Nairobi Attack Prompts Debate Over Shabaab's Reach

There are still plenty of unanswered questions about al-Shabaab's weekend attack and siege at an upscale Nairobi mall. The death toll stands at 67 people as the search for victims continues.

While Kenya's foreign minister said two or three of the attackers – estimated at 10-15 in total – were Americans, U.S. officials say that remains unconfirmed. Twenty FBI agents are in Nairobi to help in the investigation. Whether Americans were part of the slaughter or not, the attack has some officials concerned that the al-Qaida-affiliated Somalia-based terrorist group is taking its jihad internationally.

The Kenya attack is seen as retaliation for the country's help in fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia. The United States has financed those operations with hundreds of millions of dollars, so "there is growing fear that the group could turn its sights on American interests more directly," the New York Times reports. With more than two dozen Somali-Americans believed to be in its ranks, there are concerns some might try to return to the United States and plot attacks here. Or, al-Shabaab could just target American interests in Africa, where American businesses have a growing presence and where American tourists are drawn.

In an interview with the Daily Beast's Josh Rogin, Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said al-Shabaab may be based in Somalia, but it has "an international agenda."

"It can happen here in the United States as it is now happening in Nairobi," Mohamud said.

The question of al-Shabaab's ability to strike American interests is not new. A House Homeland Security Committee staff report in 2011 said the group poses "a direct threat."

But not everyone buys that. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Cal., said there's no evidence indicating that al-Shabaab could attack within the United States despite the presence of Americans inside the group.

Similarly, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, told The Hill that al-Shabaab is "on the verge of being defeated" despite the audacity of the Nairobi attack. "When you pin a rattlesnake into a corner, they are going to strike out," Thornberry said.

Mohamud agreed, but said al-Shabaab remains a danger.

"They are on the run," he said. "But their threat is not yet finished. They have still training camps. They have bomb factories in very remote areas… Even if we defeat [Shabaab] militarily completely, that's not the end of the war with [Shabaab]. They will continue suicide bombs, roadside bombs; this will go on for some time."

Nihad Awad's One Step Up and Two Steps Back

On Tuesday, we noted that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)'s condemnation of the Nairobi mall massacre omitted any reference to al-Shabaab and its radical Islamist ideology. Numerous reports indicate that Al-Shabaab gunmen separated Muslims from the rest, allowing the Muslims to go free and live, before slaughtering everyone else in their path.

It would be simple to acknowledge the terrorists' religious motivation, recognize that radical Islam is a challenge for Muslims to confront, and perhaps offer specific theological counter-arguments. Sunday evening, CAIR Executive Director Awad took a step in that direction, writing "The killing of civilians in Kenya and describing them as 'infidels' as well as the attack on the church in Pakistan is a brutal assault on souls which God has forbidden and is a crime against our sacred religion."

But minutes later, Awad turned logic on its head, comparing the al-Shabaab terrorists with "Islamophobes," or those whose views CAIR doesn't like.

القاسم المشترك بين المتشددين و دعاة الاسلاموفوبيا (التخويف من الإسلام) ان كلاهما يعتقد ان النظرة المنحرفة عن الإسلام هي الأساس في الدين

— Nihad Awad نهاد عوض (@NihadAwad) September 23, 2013

Awad's Twitter feed alternates between posts in English and Arabic. This one apparently was not for an English-speaking audience: "The common denominator between the extremists and advocates of Islamophobia (creating fear of Islam) is that both believe that a perverted view of Islam is the foundation of religion."

Got that? Terrorists who lay siege to an African shopping mall and slaughter dozens in the name of God are kind of like people who criticize radical Islam.

Other recent Awad Twitter posts further expose his warped value system. In two posts Tuesday evening, Awad said he skipped a meeting with new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who was in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, "because of his government's position in support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the massacres and the destruction of the Syrian people taking place."

He did not attend last year's meeting, either, Awad wrote.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, obstructed by the camera, is two seats away from Ahmadinejad.

But he did meet with previous Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before. Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and his repeated vows to wipe Israel off the map were not enough for Awad to bypass speaking at a 2009 interfaith event with the Iranian president.

According to a letter from Joseph Gerson of the pacifist Quaker group, the American Friends Service Committee, Awad "stressed that Islam teaches the importance of justice – even in response to enemies, and that terror must always be condemned and rejected."

Apparently, terror also must be used to make offensive non-sequiturs equating murderous attacks with political foes.

After Nairobi Attack, CAIR Still Minimizing Shabaab's Somali-American Recruitment

Kenya's foreign minister told PBS Monday that two or three of the al-Shabaab terrorists who killed at least 68 people during an attack an siege at Nairobi mall last weekend were American teenagers.

The al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group's recruitment of Somali teens in the United States and Canada is well documented. Federal prosecutors have charged and convicted dozens of people for providing material support to the group and other related crimes.

