Department of Justice ( DOJ ) Friends Islamic Society of North America

(Creeping Sharia, 6/23/09)

A few days ago, Jennifer Rubin, writing at Pajamas Media, wondered: “Why is the Justice Department Cozying Up to Islamic Radicals?”

Rubin obtained a copy of an email seeking volunteers at the DOJ to represent the department in its booth at the Islamic Society of North America’s convention. ISNA is no moderate Islamic fellowship, Rubin noted. Because of the excellent work done by federal prosecutors and organizations such as Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), we know that ISNA has longstanding ties to radical groups around the world.

For example, ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. That trial resulted in the conviction of five former HLF officials who, among other illicit activities, were soliciting funds on behalf of Hamas, a radical wing of the Muslim Brotherhood that seeks the destruction of Israel.

As the Emerson’s IPT has noted:

Federal prosecutors identified ISNA as a “member organization” of the “U.S. Muslim Brotherhood” on its list of Unindicted Co-conspirators and/or Joint Venturers.
That is, federal prosecutors believe that the ISNA is a Trojan horse, operating on U.S. soil to collect funds for international extremism and terrorism, as well as to influence American public opinion.

Despite ISNA’s disturbing ties, Rubin noted, the DOJ has repeatedly made “outreach efforts” to the organization. This occurred during the Bush years and has continued on in the Obama administration. An ISNA employee was even invited to speak at Obama’s inaugural prayer service.

If ISNA’s ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood won’t dissuade the DOJ from befriending the organization, perhaps the group’s ties to an al Qaeda charity will.
In a must-read exposé on the financial ties between Saudi Arabia, including members of the royal family, and al Qaeda, the New York Times linked to several supporting documents today. One of these documents is a dossier prepared by German criminal investigators in 2003. The Germans investigated the financial dealings of an organization called the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), which moved hundreds of millions of dollars around in its sponsorship of terrorism.

TWRA was run by senior Bosnian government officials, and sponsored the relocation of hundreds, if not thousands, of jihadists to Bosnia to fight in the 1990s. While carrying out some legitimate humanitarian functions as a cover, TWRA was really a front for global terrorist operations.

And the ISNA was likely one of its donors.
The German criminal investigators’ entry on ISNA reads (see this page on the Times’s web site):

Islamic Society of North America

Four credit entries by check were identified, whose sender where (sic) all indicated as “Dyewood Center I.S.N.A.” In total an amount of USD 102,197.85 was credited. This organization is likely to be the “Islamic Society of North America”, headquartered at Plainfield, Indiana, USA.
German criminal investigators concluded that ISNA’s six-figure donation to TWRA was split into four transfers between July and October of 1992.

What was TWRA doing at the time? It was funding the terror network that executed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and orchestrated a follow-on attack against landmarks in the New York metro area.

As Evan Kohlmann explains in his book, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe:

During the 1995 trial of conspirators charged with involvement in a terrorist plot to attack landmarks in New York, Clement Rodney Hampton-el, an American Muslim who trained in the Afghan camps run by Al-Qaida, confirmed that he had been smuggling money into the United States obtained from the Third World Relief Agency for the purpose of financing the military training in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania of Arab-Afghan mujahideen destined for Bosnia. Several graduates of these makeshift camps helped organize and carry out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

That is just the tip of the iceberg.

• TWRA had ties to al Qaeda members and supporters the world over.
• Kohlmann notes that Osama bin Laden was suspected of donating “large sums of money” to TWRA to fund the jihad in Bosnia.
• Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, whose jihadists executed the World Trade Center bombing and organized the follow-on landmarks plot, was caught on tape talking to TWRA officials.
• TWRA “volunteered to spread” Rahman’s message and sell the Blind Sheikh’s “militant videotapes and sermons in mosques throughout Europe,” Kohlmann reported.

There’s more, of course. But it would take pages to summarize TWRA’s international jihadist activities, from transiting terrorists around the globe to arranging for massive arms shipments.

In addition to Kohlmann’s book, TWRA’s violent legacy, including ties to al Qaeda, are spelled out in elaborate detail by John Schindler in his book, Unholy Terror. Schindler was formerly one of the NSA’s top analysts on the Balkans. He includes pages of details on TWRA’s terrorist activities.

This is the organization that ISNA financially supported. In turn, the DOJ believes it should work with ISNA for some unknown reason.


As Rubin asks: “what is the Justice Department doing soliciting employees through the Justice Department email system to attend a convention at which ISNA can propagate its views?”

Thomas Joscelyn on June 24, 2009 02:15 PM

The Rest @ Creeping Sharia

a Brief Hisotry of the Brotherhood

THe following is a comment from the Editor of the Villagers with Torches, and provides a short but accurate history of the brotherhood, as far as I can tell.

