Experts on Islam and terrorism are decrying the Department of Homeland Security’s recently revealed anti-terrorism training guidelines, which pressure cops to ignore Islamic beliefs when investigating terror crimes.
The Boston bombings demonstrated the impact of such training, Andrew McCarthy, a former New York prosecutor, told The Daily Caller.
“The Boston Marathon was bombed by a jihadist who had been investigated by the FBI … [and was confirmed in 2011 to be] an Islamist, which would have been hard not to do since he does not appear to have made any secret of it,” said McCarthy, who persuaded a New York jury in 1995 to convict “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman for his use of Islamic teaching to spur jihad attacks, including the 1993 attack against the Twin Towers.
But before the bombing, “the FBI closed its file [on Tamerlan Tsarnaev] because it found this did not constitute ‘derogatory information,’” McCarthy said.
McCarthy and other security experts, and even members of the American Islamic community, indicate that a culture of excessive concern for the sensibilities of Muslims supremacists is preventing law enforcement agencies from pursuing jihadists.
Under the federal guidelines, “agents are admonished to discount the possibility that an Islamist’s constitutionally protected abhorrence of the United States might possibly lead to violence,” McCarthy told TheDC.
Even if FBI officials had learned about Tsarnaev’s 2012 trip to a part of southern Russia that is embroiled in a jihadi war, they would not have restarted their 2011 investigation, a government official told the Washington Post in April.
“The FBI investigation into the individual in question had been closed six months prior to his departure from the United States and more than a year before his return. …Since there was no derogatory information, there was no reason to suggest that additional action was warranted,” the official said in April.
On his six-month trip, starting in January 2012, Tsarnaev visited several militant Islamic leaders and mosques in Dagestan, where jihadis are fighting the Russian government, according to several U.S. and Russian media sources.
“The fiasco regarding Boston is a prime example” of how bad training degrades security, said Robert Spencer, an authority on Islamic doctrine who is heavily criticized by Islamic groups in the United States. He noted that even though FBI agents had interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the FBI was unable to identify Tsarnaev in crowd photographs taken before and after the bomb strike.
After the attack, FBI officials also did not ask the main mosque in Boston for help in identifying the suspects, said Nichole Mossalam, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Boston.
“We were the ones who reached out to them … on Friday” once the picture were released, Mossalam told TheDC.
Under the federal guideline, the FBI officials had “no reason to go to the mosque since the [Tsarnaev] brothers don’t show any outward signs in the [street] photos of being Muslims,” said McCarthy.
Because of the guidelines, it would be “a ‘profiling’ scandal to show the pictures at the mosque just because it was a bombing with … no other evidence of connection to Muslims,” he said.
The guidelines, titled “Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Training Do’s and Don’ts,” don’t merely promote respect for free expression but actively promote extremist views by telling officials to sideline experts who “venture too deep into the weeds of [Islamic] religious doctrines and history. … [T]hese topics are not necessary in order to understand the [Muslim] community.”
The DHS also actively discourages engagement with moderate Muslims. “Don’t use trainers … who are self-professed ‘Muslim reformers’ … [or who] equate radical thought [or] religious expressions … with criminal activity,” say the training guidelines.
The guidelines also advise cops, “Don’t use a trainer or training that has received repeated external negative feedback … don’t use training that treats the American Muslim community as a problem rather than as a partner … don’t use training that relies on fear [for example, by citing convictions that show] mainstream Muslim organizations have terrorist ties.”
The training guidelines go so far as to urge federal officials to rely on a political report by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), a Los Angeles, California-based Islamic advocacy group with extensive ties to jihadists and Islamist groups, including the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) read and commented on an article from The Daily Caller on the House floor. The article notes, “The Department of Homeland Security…has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists.”
Mosques become a state within a state, except for the welfare assistance.
If radicalized means self-segregated, embittered, and angry enough to be ambivalent about the mentorship of jihadists, then America needs to pay close attention to neighborhood Islamic centers. There is a nexus between disaffected Muslims and those who graduate to violence, and twostudies point to the American mosque. Now that another plot has been executed rather than foiled, there is finally overdue focus on the imams who foment resentment and alienation.
We have allowed mosques to serve as citadels, cutting Muslims off from the democratic society outside. When Muslim marriages are arranged, then officiated and filed within the mosque; when large and small contract disputes are adjudicated by a sheikh; when marriages are ended and custody determined by the imam, and financial disagreements assessed by mosque officials, observant Muslims might as well be living anywhere.
Certainly, the conditions for those that live under tight mosque control do not reflect anything that resembles America.
