CAIR Calls Anti-Terrorist a 'Crusader'...

Speaker warns of radical Islam — Muslim group rips terror expert's remarks
By Dan Meisler
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS

Terrorism expert Steven Emerson warned a luncheon audience in Genoa Township on Monday that militant Muslims are using "strategic deception" to enter the mainstream political debate in America and advance their terrorist agenda.

But his comments drew denials and denouncement from a local Muslim group.

Talking as a part of Cleary University's Livingston Economic Club Speaker Series, Emerson said groups with harmless-sounding names like the Benevolence International Foundation or the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, are really front groups for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists.

"That's probably the most vexing problem we face," he said.

Speaking of CAIR, Emerson said the group was an "ideological front for terrorists and their apologists. They have defended, championed and rationalized" terrorism.

"If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is a duck. But it's treated as an innocent group," Emerson said.

He also said moderate Muslims need to step up and condemn terrorism, but they need more help from the government.

He said the government should also stop meeting with and legitimizing the front groups he criticized.

"We need to determine and establish a policy: We are not going to meet with groups that believe in violence as part of the way to carry out a political agenda," Emerson said.

He also took some questions from the audience at Genoa Woods Conference Center near Brighton. The first was on the war in Iraq, and whether it has helped or hurt the war on terror.

Emerson said that in the short term, the war has provided a rallying cry for jihadists, although they "never needed an excuse" to hate America.

In the long term, however, "I don't believe the war in Iraq provided any more of an external excuse for jihadists to attack us," he said.

Plus, he added, al-Qaida would quickly fill the vacuum if American troops were withdrawn too soon.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of CAIR, was not present at the speech but responded by blasting Emerson as having an anti-Islam agenda: "He has a crusader mentality. ... He's not an unbiased analyst."

"With all the scrutiny Muslim organizations have been under since 9/11, if there was even a shred of validity to the charges of Mr. Emerson, we would have been closed down a long time ago," Walid added.

He said Emerson's casting suspicion on mainstream Muslim groups "clearly increases Islamophobia."

Emerson was the latest speaker in Cleary University's Livingston Economic Club series that will include controversial conservative commentator and columnist Ann Coulter in October.

Walid criticized the university for not inviting anyone to debate Emerson's claims.

"We should have the opportunity also to present who the American Muslims are and what our organization truly is about," he said. "If it is interested in dialogue and academic discourse, it would bring in an opposing view. That's called being fair."

Audience members had a more positive reaction.

Photo by GILLIS BENEDICT/DAILY PRESS & ARGUS

Steven Emerson, expert on terrorism and national security, addresses the Livingston Economic Club on Monday at Genoa Woods Executive Conference and Banquet Center in Genoa Township.

Gayle Jacobs of the Michigan Homeland Security Consortium, a nonprofit group pushing the homeland security industry in Michigan, said she was surprised at Emerson's statement that the suspects in the alleged plot recently uncovered at Fort Dix in New Jersey had been in the country illegally for 23 years.

"That was really alarming," she said.

Howell Police Chief George Basar said he appreciated Emer-son's insight: "I hadn't heard it articulated quite the same way."

After his speech, Emerson said he has been called a racist in the past, but emphasized that he doesn't generalize about all Muslims.

"I don't assume anybody I meet is a terrorist," he said.

He put the blame on radical Muslims for blurring the distinction between mainstream and fundamentalist Islam. He said being suspicious of mainstream Muslim groups versus taking what they say at face value when he suspects they are actually radicals is "the lesser of two evils."

Cleary and the speaker series have been criticized for bringing in Coulter — her upcoming talk has drawn protests over her use of a slur against homosexuals and whether her invitation furthers the image of Livingston County as an intolerant place. But when Cleary President Tom Sullivan merely mentioned Coulter's name at Monday's lunch, the audience broke out into applause.

The Daily Press & Argus is a sponsor of the Economic Club series.

Contact Daily Press & Argus reporter Dan Meisler at (517) 552-2857 or at dmeisler@gannett.com.

To Make a Long War Short

Amen to VDH once again for a concise summary of the road ahead
-JS

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We hear so much about the success of the enemy, rarely about our own in this war of attrition in Iraq. Yet the military knows exactly what the struggle has come down to: to what degree can the elected Shiite majority curb their own militias, overlook 30 years of past oppression, resist Iranian infiltration, invite in moderate Sunnis, and do that all soon enough to sway Sunnis so that the latter start turning on al Qaeda, accept their colossal mistake in boycotting the elections and rejoin the government.