What does the Bortherhood have to say?

-Ahmed Haenni

• U.S. White House counterterrorism chief Juan Zarate, says "The Muslim Brotherhood is a group that worries us not because it deals with philosophical or ideological ideas but because it defends the use of violence against civilians.
• Columnist and former Kuwaiti official Dr. Ahmad Al-Rabi, who has written that the "beginnings of all of the religious terrorism that we are witnessing today were in the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology."
• Former U.S. Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross (WHO WAS JUST FIRED BY OBAMA AS AMBASSADOR TO IRANIAN ISSUES AND 'DIALOGGING'), told Asharq Alawsat newspaper that the Muslim Brotherhood is a global, not a local organization, governed by a Shura (Consultative) Council, which rejects cessation of violence in Israel, and supports violence to achieve its political objectives elsewhere too
• Magdy Khalil, executive editor of Egypt's Watani International, reports consistent MB deceit concerning Egypt's 12.5% Coptic Christian population, so as to oppress and dhimmify them
• The Brotherhood is widely believed to have had a `secret apparatus` responsible for terrorist attacks in Egypt including the assassination of Egypt's prime minister in 1948.
• Newsweek journalists Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff report connections between al-Qaeda and Brotherhood figures Mamoun Darkazanli and Youssef Nada.
• MB Member Mohammed Qutb, brother of Sayd, ran to KSA to teach after the arrest and execution of Sayd, and did at Abdul Aziz U, School of Islamic studies teaching both Abdullah Azzam, and OBL.
• A similar article in the Financial Times reported financial links between 74-year-old Swiss Muslim convert, businessman and neo-Nazi Ahmed Huber, and MB members, notably Youssef Nada, Ali Ghaleb Himmat and who founded the Al Taqwa Bank.
• According to the U.S. government, Al Taqwa "has long acted as financial advisers to al-Qaeda." Huber himself is noted in Europe for his links with alleged neo-Nazi and other far right elements.
• He is reported to have "confirmed" having "had contact with associates of Osama bin Laden at an Islamic conference in Beirut," whom he called `very discreet, well-educated, very intelligent people.'
• Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, an "expert in the art of deception" was an influential lobbyist and founder and head of the Brotherhood-linked American Muslim Council before being convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison for conspiracy to murder Saudi Prince Abdullah at the behest of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.
• In 1997 Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashhur told journalist Khalid Daoud that he thought Egypt's Coptic Christians should pay the long-abandoned jizya poll tax, levied on non-Muslims (In exchange for protection from the state, due to the fact that non-Muslims are exempt from military service, while it is compulsory for Muslims.).
• He went on to say that while `we do not mind having Christians members in the People's Assembly... the top officials, especially in the army, should be Muslims since we are a Muslim country... This is necessary, Mashhur explained because `when a Christian country attacks the Muslim country and the army has Christian elements, they can facilitate our defeat by the enemy.`"

The Rest @ Villagers with Torches

MPAC Holds Press Conference Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West"

My question about this controvery over Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West". Is what they say true? Does the Muslim Brotherhood have a plan for the world?

-Ahmed Haenni

October 12, 2008 ( from MPAC)

"We, as members of civic and religious organizations along with law enforcement, come together united against hate and extremism. We believe that the best way to counter political and religious extremism is through cooperation and coordination. Those who divide our pluralism along the lines of religious or political views only further the cause of extremism. They profit from the fear generated from propaganda while we are on the front lines of pursuing effective public policy to eradicate terrorism.

We have come together to express our deep outrage over the recent distribution of a divisive and hate-provoking DVD called "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" to residents across the nation.

The intent of this DVD is not to fight the common threat of terrorism, but to mischaracterize Islam in a way that dehumanizes Muslims. In its own way, the DVD is designed to provoke fear in Americans, to paralyze us and turn us against the values of pluralism, egalitarianism, and respect that have made America great.


The Rest @ MPAC

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. and Alex AlexievFrontPageMagazine.com 10/16/2008The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) – an organization identified as a California-based Muslim Brotherhood front – convened a press conference today in Los Angeles with a senior representative of local law enforcement and members of other faiths.

The stated purpose is to unveil a new “united front” initiative called the “Coalition for Renewing American Democracy”

• The problem for the Muslim Brotherhood is that millions of copies of “Obsession” have been distributed around the United States in recent weeks in national magazines, to several hundred college campuses, at both political conventions, and in local newspapers. As a result, many millions of Americans have had an opportunity to be educated about the ambitions of those who adhere to the Islamic political and legal system known as “Shariah” – namely, the realization through “jihad” of a world-wide and brutally repressive Islamic theocracy.
• “Obsession” utilizes actual footage of radical Islamist rallies and calls to violent jihad against America, along with interviews of Muslim and non-Muslim experts on radical Islamism.