Constitutional rights and due process protections do not penetrate many sharia-observant mosque domains. After speaking with several Muslim individuals seeking to reassert constitutional rights after summary judgments were rendered, it is apparent that what purports to be Islamic arbitration is really more akin to kindergarten sandlot refereeing. The documents reveal that there was no semblance of legal process expected in arbitration proceedings, no conflict of interest disclosures, and no provision for structural fairness rules.
Even Muslim legal scholar M. Ali Sadiqi, writing for the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, noted that Muslims would have difficulty bringing internal arbitration standards into conformity with American legal principles, since under sharia inheritance rules women are entitled to only one quarter of the estate — and one eighth if there are children.
In Germany, law enforcement authorities now see the Islamic courts as a competitive “shadow justice system,” and complain that sharia-styled tribunals interfere with the government’s duty to administer both civil and criminal justice.
In Britain, Baroness Cox has been working tirelessly for years to see British law reinstated and sharia jurisdiction reversed. During hearings on her bill, now called the Arbitration and Mediation Services Equality Bill, Baroness Donaghy (Labour Party) called the presumed acquiescence of women to unequal and often cruel treatment as “consensual as rape.” A Muslim woman told Baroness Cox:
I feel betrayed by Britain, I came to this country to get away from all this but the situation is worse here than in my country of origin.
From Britain to the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, France, Germany, and America, it is possible for Muslims to experience no notable difference between life in the West and the conditions that they fled back in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Iraq. The only mentionable difference: the generous social welfare programs offered in the Western cultures.
When I inquired of a local imam as to how he identified radicalization and whether he was concerned about it, he tellingly pivoted to accusations that the U.S. government does not do enough for immigrant Muslims.
In contrast, Western-oriented American Muslim Dr. Zuhdi Jasser called out clerics who urge adherents to “focus on their own victimization, patronizingly reminding the rest of America not to be ‘racists’ [or] ‘bigots.’”
Islamic society of Boston
The unquestionably radical nature of the Islamic Society of Boston mosque and its counterpart the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (called “small one” and “big one” by locals) illustrates the worst of Islamist subversion. Whether the Tsarnaev brothers attended to the degree that the mosque was a key part of their radicalization is unknown, but it could not have been a mitigating influence in their conversion to terrorism. The pedigree of convicted terrorists that have emerged from IBS/IBSCC incubation, the close Muslim Brotherhood connections, the terror group ties, and the criminal convictions of leadership figures lead one to wonder how much more radical activism still seethes within this mosque community.
We also have examples of the poisonous rhetoric purveyed at these two mosques. In just one instance, invited imam Abdullah Farooq was videotaped saying that the Patriot Act “permits [government] to come to your door” and “to come anywhere they want and to come after you anytime.” He went on to urge action in the name of Allah against “oppressors,” by “grabbing on to gun and sword … to step out into this world and do your job.”
A 2004 lesson (active link now disabled) that gave tips on disciplining a wife recommended hanging up a whip in plain sight as a deterrent, but not advocating actual physical punishment unless she really needs it.
Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, an exile from Egypt, said that the ISB mosque “was controlled by fanatics.” He likened the atmosphere to the sharia extremism that he left behind: “I left Egypt to escape the Muslim Brotherhood, but I had found it [at ISB].” When Mansour told Fox News that fiery sermons can spur impressionable young men to violence, even if the speaker doesn’t explicitly advocate it, he was warning America that radicalization comes from the rhetoric that cleverly stops short of illegal incitement to imminent violence.
“We don’t debate unprofessional councillors, unprincipled journalists, and self-righteous community organizers; we turn the tables on them”: this is how British planning lawyer Gavin Boby, also known as the “mosque buster”, describes the activity of his organization, the Law And Freedom Foundation. He uses the law to stop the building of mosques in the UK by demonstrating to local councils that the building of a mosque or an Islamic centre is actually in violation of British law. And he succeeds: the count so far is 16 victories out of 17 cases.
Gavin Boby is a 48-year-old planning lawyer from Bristol, South-West England. He deals with planning permissions or zoning permissions.
Like many other people in Britain, for almost 10 years Boby had witnessed the progressive penetration of Islam in his country, but like many other people he watched idly not knowing what to do about it.
It was the same feeling of impotence that most of us shared. But then, a couple of years ago, he had this idea. Many mosques disrupt neighbourhoods and drive out long-time residents. Non-Muslim women in particular are made to feel uncomfortable in those areas. Why not use his legal skills to help local communities resist planning applications for mosques?