And the American role-far from the caricatured one of a deer in the headlights amid a civil war-is critical: Take out both the al Qaeda terrorists and extremist Shiites, in such a fashion to reassure the average Iraqis to trust in their government.

In this war of attrition, victory hinges on who tires first, and at what point average beaten-down Iraqis step forward and began opposing anyone who keeps killing innocents and destroying their own sources of power, water, transportation, and civil services.

In terms of our own military, after four years of this, it seems a question of how quickly and how well we can promote veteran Lt. Colonels, Colonels, and one-stars who have extensive experience into positions of real authority-accepting that in war everything about the status quo, from promotion to recognition, must change and depend only on proven performance on the battlefield.

In every war, almost all successful generals were unheard of before the war, while those that were, were not at its end. So let us hope there is a lot of skipping of rank, as Gen. Petraeus gets the best of his Iraqi veteran Lt. Colonels and Colonels fast-tracked and into positions where they can really use their expertise and experience.

We hear only that the army is broken. It surely is stretched and hurting-but also, for good or evil, has an entire cadre of officers who have seen almost everything imaginable in counterinsurgency warfare, both effective and stupid, and are quite literally now the most experienced combat officers in the world-and should rightfully be promoted into generalships in Iraq where they can do the most good.

The Pentagon should understand this sense of necessary urgency. Yes, counterinsurgency takes years, but politically the time left is finite-and will end not when the Democrats (who cannot stop filibusters or override vetoes quite yet) say so, but when moderate Republicans in fear of the 2008 elections, order the war to stop. And that could be sooner that we think.

What ended Vietnam was not just the anti-war movement, and the Peace Democrats, but the combination of southern conservatives and post-Watergate disgusted Republicans that either voted for the cut-offs between 1973-5 or in passive resignation accepted their inevitability.

So, as is true in most long wars (cf. 1864 or 1918), armies seem not to be fully effective until they digest and learn from their horrific mistakes, and so enter a race to apply their wisdom before an exasperated public gives up.

In late summer 1864 the work of Sheridan and Sherman and the 1918 summer offensive uplifted public opinion enough to stick it out; in 1970-3 post-Tet, radical improvement in American tactics, weaponry, and know-how came too little too late to deflate the public sense of defeatism and doom.

To use an overused phrase: Once again, all eyes turn on Petraeus and the autumn.

05/14 12:00 PM

Fort Dix: The Backlash that Wasn't

By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 14, 2007

In the wake of the Fort Dix jihad plot arrests, the mainstream media featured numerous news articles focusing on the fears of other Muslims in America. Philadelphia’s CBS3 reported: “Muslims in the region are bracing themselves for a possible backlash in response to the terror plot arrests.” There was no shortage of Muslim spokesmen available to confirm these fears. “What we’re all afraid of is a new backlash,” said Hesham Mahmoud of the New Jersey chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. An official of the South Jersey Islamic Center, the spiritual home of several of the jihadist suspects, also expressed fears that they “are going to face a backlash.” A Muslim in New Jersey, Tajwar Roomi, expressed fear for her family: “My husband works for the state. My son, my daughter, they all work. I do get worried about them because some people are nice, [but] some people are not.” As far away as Iowa, the imam of Des Moines’ Islamic Center, Ibrahim Dremali, said: “Some are afraid backlash may be coming. People are becoming cautious again. I’ve told them they have to be careful.”

But none of the backlash reports included news of any actual backlash incidents, because four days after the arrests, there hadn’t been any. Richard Sparaco, the attorney for one of the accused jihad plotters, Serdar Tatar, came closest to actually reporting one. Sparaco said that the restaurant owned by Tatar’s father, Muslim Tatar, had suffered a sharp decline in business, and that someone kicked in his door and, according to New Jersey’s Star-Ledger, “shouted a racial slur.” Muslim Tatar, according to Sparaco, had also been threatened.

That was it, as far as backlash went. The contrast is stark: when cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad appeared in a Danish newspaper, there were international riots, in which several innocent people were killed; when Pope Benedict XVI repeated a medieval emperor’s negative characterization of Muhammad, there were again riots and killings. When a mentally impaired Christian in Nigeria tore a copy of the Qur’an, rampaging Muslims burned ten churches to the ground. But when six Muslims in America were arrested for plotting to kill as many American soldiers as possible, there have been no killings. No mob action. No riots. No mosques have been torched, and no Muslims have been beaten or (with the possible lone exception of Muslim Tatar) harassed.