The Rest @ DocsTalk

Quintan Wiktorowicz

Who is this guy?

From this post in the Shimron Letters, I can't tell who this guy is Salafi - Ikhwan? Analyst? He reads like a college professor who is Ikhwan pretending to be analyst...Anyone know?

-Ahmend Haenni

Muslim Brotherhood in America

Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day.

But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well.

These men are part of an underground U.S. chapter of the international Muslim Brotherhood, the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group and an organization with a violent past in the Middle East.

But fearing persecution, they rarely identify themselves as Brotherhood members and have operated largely behind the scenes, unbeknown even to many Muslims.

Still, the U.S. Brotherhood has had a significant and ongoing impact on Islam in America, helping establish mosques, Islamic schools, summer youth camps and prominent Muslim organizations.

It is a major factor, Islamic scholars say, in why many Muslim institutions in the nation have become more conservative in recent decades.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a key chapter in any story about the struggle for the soul of Islam. Formed in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood spawned generations of Islamic activists, both peaceful and violent, around the globe.

It is the most influential Islamic fundamentalist organization in the world. In the U.S. it has operated legally but covertly, mimicking clandestine fraternal organizations that operate on a nod and a secret handshake.

Even today, few outside the Islamic inner circles from which it recruits know when, how often or where the Brothers meet to discuss the organization's abstract but pervasive goal: the creation of Islamic states throughout the world, including the U.S.
Leading the U.S. Brotherhood during much of this period was Ahmed Elkadi, an Egyptian-born surgeon and a former personal physician to Saudi Arabia's King Faisal.

He headed the group from 1984 to 1994 but abruptly lost his leadership position. Now he is discussing his life and the U.S. Brotherhood for the first time.

His story, combined with details from documents and interviews, offers an unprecedented look at the Brotherhood in America: how the group recruited members, how it cloaked itself in secrecy and how it alienated many moderate Muslims.

Indeed, because of its hard-line beliefs, the U.S. Brotherhood has been an increasingly divisive force within Islam in America, fueling the often bitter struggle between moderate and conservative Muslims.

• Many Muslims believe that the Brotherhood is a noble international movement that supports the true teachings of Islam and unwaveringly defends Muslims who have come under attack around the world, from Chechens to Palestinians to Iraqis.
• But others view it as an extreme organization that breeds intolerance and militancy."They have this idea that Muslims come first, not that humans come first," says Mustafa Saied, 32, a Floridian who left the U.S. Brotherhood in 1998.

While separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of American democracy, the international Brotherhood preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic.

The group also champions martyrdom and jihad, or holy war, as a means of self-defense and has provided the philosophical underpinnings for Muslim militants worldwide.

Many moderate Muslims in America are uncomfortable with the views preached at mosques influenced by the Brotherhood, scholars say. Those experts point to a 2001 study sponsored by four Muslim advocacy and religious groups that found that only a third of U.S. Muslims attend mosques.In suburban Bridgeview, Ill., some moderates say they quit attending the Mosque Foundation because the leadership became too conservative and dominated by Brotherhood members.

Documents obtained by the Tribune and translated from Arabic show that the U.S. Brotherhood has been careful to obscure its beliefs from outsiders. One document tells leaders to be cautious when screening potential recruits.

• If the recruit asks whether the leader is a Brotherhood member, the leader should respond, "You may deduce the answer to that with your own intelligence.
• Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate.
• They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day--perhaps generations from now--a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law.

Muslims make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population, but estimates of their number vary widely from 2 million to 7 million.Federal authorities say they have scrutinized the U.S. Brotherhood for years.

• Agents currently are investigating whether people with ties to the group have raised and laundered money to finance terrorism abroad.
• No terrorism-related charges have been filed.
• Former leader Elkadi, who has been questioned at length by federal authorities about the inner workings of the Brotherhood, says the group has served Muslims in the United States well.
• He personally helped establish an Islamic community in the Florida Panhandle, with a mosque, school and health clinic. And though he eventually lost it all--even his medical license--some Muslims still view him as a great Islamic leader.

"Islam is for everyone," he says. "It's good for America, good for Muslims too. . . . It's good knowledge, and good knowledge should be available to everyone."Mohammed Mahdi Akef, head of the international Muslim Brotherhood, based in Egypt, lauds Elkadi and the activities of the U.S. Brotherhood.

"They have succeeded in saving the younger generations from melting into the American lifestyle without faith," he says. "They have saved their children."

The Rest @ The Chicago Tribune