The BBC video above the article exposes how corrupt the process of granting mosque planning applications can be, showcasing a session in the Rochdale Council’s planning committee in the North of England, during which councillor Begum does not allow discussion before the vote is taken and rushes the other members to vote.
This is very topical in light of the recent revelations that the Boston bombers’ mosque ”has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism”, has classic jihadi texts in its library, and gave money to two terrorist charities which have been shut down by the U.S. government. But then again, when is something about the violent nature of Islam not topical these days?
Still, this is a good way to introduce the mosque buster’s work. What are mosques? As we know, mosques are not like churches or synagogues, they are far more than houses of worship and contemplation, many of them are centres of jihadist activity that indoctrinate to commit and support violence against infidels. In America, as many as 4 different studies have independently come to the same conclusion that 80 per cent of US mosques ”were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians”.
The Law And Freedom Foundation website declares: “A mosque is not merely a place of worship. Islamic doctrine requires the application of Islamic law within its geographical reach.”
In an interview Gavin Boby explains that mosques are being used as the bridgehead, the forefront of the advance of Islam in a territory. What happens in neighbourhoods – usually working class districts which are not used to dealing with officialdom – where a mosque is built is that the area changes forever for its residents, who no longer recognize it and eventually have to move out, due to things like the parking jihad, general harassment, vandalism.
“The parking jihad is” he describes, “soon after the construction of a mosque, people will find no parking space there, their driveway is being blocked or even a car is parked in the driveway inside your property and if you ask them to move their car they’ll say it’s only for an hour.” The parking tends to be used as a way to establish possession and control over the area, of saying: “This is a mosque area, we are the owners now and there’s nothing you can do about it”, and then after that it gets worse until the point when people move out.
“The Koran,” the Bristol lawyer continues, “calls 14 times for the enslavement of non-Muslims, and 3 times for killing the unbelievers wherever they are found. This is obviously against English law. You don’t need to be a good lawyer to fight it but you need to be a very good lawyer to get around it.”
Partly, the mosque buster’s approach is that of finding the contradictions and incompatibilities between Islam and Western fundamental principles (that’s the easy part), and making mosque building and planning regulations become the battleground of these ideological conflicts.
In the same way as Islam is not just a religion but also a political doctrine of supremacy and power, so the mosque is not simply a building of worship but also a political one.
Gavin elaborates:
This is the Islamic doctrine, every mosque is instructed to be based upon the original mosque in Medina, where Muhammad originally in the 7th century set up his religious-political doctrine of social control, and the mosque is a place of government, it is a place where treaties are made, death sentences are passed, armies are blessed and dispatched, it is primarily about political control and it is very much used as a tool of advance. Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey talked about that, the Muslim Brotherhood compared their mosques to battalions and to beehives, where Muslims will gather and then advance, and there’s nothing new about this, it goes back to the 7th century.
So this is the why of the Law And Freedom Foundation’s operation. Now let’s see the how.
Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L’Espresso, and La Repubblica.
Islamist Watch (IW) maintains an extensive archive of news items on nonviolent Islamism in the Western world. The complete collection can be found here; lists organized by topic are accessible on the right side of the IW homepage.
The IW database includes dozens of articles scrutinizing the many narratives, questions, and controversies to arise in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings carried out by two Muslim immigrants, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Several key developments are highlighted below:
Political correctness at the FBI
Following reports that Russian officials had contacted Washington about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremism years ago — warnings investigated and then set aside by the FBI — some suspect that political correctness paved the path to the attack. “The FBI can’t talk about Islam and they can’t talk about jihad,” notes counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka, citing policies that de-emphasize radical Islam as a driver of violence. “I have zero doubt it affected their investigation of Tsarnaev,” adds specialist Patrick Poole. Congressmen have voiced concerns as well.
The FBI also dropped the ball prior to the Fort Hood bloodbath. In that case, the Washington field office cautioned its San Diego counterpart that probing Nidal Hasan was a “politically sensitive” subject, and internal emails classified Hasan’s messages to an al-Qaeda operative as mere “research.” Furthermore, building on its record of Muslim outreachfollies, the agency recently caved to Islamists on training and expunged “biased” materials. Its “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training” declares that if someone belongs to a group that engages in both violence and “constitutionally protected activities,” the FBI must not assume that the person is involved in the former. As columnist Matthew Vadum opines, “It’s not that much of an exaggeration to say that the FBI could not have done anything about Tsarnaev unless he strapped on a suicide vest in front of them, called them ‘infidels,’ and detailed his abominable plans.”