Of this Americans can justly be proud. The paucity of backlash incidents after the Fort Dix arrests and other jihad terror arrests – as well as after 9/11 -- shows that Americans are still essentially decent people who generally do not victimize people on the basis of their identity or associations. Yet statistics cited by the Des Moines Register painted a very different picture: “a nationwide survey by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations…counted 1,972 incidents of anti-Muslim bias in 2005, up from 1,522 in 2004. The 2005 figure, from the group’s most recent tally, represents the largest number reported to the council, also known as CAIR, in its 12-year history.”

So are Muslims really facing an increasing climate of hostility and harassment in the United States? Unlikely. Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha studied an earlier CAIR hate crimes report in 2005 and discovered that “of twenty ‘anti-Muslim hate crimes’ in 2004 that CAIR describes, at least six are invalid.” These included one incident of a bombing outside a mosque for which no police report exists, and which seems not to have taken place at all; one of an arson attack against a mosque that police had determined was a simple robbery, with no “hate” motive; and two incidents of Muslim store owners destroying their own stores.

Why would CAIR trump up hate crimes? Because victimhood is big business. The Department of Homeland Security recently unveiled a $24 million grant program for non-profit organizations who are deemed high-risk for a potential international terrorist attack” – and CAIR immediately issued an “Action Alert” urging American mosques to apply for money for surveillance and security systems. What’s more, if CAIR succeeds in its attempt to portray Muslims in America as innocent victims of “Islamophobic” persecution, they will have deflected attention away from the question of whether or not the Fort Dix Six and other jihadists learned to hate and betray America in American mosques. Thus American mosques, seen as victims rather than as possibly abettors of seditious activity, won’t face any scrutiny over what they are doing, and not doing, to halt the spread of the jihadist ideology of Islamic supremacism among Muslims in America.

CAIR’s Nihad Awad recently told a Muslim audience: “There were 196 cases reported by the Justice Department for Muslims in civil rights cases. There were over 1008 cases reported by the Jewish faith. We need to do a much better job not only in recognizing our civil rights but also in reporting it to the government. Which is very critical and very important.” Important for the victimhood game: winners receive torrents of money, favorable media coverage, and moral authority that must never be questioned. In this effort Awad can count on the help of the mainstream media, which continues in the wake of the Fort Dix arrests to report on Muslim fears of backlash, as if those fears in themselves constitute an indictment of American society.

It’s worthwhile in light of this to step back and consider some of the media reports we are not seeing. Amid the steady stream of backlash articles, there has not been even one article about Muslims pledging to redouble their efforts to teach against the jihad ideology in American mosques. While many have reaffirmed that Islam is a religion of peace and scolded authorities for linking Islam with militancy, no Muslims have explained how this peaceful religion keeps being so outrageously misunderstood by those who are often its most devout adherents, or what they propose to do to keep this from happening in the future. No reporters – consumed as they are with their search for backlash incidents -- are even asking questions like this.

And that makes it likely that the Fort Dix jihad plotters will not be the last Muslims in America to “misunderstand” their religion and think it enjoins them to commit acts of violence against unbelievers.

Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.

---

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of six books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad.

Florida Trail Of Terror

By Beila Rabinowitz & William A. Mayer

From dirty bomb plotter Jose Padilla - employed at a Ft. Lauderdale Taco Bell - to Padilla's alleged partner - Adnan El Shukrijumah [apparently fingered by recently captured senior al-Qaeda planner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] - who was last sighted at a Subway sandwich shop in Tampa 2001, the trail of terror continues in Florida.

Fourteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers either came from or through Florida - The 3 main ringleaders - the "pilots" - Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi & Ziad Jarrah and 11 of the foot soldiers - Ahmad Al Haznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Satam M.A. Al Suqami, Wail M. Alshehri, Waleed M. Alshehri, Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan Al Qadi Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri (not related to Wail & Waleed Alshehri), Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker also has roots in Florida.

Other notable Floridians - Imran Mandhai, Shueyb Mossa Jokhan - accused of conspiring to bomb the Miami Israeli Consulate and Safraz Jehaludi - currently being held on charges of threatening to blow up the White House.

Despite elaborately embroidered rejections of radicalism and events constructed to showcase Islam's "moderate" nature, the fact remains that Federal investigators say they have heard it all before. One senses that the claims of moderation are ringing hollow with increasing frequency, and for good reason.

For residents of the area, it's déjà vu all over again. Virtually every Florida Mosque and Islamic Center has played host to one or more people who are either fugitives from the law, or in jail on terrorism related charges.

Florida universities continue to harbor professors with militant Islamist agendas. Professors like Mustafa Abu Sway - a documented member of Hamas and the FAU visiting Fulbright Scholar - are exploiting their positions at Florida universities. They further their radical Wahabi agendas, hiding behind the facade of "interfaith outreach." Sway teaches a course about Islam at the FAU Lifelong Learning Center; one of his lessons is entitled - "Jihad and Otherness."