In this 2010 interview with the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Osman Ahmed explained why al-Shabaab's recruitment of young Somalis in America posed a wider threat than just Somalia. Ahmed's nephew was killed by Al-Shabaab terrorists after relatives complained about their relatives being solicited to join the group.

While the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a statement condemning the Nairobi attack as a "heinous crime," it made no reference to al-Shabaab or the radical Islamist ideology which drives it. Pressed by the New York Post Tuesday, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper dismissed the significance of seeing American recruits help al-Shabaab's slaughter.

"It doesn't matter who's involved in it," Hooper said. "Terrorism is terrorism, whether it is Americans involved or anyone from any nation or background. Who cares?"

That's consistent with an overall "see no evil" attitude CAIR has exhibited on Somali-Americans joining al-Shabaab. The group attempted to silence Somali-Americans who tried to alert the public about the problem. Abdirizak Bihi, whose nephew was killed by al-Shabaab after having second thoughts about joining the terrorist group, described how CAIR worked with officials at a local mosque to discourage Somali-Americans from cooperating with federal law enforcement officials. "We held three different demonstrations against CAIR, in order to get them to leave us alone so we can solve our community's problems, since we don't know CAIR and they don't speak for us," Bihi said in 2011 congressional testimony. "We wanted to stop them from dividing our community by stepping into issues that don't belong to them."

CAIR-Michigan director Dawud Walid dismissed Bihi's testimony before a House committee about radicalization within the American Muslim community, writing on Twitter that "Bihi has basically a one person organization and is not seen as a leader by Somali-Americans."

CAIR also called Bihi and an associate "anti-Muslim" for their participation in a seminar which included a discussion about al-Shabaab as "An Islamic Extremist Organization."

That's a standard CAIR modus operandi – stigmatize anyone who gets in the group's way with baseless allegations of bigotry and hope the public ignores them. That strategy looks even more depraved in light of the bloodshed in Nairobi. If it doesn't matter now, when would it?

CAIR's Irony Deficit

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is using a complex web of non-profit and corporate entities to keep millions of dollars in donations from foreign government s and other international donors from public disclosure, Washington's Daily Caller reports.

"CAIR's fundraising practices are constructed in a way that makes it impossible to trace large donations from overseas, including from foreign governments," the story says.

The structure is so convoluted, CAIR co-founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad was at a loss to explain it during a recent civil deposition, writes Caller reporter Charles C. Johnson. "The names have changed over the years," Awad said. "And I'm not privy to the exact distinction between the various organizations."

There is a CAIR Foundation and a CAIR Action Network, but the original CAIR corporation has ceased to exist. In June, CAIR filed papers in the District of Columbia to create the Washington Trust Foundation, or Internet-pun friendly "WTF." CAIR has not discussed the move publicly.

David Reaboi, a spokesman for the Center for Security Policy, called CAIR's various corporate entities "a thinly-disguised money laundering operation." Awad's deposition was connected to a pending lawsuit CAIR has against the center.

The Daily Caller exposé comes on the heels of CAIR's latest "Islamophobia" report, which uses public records to trace donations to groups CAIR doesn't like.

"CAIR then obtained tax documents known as Form 990s for each non-profit organization in the inner core for the years 2008-2011, when they could be acquired in the window of time allotted for researching and writing this report," the report said. "Form 990s must be filed annually by tax exempt organizations."

CAIR actually lost its tax exempt status in 2011 after failing to file those required tax forms for three straight years. That status was reinstated after an appeal but there has been no disclosure of its accounting from the missing years.

Johnson's story makes it clear that CAIR is quick to try to embarrass donors it doesn't like while working overtime to ensure its own sources of operating money are kept hidden.

With good reason. The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported last week that CAIR sought money from Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, now accused of genocide in Darfur. Previous IPT reports show CAIR also solicited money from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi before he was toppled, and State Department records obtained by the IPT show CAIR sought millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2006.

CAIR's actions seem to present a hypocritical view about non-profit support: Disclosure for thee, but not for me.

Breaking News: Egyptian Court Bans Brotherhood

An Egyptian court has banned the Muslim Brotherhood from operating and ordered that all its assets be seized.

Because the ruling applies to "any organisation derived from it," the order also could affect the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. Brotherhood officials promise to appeal the ruling.

The Brotherhood has been outlawed in Egypt for most of its 85-year existence. That prohibition failed to stop it from becoming Egypt's largest and best organized political movement, however, as the group swept into power in the first elections after President Hosni Mubarak was forced from power in 2011.

But new President Mohamed Morsi quickly alienated the public by appearing to focus more on consolidating Brotherhood political power than on addressing critical socio-economic issues in Egypt. He was forced from office July 3 after historic popular protests.