Left: The brutal reality of jihad was displayed on April 15, 2013. Right: The Islamic Society of Boston may appear friendly from the outside, but its history tells a very different tale.
Radicalism at the Islamic Society of Boston
As the authorities trace the Tsarnaev brothers’ road to extremism, some point to the Cambridge mosque they attended. Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance has stated that “if the story emerges that they were radicalized in America … the Islamic Society of Boston [ISB] and its leaders provide an interesting place to look.” Indeed they do. The ISB’s first president was Abdurahman Alamoudi, now imprisoned in connection with an assassination plot. Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was listed among its trustees, and multiple convicted terrorists, including “Lady al-Qaeda” Aafia Siddiqui, prayed on the premises. Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, a reformist Muslim, recently reflected on a past visit: “Their writings and teachings were fanatical. … I left Egypt to escape the Muslim Brotherhood, but I had found it there.”
In positive news, Governor Deval Patrick’s office withdrew an invitation to Suhaib Webb, imam of the affiliated ISB Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, to speak at an interfaith service on April 18. The center is managed by the Muslim American Society (MAS), which, according to prosecutors, “was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Another ISBCC imam once exhorted congregants to “grab on to the gun and the sword” in Siddiqui’s defense. “Officials who change course when confronted with the facts need to be commended,” the Clarion Project’s Ryan Mauro explains. “Thank [the governor] by contacting his office here.”
Rays of light in the media darkness
While many media outlets downplayed jihad, others were surprisingly candid: USA Today ran a detailed piece on the ISB’s radicalism. The Islamist-friendly Bill O’Reilly blasted Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for denying Islam’s role in terrorism. Bill Maher mocked Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, when he asserted that “it’s not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it.” Maher called the idea that all faiths are equal in terms of inspiring violence “liberal bulls—t,” perhaps opening the eyes of viewers who reflexively discount criticism of Islam from the right.
Daniel Pipes sees the Boston bombings as “education by murder,” noting that Westerners “learn best about Islamism when blood flows in the streets.” This process is aided when the bloodshed encourages prominent media figures to overcome inhibitions and speak truthfully about jihad.
Left: Bill Maher asked Brian Levin whether a show about Islam similar to the raucous Book of Mormon could run on Broadway without violence. “Possibly so,” he replied, convincing no one. Right: Ibrahim Hooper admits that revenge attacks against Muslims have been rare.
Post-terror backlash fails to materialize yet again
Amid the predictablehype about anti-Muslim backlash — which almost never occurs — the Associated Press relays this refreshingly frank tidbit: “Muslim civil rights leaders say the anti-Islam reaction has been more muted this time than after other attacks since Sept. 11. … Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations … said his organization has seen no uptick in reports of harassment, assaults, or damage to mosques since the April 15 bombings.”
No surprise here: Muslims in the U.S. actually suffer hate crimes at a lower rate than blacks, Jews, or gays. Blogger Brendan O’Neill sums it up: “Time and again, left-leaning campaigners and observers respond to terror attacks in the West by panicking about the possibly racist response of Joe Public — and time and again, their fears prove ill-founded and Joe Public proves himself a more decent, tolerant person than they give him credit for. What this reveals is that liberal concern over Islamophobia, liberal fretting about anti-Muslim bigotry, is ironically driven by a bigotry of its own, by an deeply prejudiced view of everyday people as hateful and stupid.”
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For additional news and analysis, please visit the IW website.
Megyn Kelly and Michelle Malkin Call Out Eric Holder on Lame Warning of Retaliation Against Muslims:
USA Today reported Tuesday that “the mosque attended by the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombing has been associated with other terrorist suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism.”
The Islamic Society of Boston was founded by Abdulrahman Alamoudi, the leading “moderate Muslim” in Washington throughout the 1990s. Alamoudi turned out to be an al-Qaeda financier and is now in prison.
And it wasn’t just Alamoudi. USA Today notes that others linked to the Islamic Society of Boston include Aafia Siddiqui, who “was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 while in possession of cyanide canisters and plans for a chemical attack in New York City”; Tarek Mehanna, who was “sentenced in 2012 to 17 years in prison for conspiring to aid al-Qaeda”; Ahmad Abousamra, who “is wanted by the FBI on charges of providing support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill Americans in a foreign country”; and Jamal Badawi, who “was named as a non-indicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial in Texas over the funneling of money to Hamas, which is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Originally a trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and perhaps the most popular Islamic preacher in the world. He once said on al-Jazeera: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler… This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”
On Wednesday, my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) issued an 18-point action plan for defending freedom in the wake of the Boston jihad bombings (read the whole thing here). Two of the points apply directly to the Islamic Society of Boston, where the Tsarnaev brothers went for Muslim prayers:
• AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.
• AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.
BOSTON — The mosque attended by the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon double bombing has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism.
Several people who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Mass., have been investigated for Islamic terrorism, including a conviction of the mosque’s first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, in connection with an assassination plot against a Saudi prince.
Its sister mosque in Boston, known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, has invited guests who have defended terrorism suspects. A former trustee appears in a series of videos in which he advocates treating gays as criminals, says husbands should sometimes beat their wives and calls on Allah (God) to kill Zionists and Jews, according to Americans for Peace and Tolerance, an interfaith group that has investigated the mosques.
The head of the group is among critics who say the two mosques teach a brand of Islamic thought that encourages grievances against the West, distrust of law enforcement and opposition to Western forms of government, dress and social values.
“We don’t know where these boys were radicalized, but this mosque has a curriculum that radicalizes people. Other people have been radicalized there,” said the head of the group, Charles Jacobs.
Yusufi Vali, executive director at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, insists his mosque does not spread radical ideology and cannot be blamed for the acts of a few worshipers.
“If there were really any worry about us being extreme,” Vali said, U.S. law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and Departments of Justice and Homeland Security would not partner with the Muslim American Society and the Boston mosque in conducting monthly meetings that have been ongoing for four years, he said, in an apparent reference to U.S. government outreach programs in the Muslim community.
The Cambridge and Boston mosques, separated by the Charles River, are owned by the same entity but managed individually. The imam of the Cambridge mosque, Sheik Basyouny Nehela, is on the board of directors of the Boston mosque.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, attended the Cambridge mosque for services and are accused of setting two bombs that killed three people and injured at least 264 others at the April 15 Boston Marathon.
The FBI has not indicated that either mosque was involved in any criminal activity, but mosque attendees and officials have been implicated in terrorist activity:
• Alamoudi, who signed the articles of incorporation as the Cambridge mosque’s president, was sentenced to 23 years in federal court in Alexandria, Va., in 2004 for his role as a facilitator in what federal prosecutors called a Libyan assassination plot against then-crown prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah is now the Saudi king.
Aafia Siddiqui is shown after her graduation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.(Photo: AP)
• Aafia Siddiqui, who occasionally prayed at the Cambridge mosque, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 while in possession of cyanide canisters and plans for a chemical attack in New York City. She tried to grab a rifle while in detention and shot at military officers and FBI agents, for which she was convicted in New York in 2010 and is serving an 86-year sentence.
The 2009 booking photo of Tarek Mehanna, of Sudbury, Mass.(Photo: Sudbury Police Department via AP)
• Tarek Mehanna, who worshiped at the Cambridge mosque, was sentenced in 2012 to 17 years in prison for conspiring to aid al-Qaeda. Mehanna had traveled to Yemen to seek terrorist training and plotted to use automatic weapons to shoot up a mall in the Boston suburbs, federal investigators in Boston alleged.
• Ahmad Abousamra, the son of a former vice president of the Muslim American Society Boston Abdul-Badi Abousamra, was identified by the FBI as Mehanna’s co-conspirator. He fled to Syria and is wanted by the FBI on charges of providing support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill Americans in a foreign country.
• Jamal Badawi of Canada, a former trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston Trust, which owns both mosques, was named as a non-indicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial in Texas over the funneling of money to Hamas, which is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
What both mosques have in common is an affiliation with the Muslim American Society, an organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an American Islamic revival movement. It has also been described by federal prosecutors in court as the “overt arm” of the Muslim Brotherhood, which calls for Islamic law and is the parent organization of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Critics say the Muslim American Society promotes a fraught relationship with the United States, expressed in part by the pattern discussed by Americans for Progress and Tolerance in which adherents are made to feel cut off from their home country and to identify with a global Islamist political community rather than with America.
Zhudi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said the radical teachings often follow a theme of recitation of grievances that Islam has with the West, advocacy against U.S. foreign policy and terrorism prosecutions, and efforts “to evangelize Islam in order to improve Western society that is secularized,” he says.
Jasser, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and author of the 2012 book A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot Fights to Save His Faith, says the teachings make some followers feel “like their national identity is completely absent and hollow, and that vacuum can be filled by (radical) Islamic ideology, which is supremacist and looks upon the West as evil.”
The Cambridge mosque was founded in 1982 by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and several other Boston-area schools, according to a profile by the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. Its members founded the sister mosque in Boston in 2009.