Why Florida?

Why not?

For starters, Florida, especially South Florida, is home to 150,000 Muslims, mostly of Middle Eastern extraction.

The area is also home to at least 23 Mosques.

It is in many ways a transient society; nearly eight million tourists from all over the globe shuffle through the area each year, bustling amusement parks, cheap accommodations, miles of strip malls all offer plenty of cover in which to remain anonymous.

"It's a melting pot. It's not like in Montana where you would stick out like a sore thumb," said Ben Graber, a Broward County commissioner. "Here you just blend in with the population."

Quiero Plutonio?

Back in the good old - pre domestic terror - days your biggest concern about the guy behind the counter at a Taco Bell restaurant was that he might spit in your burrito. But this is the 21st century and now you have to worry if he's working for Osama bin Laden and trying to build a radiological weapon on nights and weekends.

Mohammed Javed Qureshi, the owner of a South Florida Taco Bell, employed Jose Padilla and his wife Cherie Stultz.

It was Padilla's association with the Pakistani born Qureshi that sparked his interest in Islam. It directly led to he and his wife's conversion. After their conversion to Islam, Padilla and his wife - now known as Al Muhajair and Marwa - continued working at the Taco Bell until leaving in 1994.

"If you had known him, you would have never thought of him as a violent person," said Raed Mousa Awad of the Al-Imam Mosque that Padilla attended in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "He was a polite, shy, serious gentleman, according to my observations." ABC News - June 17, 2002

Unfortunately, the pattern linking obfuscation, disinformation and sketchy characters continues, as Raed Awad was also under observation by law enforcement for his involvement in terrorist fundraising. He left South Florida around the time Padilla did and "moved to Alabama". His children claim they do not have his address.

Awad claimed he did not know when Padilla converted to Islam or who converted him. He says that he met Padilla in 1995 and that he attended services daily - sometimes once or twice a day.

"He [Padilla] was very active in the social activities of the Mosque and well known in the Muslim community." - ABC News

Yet Awad claimed not to remember him.

A leader at Awad's Mosque, Yusef Shakoor, remembers Padilla as shy and helpful, but went on to say that he had no standout qualities or personality.

In addition to attending prayers at the Mosque, Padilla studied the Koran on Saturday at the Dar Ul Uloom Institute in Pembroke Pines.

Maulana Shafayat Mohammed, the prayer leader at the Institute, described Padilla as an oddity who definitely stood out - "...he was a Hispanic who converted to Islam and always wore a red scarf over his head."

From no "standout qualities" to an "oddity," everyone in the Muslim community appears to have a different and conflicting story about Jose Padilla. There is an obvious reason for this subterfuge - to confuse the media, investigators, researchers and above all, the public. It is not an accident that Qureshi, Rafiq Mahdi and others have given varying accounts to the regarding South Florida events involving Muslim extremists.

It is now common practice for these people to go by two, three or more differing names; arranged in varying order - depending upon the demands of the occasion. For example - Mohammed Qureshi, Mohammed Javed and Mohammed Javed Qureshi - all the same individual.

In like manner, Qureshi never refers to himself as the owner of the Taco Bell that employed Padilla, he usually says that he was Padilla's supervisor, which is technically correct but seemingly calculated to avoid disclosure of the fact that he was not only his ultimate supervisor but his employer as well.

"Da' wa in North America begins with the packaging"

Muslims are called upon to be evangelical and the practice of Da' wa underlines that philosophy. It means reaching out through religious preaching to those not of the faith - attempting to convert them. The devout are supposed to spend at least two hours every week engaged in such activity.

Compared to Muslims, most fundamentalist Christians are pikers in that regard.

This "packaging" concept really is a marketing ploy and if truth in advertising were applied to the above statement - which was taken directly from the from the Islamic Foundation of South Florida website - it should be rephrased - "Da' wa in North America begins with lying."

To claim that Jose and Cherie Padilla weren't "well known in the community" is absurd. As a chubby Hispanic, red durag [a biker head scarf] coiffed, gangsta' - with a Jamaican born wife - it would stand to reason that Jose would have been remembered by the community who took him in.

However, after Padilla's arrest the community was struck by a bout of collective amnesia prompted, no doubt in no small part, by the nature of his overseas sales pitch to al-Qaeda.

Managing complex fabrications is difficult, sometimes the truth just slips out. One spokesman for the community, Sofian Abedelaziz Zakout, the director of AMANA, the American Muslim Association of North America, has spoken of meeting Padilla, Shukrijumah and two - now jailed - terror suspects.