Since then, thousands of Brotherhood officials – including Morsi – have been arrested and hundreds killed in clashes with the Egyptian army.

Meanwhile, Iranian news agencies are reporting that Brotherhood spiritual guide Yusuf al-Qaradawi faces certain arrest if he tries to return to Egypt. Qaradawi's harsh criticism of Morsi's ouster prompted officials to seek his arrest for inciting violence against the Egyptian military.

Less than two ago, Qaradawi triumphantly returned to Cairo's Tahrir Square to speak at Friday prayers after President Hosni Mubarak's resignation.

CAIR Leaders Curry Favor With Dictators

The International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide and crimes against humanity in March 2009, but that did not keep Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad from meeting with the dictator's representatives in November 2009, according to law-enforcement sources.

Bashir is wanted in connection with the Darfur genocide that stirred a global outcry. He recently stirred controversy by trying to get into the United States to attend this month's opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

The sources told the Investigative Project on Terrorism that the Sudanese dictator's representatives met with Awad during the 2009 UN summit seeking his help to gain access to individuals in the Obama administration.

Awad subsequently traveled to Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in August 2010 and met with a representative of Bashir.

This was not the first time the CAIR chief met with representatives of dictators. He sought out help from late Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi in September 2009, seeking his help underwriting CAIR's efforts to distribute 1 million copies of the Quran to government officials and to the general public in the United States.

A Libyan news website noted CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper and Chairman Larry Shaw joined Awad in appealing to the Libyan dictator. "[W]e appreciate your efforts over the years and wish also to extend your interest will extend to Muslims in America, God willing," Awad said at a reception for Gaddafi. This came after Gaddafi's rambling, 100-minute speech to the General Assembly

In addition to the Qurans, Awad sought Gaddafi's help in launching a new entity called the Muslim Peace Foundation.

But CAIR's stance toward Gaddafi shifted after the start of the Arab Spring when Gaddafi began killing his own people. Awad and CAIR then denounced him as a madman. The CAIR leader denied receiving any money from Gaddafi during a March 2011 radio interview, saying that his pitch had failed.

But it was not as if Gaddafi's human-rights record was unknown in 2009. President Ronald Reagan denounced him as the "mad dog of the Middle East" following the bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed that killed American soldiers in 1986, followed two years later by the Lockerbie bombing.

State Department documents obtained by the IPT under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that Awad, Hooper and Shaw visited Saudi Arabia to solicit $50 million in governmental and non-governmental contributions.

Bank of China Terror Financing Case Moves Forward

A landmark ruling issued Tuesday by New York State's Appellate Division allows a lawsuit against the Bank of China (BOC) for its role in sending money to terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The lawsuit was filed in 2008 by the families of 20 victims of terrorist attacks in Israel. It alleges that BOC made millions of dollars in wire transfers to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) that helped fund attacks against Israelis between 2004 and 2007. The ruling affirms a July 2011 decision by the New York Supreme Court denying the defendant's motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

The United States designated both Hamas and PIJ as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 1997 and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists in 2001.

The New York court determined that Israeli law should govern hearing in the case. "We hold that Israel, the location of the plaintiffs' injuries, has the greater interest in seeing its laws enforced, and Israeli law should govern this action," the decision reads. Applying Israeli law will also make it easier for the non-American plaintiffs in the case to hold BOC responsible for channeling funds to PIJ and Hamas.

The ruling also argued in support of New York as "a suitable forum because at least some of the wire transfers were allegedly executed through BOC's New York branches." The court denied a BOC motion that the case be tried in China since the bank has its headquarters there.

China does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist group.

Plaintiffs in the case include surviving relatives of Emi Elmaliah, Israel Zamalloa and Michael Saadon, who were murdered in a January 2007 PIJ-sponsored suicide bombing at a bakery in Eilat.

The New York appellate ruling follows on the heels of a decision issued by an Ontario Superior Court to freeze approximately $2.6 million in more than a dozen Canadian bank accounts associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran for patronizing Middle East terror groups such as Hamas and Hizballah.

Earlier this week, a ruling by a New York judge allowed authorities to take possession of a 36-story Fifth Avenue office tower worth $500-$700 million that was owned by Iranian front groups in the US, the Alavi Foundation and Assa Company.

Judge Finds Manhattan Skyscraper Owned by Iranian Front

The United States government may be about to take possession of a Manhattan skyscraper worth more than $500 million after a federal judge found its owners knowingly served as fronts for the Iranian government.

The order granting what prosecutors describe as "the largest real property forfeiture" came after five years of litigation, the New York Daily News reports. If the order is upheld in an anticipated appeal, the government could sell the property and give some of the proceeds to victims of terrorist attacks, including the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing and the 9/11 attacks.