The leadership of the two mosques is intertwined, and the ideology they teach is the same, Jacobs said. Ilya Feoktistov, director of research at Americans for Peace and Tolerance, said much of the money to create the Boston mosque came not from local Muslims but from foreign sources.
More than half of the $15.5 million used to found the Boston mosque came from Saudi sources, Feoktistov said, who cites financial documents that Jacobs’ group obtained when the mosque sued it for defamation. The lawsuit was later dropped.
Vali said that the vast majority of total donors were in the United States and that “no donations were accepted if the donor wanted to have any decision-making influence (even if benign).”
Vali characterized Americans for Peace and Tolerance and its founder, Jacobs, as anti-Muslim activists who spread “lies and half-truths in order to attack and marginalize much of the local Muslim community and many of its institutions.”
“It’s the new McCarthyism in full swing,” he said.
Sheik Basyouny Nehela, the imam of the Cambridge mosque, which is located across the Charles River from Boston, is on the board of directors for the Muslim American Society of Boston, which runs the Boston mosque. The Tsarnaevs attended the Cambridge mosque.
A statement issued by the Cambridge mosque said the Tsarnaev brothers were “occasional visitors.” The mosque’s office manager, Nichole Mossalam, said neither brother expressed radical views. “They never exhibited any violent sentiments or behaviors. Otherwise, they would have been reported,” Mossalam said.
The Cambridge mosque said Tsarnaev, 26, who died Thursday night in a shootout with police, “disagreed with the moderate American-Islamic theology” of the mosque. Tsarnaev challenged an imam who said in his sermon that it was appropriate to celebrate U.S. national holidays and was told to stop such outbursts, the mosque said in a statement.
Talal Eid, a Muslim chaplain at Brandeis University, said focusing on individual radicals that prayed in a building is unfair.
“In 2011, the two brothers were right under the nose of the FBI and they didn’t find anything,” Eid said, who never met the Tsarnaevs. “How do you want me as an imam to know enough to tell them they are not welcome here? How can I figure out those people have that kind of criminal intent?”
The Muslim American Society says on its website that it is independent of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, early Brotherhood literature is considered “the foundational texts for the intellectual component for Islamic work in America,” the website states.
Jacobs says claims of moderate Islam do not square with the mosque’s classic jihadi texts in its library and its hosting of radical speakers.
Jacobs said Ahmed Mansour, his co-director at Americans for Peace and Tolerance, found writings by Syed Qutb, the former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and other jihadi texts at the Cambridge mosque’s library when Mansour went there in 2003. Qutb pioneered the radical violent ideology espoused by al-Qaeda.
Yusuf al Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader who espouses radical views in videos collected by Jacobs’ group, was listed as a trustee on the Cambridge mosque’s IRS filings until 2000, and on the mosque’s website until 2003, when he addressed congregants via recorded video message to raise money for the Boston mosque, according to a screenshot of the announcement that Feoktistov provided.
Vali said Qaradawi was listed as an honorary trustee years ago only because his scholarship and high esteem in Muslim circles would help with fundraising.
Yasir Qadhi, who lectured at the Boston mosque in April 2009, has advocated replacing U.S. democracy with Islamic rule and called Christians “filthy” polytheists whose “life and prosperity … holds no value in the state of Jihad,” according to a video obtained by Jacobs’ group.
Vali said Qadhi was a guest of a non-profit organization that was renting space at the Boston mosque and has changed his views since that video was made.
Jacobs and others say it is not only renters who express sympathetic views for terrorists. Leaders of the Boston and Cambridge mosques, and invited guests, have advocated on behalf of convicted terrorists, urging followers to seek their release or lenient sentences.
Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, sometimes a spokesman for the Boston mosque, used Siddiqui’s case to speak against the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law passed under the George W. Bush administration. “After they’re done with (Siddiqui), they are going to come to your door if they feel like it,” he said, according to a video obtained by Americans for Peace and Tolerance.
Anwar Kazmi, a member of the Cambridge mosque’s board of trustees, called for leniency for Mehanna and Siddiqui at a Boston rally in February 2012, in a video posted to YouTube. He characterized Siddiqui’s 86-year sentence as excessive.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Kazmi insisted that the Cambridge mosque is moderate and condemns the marathon bombings. On Monday, the mosque e-mailed members to caution them that the FBI may question them and that they may want to seek representation.
“This kind of violence, terrorism, it’s just completely contrary to the spirit of Islam,” Kasmi said. “The words in the Quran say if anybody kills even a single human being without just cause, it’s as if you’ve killed all of humanity.”