Shukrijumah was particularly fond of employing a withering blizzard of aliases - El Shukrijumah, Jumah Adnan El Shukri, Muhammad Shir Muhammad Khan, Mohammed Essagh, Abu Arif, Ja'far Al-Tayer, Jaffar Al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar, Jaafar Al-Tayyar.

Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout employs the same tactic.

In some cases the spelling is merely altered - as is the case with Shukrijumah's father, Gilshair - Shukri Jamal M.

After Adnan Shukrijumah had been identified as a dirty bomb suspect and Mohammed Atta's possible successor, the Mosque that employed his father, which is also the Islamic Caribbean American Society fired him due to the unwanted negative publicity.

Zakkout identified Gilshair as one of the directors of the Shamshuddin Islamic Center in North Miami Beach.

In 1999 Sofian Abdelaziz Zakout was the Vice President of a now defunct "charity" called Health Resource Center Palestine which solicited funding for the Islamic Association of Palestine on it's website - IAP is a virulently anti-Semitic group which distributes hate filled "news" content to the Arab press.

"I am in support of the Hamas movement" - Nihad Awad, the former PR director for the IAP and the current Executive Director of the Council on Islamic American Relations [CAIR].

The HRCP also listed the brother of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton's, Ibrahim Dremali - Ishaq - as its Gaza coordinator. His name was spelled Drimly instead of Dremali. Both Ibrahim Dremali and Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout testified as character witnesses on behalf of Adham Hassoun, who is accused of setting up the Florida office of the al-Qaeda front group, Benevolence International.

Hassoun is also the man authorities believe is responsible for financing Jose Padilla's trip to Egypt.

Dremali and Zakkout both made indignant statements to the media regarding Hassoun's detention.

After speaking with Hassoun by phone, Muslim community activist Sofian Abdelaziz said Hassoun's civil rights "have been broken."

The Principal of the School of Islamic Studies in Broward - Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Shah [co-founded by Mohammed Qureshi and associated with a Mosque on the same property which was attended by Padilla and Hassoun] made the following understatement:

"Hassoun has been an active part of the local Muslim community for many years"

Shocked, amazed and astonished!

"I'm astonished," Shah said of the arrest and of other recent arrests tied to federal investigations of possible terrorist activities in South Florida.

Qureshi and Imam Madhi of Masjid Al-Imam have given Islam friendly but conflicting versions of the conversion story to the media.

Qureshi said Padilla constantly marveled at how peaceful he seemed. "He asked me where could he go to be a Muslim." Qureshi allegedly told him - "to find a Mosque through the yellow pages" - a strange response, to say the least, from a devout Muslim who was the proprietor of a school/Mosque complex.

According to Querishi, Padilla stated that "something [at the Mosque] touched his heart. He said he had wanted peace of mind, and now he said he felt at peace with himself" and then added "He [Padilla]changed his demeanor."

Denial of associations reigned supreme - Imam Rafiq Mahdi of the Al-Imam Mosque in Sunrise held a press conference with Sheriff Ken Jenne and stated "that there was no record of Jose Padilla having attended any services".

Mahdi merely stated the obvious, since they don't register their worshippers, no record would exist. It's a poor ploy - several newspapers reported that Padilla and his wife were very much in attendance at Masjid Al-Imam.

Hassoun and Padilla worshiped at the same Fort Lauderdale Mosque, Masjid Al-Imam, through much of the 1990s, according to prayer leader, Rafiq Mahdi. Members of the Masjid Al-Imam - which has about 200 worshipers - said Padilla and his wife regularly attended.

The spiritual leader in those years, Raed Awad, was chief Florida officer of another charity targeted for possible terror links, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

Peter Feaver, director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies at Duke University, said it wouldn't be surprising if al-Qaeda sleeper cells and sympathizers are continuing to use Florida as a base. CBS news reports the same.

Local government officials there are more specific, openly speculating that there may be as many as 1,000 "sleepers" living outwardly normal lives.

It may be total happenstance, but Qureshi's Taco Bell is situated quite close to the offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, whose director - Adham Hassoun - was well known as a "Palestinian activist" in local Islamic circles.

Hassoun had been chosen by Ernaam Arnaout - bin-Laden's personal envoy - to set up an office for the al-Qaeda fundraising operation known as the Benevolence International Foundation. Hassoun, a Jordanian national, is now on jail on charges of funding terrorism and is fighting deportation from the U.S.