The Alavi Foundation owns 60 percent of the 36-story 650 Fifth Ave. building in midtown Manhattan. The rest is held by the U.K.-based Assa Company, Limited. But U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled that there is "uncontroverted record evidence, [proving] Assa was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran" to shield its U.S.-based assets.

The U.S Treasury Department designated Bank Melli in 2007 as part of a package of economic sanctions aimed at slowing Iran's nuclear weapons program. Bank Melli, Treasury wrote at the time, "has facilitated the purchase of sensitive materials utilized by Iran's nuclear and missile industry…"

Attorneys for the Alavi Foundation argued that it is not clear that their clients knew about Assa's control by the Iranian government. Forrest dismissed that theory as "implausible" given the established connections among the owners. "No rational juror could believe in such extraordinary amnesia; many of the same Alavi board members who were indisputably involved in the creation of Assa as a front for Bank Melli in 1989 remained with, or returned to positions with, Alavi after the [orders prohibiting business dealings with Iran] were instituted in 1995."

Victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks have secured billions of dollars in civil judgments against the Islamic Republic for financing and providing other assistance to the killers. Little of those damages have been collected, however, as victims often find themselves fighting the U.S. government in their attempts to seize Iranian assets in the United States. It is unclear whether the government's success in New York could pry open the gates for those victims to complete their quest for justice.

MEMRI Documents Vast Egyptian Anger Toward Obama

Perceived American support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is driving a deep wedge between Egypt's military leaders and its people against the United States, a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) finds.

"This trend is part of continually escalating anti-U.S. and, more specifically, anti-President Obama attacks on the part of supporters of Egyptian Defense Minister Al-Sisi, who deposed" President Mohamed Morsi in July, the report says. It is being fueled by President Obama condemnation of the military's assault on Muslim Brotherhood sit-in locations after Morsi's ouster, which left hundreds dead. The United States also canceled a joint military exercise and is still considering freezing military aid.

Egypt's "Tamarod," or Rebel movement, made its thoughts about an American delay in sending F-16 fighter planes clear in a Facebook posting.

The White House took a decidedly softer tone as Mohamed Morsi's government moved to consolidate power for the Muslim Brotherhood, and ram through a constitution which trampled rights for religious minorities and women.

That may explain why Obama is the target of the harshest commentary, with Egyptians "insulting his mother, calling him mentally deficient and his administration 'the Adolf Obama Reich,' and even going so far as to offer a prayer that he would die in agony," the MEMRI report says.

"You left the Egyptians. You turned your back on the Egyptians, and they won't forget that," Egyptian Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi told The Washington Post in his first interview since Morsi's ouster. The newspaper described it as "a measure of just how thoroughly the Obama administration has alienated both sides in a profoundly polarized and unsettled Egypt."

As we've noted throughout his administration, President Obama too often relies on advisors with clear sympathies toward the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist ideologies. For example, Dalia Mogahed, then-president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) – a group formed by Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States, was deemed the "most influential person" shaping the Obama Administration's Middle East message.

Rashad Hussain, President Obama's special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has close ties with ISNA and been critical of U.S. prosecutions for terror supporters. For more examples, click here.

As is the case with Syria, when American prestige and influence wanes, Russia seems to benefit. As much as Egyptians attack Obama, they seem to be embracing Vladimir Putin.

To read the MEMRI report and see some of the examples, click here.

American Jihadi Reportedly Killed in Somalia

An American jihadist who once was an operational commander for al-Shabaab – al-Qaida's Somali affiliate – reportedly was killed by his former comrades during an attack on a town southwest of Mogadishu.

Alabama native Omar Hammami had been on the run trying to evade the terrorist group after falling out with the terror group's leadership.

"There was a gun battle between [Hammami] and his men and other fighters," Maolim Ali, a resident in Bardhere, Somalia told Agence France Presse. British jihadist Osama al-Britani also reportedly died in the attack by al-Shabbab gunmen.

Hammami grew up as a Baptist before converting to Islam and becoming president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of South Alabama. He became one of the most notorious foreign fighters in Somalia, known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki ["the American"]. He was under indictment in the United States, designated as an international terrorist and had a $5 million reward offered by the U.S. State Department for his capture.

Somalia has attracted dozens of Western fighters, including more than 10 Canadians and two dozen Americans, mostly from the Minneapolis area. Several others are known to have died – some at the hands of al-Shabaab and at least in a suicide bombing by the group.

The American told Voice of America's (VOA) Somalia Service earlier this month that he had renounced his membership in al-Shabaab.

"I'm openly not from Shabaab. I'm openly not from al Qaeda, but I'm definitely a terrorist," Hammami said.

He reportedly had feared for his life, according to videos he posted online. Previous reports of his death proved false.

Hammami's father, Shafik, told ABC News that he hoped the latest reports of his son's death were untrue, but if not, then his son "died fighting for his principles, whatever they are."

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