Contributing: Yamiche Alcindor
The Boston Mosque – TheBlazeTV – The Glenn Beck Program – 2013.04.23:
The dramatic events in Boston last week have given rise to what President Obama would call a “teachable moment.” The question is, will we “connect the dots”? And, more to the point, will our leaders, the media and the rest of us have the intellectual integrity and courage to learn the evident lessons?
The initial indicators are not encouraging. We now know that, despite the unconcealed hopes of some elected officials, elite journalists and most especially the self-appointed arbiters of “hatred” – the hate-mongering Southern Poverty Law Center, the perpetrators of murderous attacks at the Boston Marathon and in the days that followed turned out not to be white Christian or anti-tax extremists, but Caucasians of a very different stripe. Yet, their true character and motivations continue to be obscured.
In fact, Timerlan and Dhozkhar Tsarnaev were jihadists, born in the turbulent Russian republic of Chechnya – a honing fire for terror-wielding Islamists – and named, respectively for prominent figures in that movement’s distant and more recent past.
Here’s what we have learned from this episode that is highly instructive about the wider war we are in:
The Tsarnaev brothers became “radicalized” as they embraced their Muslim faith. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that their mother encouraged this course, that the elder boy brought along his younger sibling and that they attended the Islamic Society of Boston/ISB. As a powerful video produced by Americans for Peace and Tolerance makes clear, the ISBCC is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood – a group that seeks to impose its supremacist Islamic code of shariah worldwide. Shariah commands its adherents to engage in or otherwise support jihad (or holy war).
Sources at the Tsaraevs’ mosque are spinning the press with stories that Timerlan was ejected at one point for challenging an imam’s endorsement of Martin Luther King. Also, shortly after the Marathon bombings, the ISBCC issued a press statement condemning the terrorist attack. Yet, these deflections cannot be allowed to obscure the reality that this mosque – like many others in America – promotes shariah and jihadism. (See the peer-reviewed study published in 2011 by the Middle East Quarterly in which a random sample of one hundred such institutions found that 80% of them are associated with both shariah and jihad.) As such, mosques like the Islamic Society of Boston must be considered to be part of the problem.
The FBI interviewed Timerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of a Russian government evidently concerned about the jihadist inclinations of this Chechen expat. The Bureau says it “did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign, and those results were provided to the [Russian] government in the summer of 2011.” Unfortunately, this statement seems to say more about the politically imposed limitations on the Bureau’s ability to understand and identify the roots in jihad of such terrorism than provide an accurate assessment of the elder Tsaraev’s behavior.
Among such political constraints is President Obama’s assiduous rejection of any association between terrorism and Islam. In fact, his administration has gone so far as to characterize the former as “violent extremism,” “man-caused disasters” and “workplace violence.” In response, the FBI has purged its files of training materials that might “offend” Muslims. That would, it seems, include any information about the direct connection between shariah, jihad and “terrorism.” Like other government agencies, moreover, the Bureau has been directed to consult with “community partners” – which seems to mean Muslim Brotherhood front organizations – before engaging trainers or their curricula.
Then there is this: In 2012, the FBI adopted “Guiding Principles” that say, among other things, that “mere association with organizations that demonstrates both legitimate (advocacy) and illicit (violent extremism) objectives should not automatically result in a determination that the associated individual is acting in furtherance of the organization’s illicit objective(s).” In other words, Timerlan Tsarnaev could not be considered dangerous as long as his jihadist affiliates also engaged in “legitimate” (that is, non-violent) efforts to bring about the triumph of shariah.
This absurd justification apparently underpins as well the Obama administration’s engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood, both at home and abroad, resulting in the latter’s legitimation, empowerment, funding, arming and ascendancy – with our help – throughout the Sunni Muslim world. The strategically disastrous consequences of this policy are now becoming manifest.
Given the foregoing problems, it is hardly surprising that the American people are largely uninformed about the true nature of the threat we are facing. As a result, they are not being engaged, as they must be, in the defense of our republic against enemies foreign and domestic.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick – a Democrat – appears to have himself a bit of an Imam problem dating back to 2010. On May 22nd of that year, Patrick embraced an Imam named Abdullah Faarooq and the Muslim American Society (MAS), a group whose secretary-general said was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Grab onto the shovel, grab onto the gun, and the sword, don’t be afraid to step out into this world.”
