking to carry out a stabbing attack against Israelis.

The children "admitted to have been sent, armed with knives, in order to carry out a terror attack," the Israel Defense Forces said.

The boys were seen near a security fence and detained outside of a Jewish community in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem.

Over the last year, Palestinian terrorists have killed over 34 Israelis and wounded dozens. Some of the terrorists conducting stabbing attacks were as young as 11.

Mainstream U.S. media outlets continue to push the argument that Israel's military presence and Palestinian despair are the root causes of Palestinian attacks. Yet this line of reasoning cannot explain the terrorist motivations of 8-year-old boys. Hateful brainwashing and ideological radicalization is at the core of this phenomenon. Observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find ample evidence that confirms systematic and societal-level brainwashing of young Palestinians, glorifying terrorists, and encouraging future generations to attack and kill Jews.

Over the years, Palestinian children have participated in terrorist promoting parades in the Gaza Strip and are taught to prepare for a holy war against the "Zionist enemy."

"Children in this world do not dream about becoming doctors, pilots or engineers," journalist Khaled Abu Toameh notes. "Rather, they dream of destroying Israel and 'liberating Palestine.' In fact, an entire generation of Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, has been raised on the glorification of suicide bombers and anyone who kills a Jew."

Last week, students at Ramallah's Al-Quds University established a memorial for the school's "heroic Martyrs" who participated in deadly attacks targeting Israelis.

"Beware of natural death; do not die, but amidst the hail of bullets," reads text on the memorial stone and translated by Palestinian Media Watch. It remains Palestinian Authority (PA) policy to encourage young Palestinians to engage in terrorism, even if it means certain death. In July, the PA glorified Palestinian high school students killed while conducting terrorist attacks against Israelis, arguing that the youth took "the path to excellence and greatness" over completing studies and enhancing their lives.

Western governments, media outlets, and human rights organizations have yet to express outrage at the exploitation of young children to commit murder. Instead of focusing solely on Israel's presence, international actors could help young Palestinians by exposing and pressuring the forces that contribute to their desperation – the Palestinian politicians and institutions that consistently fuel societal incitement and violent brainwashing.

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