Arnaam Ernaout - a Syrian national married to an American - was recently sentenced to 12 years in jail for supporting al-Qaeda. He admitted to using money from BIF to buy tents, sleeping bags and boots for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Law enforcement officials believe that Hassoun met Jose Padilla at the Mosque belonging to the school for Islamic Studies in Broward. It was Hassoun who recruited Padilla, assisted him in acquiring an American passport and supposedly paid for his trip to Egypt - his "Arabic language study" sabbatical. Jose Padilla was arrested on May 8, 2002 at O'Hare airport in Chicago returning from Pakistan and is currently being held in a military brig, held as an irregular enemy combatant.

Before they left, Qureshi remembers the couple seeking advice on how to buy a car with the little money they were able to scrounge up. They were hoping to find better-paying jobs - she in office work, he in construction, he recalled.

"I mean from Taco Bell in Davie, the guy's boarding the plane in Pakistan?" he said. "What is going on in this world?"

What indeed, Mr. Qureshi?

Mohammed Javed Qureshi had kept in touch with Cherie Padilla after Jose left for Egypt in 1999. According to Qureshi, Jose was being taking care of by friends, listening and learning.

Padilla started calling himself "Ibrahim." Eventually he legally changed his name to Abdullah al Muhajir, even though "Jose" was tattooed on his arm.

He quit the Taco Bell in 1994, and by 1998 was headed to Egypt, telling friends he hoped to teach English in Cairo.

Javed said he would occasionally hear from Padilla's ex-wife that he was "doing fine, that someone had provided him shelter, that he was listening and learning."

The Padillas were divorced in 2001 with Jose giving an address in Egypt.

During the divorce, Padilla's wife Cherie, sought counseling with the father of Padilla?s alleged partner in terror, Adnan Shukrijumah.

Gilshair's own terror connections went back to the followers of Sheik Abdel Rahman [the 1993 World Trade Center bombing's mastermind, the [Blind Sheikh] in Brooklyn. In 1995 Gilshair testified as a character witness on behalf of Clement Hampton El who was convicted of plotting to blow up the Holland tunnel and the United Nations.

An enterprising tour guide could come up with a "Terror Tour" of South Florida. It would include at least 23 different Mosques in addition to schools and other dwellings within a 20 mile radius of the - "last seen" location - of some the FBI's most wanted terror suspects.

The tour could finish up at the empty homes of those currently matriculating at various federal - maximum security - gated institutions of higher learning.

The Qureshi name is ubiquitous in the school registry of the Islamic Foundation of South Florida - now the parent organization for Shah's School for Islamic Studies.

The IFSF site lists Pasha Qureshi as a registrar. Samina Qureshi on the Al-Falah [success committee] and Zahra Qureshi on the Youth and Camp Committee. The Principal of the Elementary School - Zulfiqar Ali Shah - is the president and CEO of the Universal Heritage Foundation in Kissimmee.

Shah showcased his new foundation with an inaugural - and highly controversial - Islamic conference the theme of which was supposed to portray Islam as a religion of peace and religious accommodation. The original list of conference speakers read like a who's who of radical Wahabis and the event ended up giving UHF a very black eye in the community.

Shah's organization is situated on a 31-acre parcel of land, which it shares with Pastor Lee Wasson's Kissimmee Christian Academy. The landlord is Super Stop Petroleum, Inc. It obtained the property in a bankruptcy proceeding. Wasson's tenancy considerably predates Shah's as he was a tenant of the party in bankruptcy, David Peoples, who operated a travel and culinary school on the property called the Southeastern Academy. It is this former Southeastern Academy that UHF now occupies.

Super Stop Petroleum is one of approximately 160 companies in which Denise Qureshi is the registered agent. In addition to Super Stop, the Florida Department of Corporations lists ? MAQ Financial Group, Q Research Group, Pembroke Park Investments, American Money Orders, 441 Investments, Homestead Subco, HWY 31 Investments, HWY 80 Investments, and on and on and on.

We have extensively covered this a previous article Will Of Faith which detailed how Zulfiqar Ali Shah and Mohammed Javed Qureshi - in an apparent display of anti-Christian bigotry - attempted to drive the Kissimmee Christian Academy into bankruptcy through legal harassment, primarily a frivolous eviction proceeding.

We must conclude, from the circumstances surrounding the court action, that Super Stop Petroleum is run not by Denise, but by Mohammed Javed Qureshi. In Pastor Wasson's only successful effort to talk directly with Super Stop Management, he was put in touch with Javed Qureshi, not Denise. After only briefly listening to the Pastor's request to attempt to work things out amicably, Javed abruptly ended the telephone call, snorting insolently "I am a busy man."

End of conversation.

In their only face to face conversation with Wasson, Dr. Shah made the claim that he didn't even know Qureshi, despite his numerous dealings with him.