Here is a must-see video about Patrick’s embrace and a disturbing reality about this cultural center. Take note that the Center’s founder is none other than Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is serving a multiple year prison sentence for charges related to terrorism. He also worked in the Clinton State Department as a goodwill ambassador (h/t BNI and Andrew Bostom):
According to Breitbart, one of the Chechen marathon bombers attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque. That mosque works in conjunction with the Cultural Center that Patrick was so comfortable supporting.
Incidentally, in light of CNN’s expert on the attacks – Juliette Kayyem –tripping all over herself to avoid calling the bombings what they are – Jihadist attacks – it is interesting that Kayyem once served as Deval Patrick’s homeland security advisor.
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who has been arrested for the terrorist bombings in Boston, attended the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) in Cambridge, a mosque with strong Muslim Brotherhood links. The ISB Cultural Center, which is at a separate location, is even run by a group that federal prosecutors said in 2008 “was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.”
An ISB attendee reports last seeing Tsarnaev there during Ramadan last year. It is unclear if his brother, the other bomber, also attended the mosque. The ISB has links to the Muslim Brotherhood, has had radical leadership and promotes anti-Western themes.
For instance, the Islamic Society of Boston recently invitedjournalist Victoria Brittain to speak at the mosque, who in an article she wrote on MichaelMoore.com wrotethat the War on Terror is a “war on Islam” and that Muslims in the West face widespread persecution. In her article, Brittain also criticized British security services who “returned to a post-9/11 stance on overdrive” in the aftermath of the 2005 London subway bombings, referred to as the “7/7″ attacks.
ISB teaching is largely based on Islamists like Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi and Sayyid Qutb, the Brotherhood cleric who influenced Osama Bin Laden. It was reportedin 2008 that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Pakistani Islamist group, Jamaat-e-Islami, “are the prominent belief systems. The popular websites used by members, and recommended by mosque leaders, are mostly fundamentalist, and rabidly homophobic.”
The media is still baffled, completely baffled as to the motives of the terrorists. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s favorite song was “We Will Dedicate Our Lives to the Jihad“. But what can a little detail like that tell us about him?
An aunt of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects said Friday the older brother recently became a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day, and she doesn’t believe the brothers could have been involved in Monday’s attack.
She said her brother was desperate when he found out Tamerlan dropped out of his university. She said he always demanded more of his children and said Tamerlan was his favorite.
Tamerlan wasn’t a devout practicing Muslim, “but just recently, maybe two years ago, he started praying five times a day,” she said.
The Islamic Society of Boston, attended by Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, recently hosted a book event featuring a journalist who has been highly critical of the U.S. and U.K. “War on Terror,” which she described as a “war against Islam.”
The Islamic Society of Boston also encouraged its members to show their “support of the forgotten women of the War on Terror.”
The Islamic Society of Boston posted a graphic promoting the event on its Facebook page April 1, describing the plight of a British woman whose husband has been in Guantanamo prison for 11 years and encouraging people to “Put your profile in shadow in support of the forgotten women of the War on Terror.”
The Boston terrorist murderers were radicalized at the ISB mosque in Cambridge. Americans for Peace and Tolerance has been warning about this radical mosque and the indoctrination that has been going on there for years. Shame on those Boston civic leaders who didn’t listen, who attacked us, and who defended the ISB. You know who you are and the victims’ blood is on your hands too. We will hold you accountable.
The imam of a mosque that is managed by the Muslim Brotherhood-founded Muslim American Society (MAS) was initially invited to speak at Thursday’s interfaith service in Boston to honor the Boston Marathon attack’s victims, but that invitation was later rescinded by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s office, JNS.org has learned.
The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center’s (ISBCC) Imam Suhaib Webb, according to a series of Twitter posts, was replaced as the representative of Boston’s Muslim community at the service—whose keynote speaker was President Barack Obama—in favor of Nasser Wedaddy, director of civil rights outreach for the American Islamic Congress and chair of the New England Interfaith Council.
In June 2009, Boston-based APT issued a press release expressing concern that Governor Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino accepted invitations to be honored guests at the ISBCC’s grand opening in Roxbury Crossing. APT noted that another Islamic Society of Boston mosque, in Cambridge, Mass., hosted a sermon by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, a Holocaust denier who has “claimed that Jews want to destroy Muslims, and called all non-Muslims (including Jews and Christians) a ‘spiritually filthy substance’ whose lives and property hold no value and are forfeit to Muslims during Jihad.”
Perhaps the owner of this car with the Coexist bumper sticker hijacked by a member in good standing of the Religion of Peace could ponder the practical implications of that. But like the media, he is almost certainly baffled.
The one thing we all know is that Islam has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