Though this amounts to persecution by Muslims who are knee deep in associations with terrorists - against a struggling Christian School whose presence on the property predates UHF's arrival - local major media in Florida has shunned the story. PipeLineNews has even contacted Fox News in New York and they won't touch it either.

Zulfiqar Ali Shah has a long history of senior management positions with extremist Muslim organizations. He was the former president of the Islamic Circle of North America, about which Steve Emerson author of American Jihad, stated - ?openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organization, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia [Islamic code of law]."

So serious is the problem with the Islamic Circle, that in December, 2003 the Senate Finance Committee - under the leadership of Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) - requested from the IRS tax returns, lists of contributors, applications for tax-exempt status, and all materials from examinations, audits and criminal investigations on 25 noble sounding Muslim groups, one of which is Shah?s former haunt, the Islamic Circle of North America.

During Shah's period of leading the ICNA, Ashrafuzzman Khan was its Vice President - as well as the head of the ICNA local chapter in Queens New York.

To many immigrants, however, Khan was better known as the mad-dog leader of a death squad active in the Bangladesh war.

On 24th September 1997, a criminal complaint [case no. 115/1997 Ramana Thana] was filed against Asrafuzzaman Khan, as a result of war crimes allegedly committed by him during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

It is alleged that Khan personally murdered at least 7 intellectuals during that war, that he was a member of the much feared Al-Badr terror squads.

Professor Giasuddin Ahmed was killed as a result of the death squad activity. His sister, Mrs. Farida Banu, filed the case in Bangladesh.

In the complaint Mrs. Banu claims that Khan, along with others, kidnapped Ahmed. His body was found later at the Rayar Baazar killing fields, a disposal site used by the Al Badr death squads.

"Asrafuzzaman Khan, was one of the chief Al-Badr executioners. It has been clearly proved that he himself shot to death 7 teachers of the Dhaka University in the killing fields at Mirpur. A certain Mofizzuddin, who drove the vehicle, which took these helpless victims of Asrafuzzaman to Mirpur, has clearly identified Asrafuzzaman as the "chief executer" of the intellectuals. After Liberation, Ashrafuzzaman's personal diary was recovered from 350 Nakhal Para where he resided. On two pages of the diary, the names of 19 teachers of the University have been entered, as well as their addresses in the University quarters" - From the Weekly Thikana, a Bengali print journal published from New York December 15, 2000

This really is only a cursory glance at what is going on, not just in South Florida, but also in many other parts of the country.

Connect the dots and follow the associations.

Fact: The Wahabi brand of thought dominates Islam in the Middle East. Wahabi Saudis are directly and primarily responsible for funding the majority of US Islamic institutions.

In his book, Inside Islam, Reza F. Safa states that the majority of American Mosques are funded by jihadist Saudis, that over the last 25 years they have spent nearly $90 billion on such projects in the US and the West and that 80% of this nation?s 1,200 Mosques were built as a result of this effort.

Islam is a supremely aggressive religion. The Muslim American Society has single handedly converted 1 million American Blacks to Islam, the Saudis have contributed $8 million towards building Los Angeles' biggest Mosque.

From their mouths, to Allah's ear

"Either the best Muslim will get power, or the worst Kaffir [worst infidel, etymology - comes from an African Islamic usage - extreme pejorative for black person, on the level of "nigger," not at all surprising since it was the Muslims who were the primary sellers of slaves for the New World] Allah has created us as the Khaleefah [leaders] and we do not know Biology, Chemistry, Geology, when the Muslims knew those sciences they rules those lands and controlled them. We need to learn these sciences then we know how to control this earth. Rasool (S) struggled for 13 years, he was tortured abused, made sacrifices, even lost his uncle. Victory will not come sitting down. We need to prepare ourselves in all aspects." - Zulfiqar Ali Shah from remarks on the History of Islam prepared for the consumption of young Muslims.

Anyone with a critical eye who has evaluated the manner in which the Islamic world has operated for a millenium-and-a-half will note that Islam fosters little tolerance for other religions.

This intolerance, in the face of 911 and increased public scrutiny, continues unabated. Supposedly mainstream Islamic institutions expressly created for educating Muslim youth, in reality operate as thinly disguised Madrassas - little factories of fundamentalist religious bigotry and hate.

"...The fundamental theme of Islam throughout history has been - there is no god but Allah - Islam alone can provide the power for Muslims to liberate oppressed peoples from the control of those who worship the false gods of modernist and postmodernist cultures, namely, from taghut, so that these false gods will no longer be in a position to persecute or put obstacles in the way of sincere people and so all religion will be exclusively for Allah.

Our task in general is to stand against the flood of modernist civilization overflowing from the swamp of materialistic and sinful desires...Western secularism moved into a Muslim world already estranged from its Qur'anic roots, and delayed its advancement for centuries, and will continue to do so until we drive it from our lands. Moreover, we will not stop at this point, but will pursue this evil force to its own lands, invade its Western heartland, and struggle to overcome it until all the world shouts by the name of the Prophet and the teachings of Islam spread throughout the world." Jan 18, 2004 Young Muslims USA Newsletter.

The Young Muslim USA organization busses Muslim teenagers to Washington, DC so they could add their voices in protest against the war in Iraq, which liberated 25 million of their Islamic brothers and sisters.

The slick looking signs these kids were given were obviously done by professionals.

The placards they held carried familiar leftist slogans such as "Defend Iraq Against US Imperialist Attack" - "For Class Struggle Against US Capitalist Rulers" and "No Justice, No Peace" many complete with the logos of the Socialist Worker's Party, a communist front group.

Unbelievably, only a few years ago, Muslim youth organizations were actually soliciting impressionable Islamic kids to participate in Summer Jihad Camps, here it the headline of a flyer, from the Young Muslim USA organization.

Young Muslims North East Region

presents...

Jihad Camp

August 20th - 26th, Pennsylvania

Note that the date was exactly two weeks before September 11, 2001.

The Summer camps continue, albeit under a different guise. Sometimes now they are called Akhira camps. Akhira is the Arabic word for afterlife. Nice concept - Summer Death Camps.

"Our [Young Muslim USA] Summer Camp will help educate and prepare the youth with the proper understanding of the concept of the Akhira (The Hereafter) in Islam. This camp is for brothers with ages ranging from 14 to 25 years"- from the flyer

Curious...healthy young people - males only - preparing to meet Allah.

The speakers at these events always include radical jihadis.

For example, in addition to Zulfiqar Ali Shah, three of the speakers at the 'Jihad' and Akhira [afterlife] camps were:

Sirraj Wahaj - a member of the advisory board of CAIR and in 1995 was declared an unindicted co conspirator in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments.

Imam Abdul Malik who runs the radical Masjid Tarwhid in New York. He also spoke at the UHF's 'Islam for Humanity' inaugural event Malik recently produced an audio tape entitled "Thugz in the Masjid" which "explores issues related to thug life and it's adaptation by Muslim Youth."

The activities at these Muslim youth camps?

Wrestling - Archery - Paintball Combat Sports

For some reason the paintball images have been pulled from the Young Muslim USA site, but the following comes from similar Muslim paintball activity, this from of all places, Kentucky.

Makes you feel all warm and cozy, brings you right back to...Afghanistan?

Had enough? Feel reassured now that you understand the Islam is the religion of peace?

This is the real problem when dealing with Islam in a Western setting. The religion is not being truthfully evaluated because an invidious process has been set in motion. Our own loss of intellectual vigor is partly to blame. It is manifested as an inability [or even desire] to critically reason about such demanding subjects, but the main antagonist is the left's multiculturalism/moral relativism, which causes many to take at face value high sounding statements by Muslim spokesmen, like CAIR, Shah, Qureshi and others.

As has been written here in the past until we see significant and meaningful - concrete - demonstrations of good faith by the Muslim community, we remain unconvinced of the sincerity of claims of moderation. Until we see Imams stand before their followers and reject Hamas, Yasir Arafat, religious martyrdom and the Palestinian Intifada, until we see young Muslim men demand to join the US Armed Forces so they can participate in the war on terror and rid the world of those who have allegedly defiled the true spirit of Mohammed, we remain unconvinced.

We remain unconvinced because it is all cheap lip service, frosting on a poison tart, marketing, packaged Da'wa.

"...Law enforcement officials are not sure what exactly El Shukrijumah may be planning, but they say he could target gas stations, fuel trucks, subway systems, trains, or bridges. "Our No. 1 priority," Larry Mefford, assistant director of the FBI's counter terrorism division, told U.S. News, "is to find sleeper cells if they exist"

Since Mr. Mefford broached the subject, let's pursue it a bit - we don't advocate giving people ideas but this type of speculation is already out there.

There is absolutely no doubt that al-Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups are actively planning further, even more devastating attacks against the United States. Unless we are 100% effective in stopping them, the question is only a matter of when the next attack will occur, not if.

Suppose that entire chains of - lets say - gas stations or fleets of fuel tanker trucks - or both - come under surreptitious control of al-Qaeda types.

The standard gasoline transport tractor trailer rig features two stainless steel containers, each with the capacity of approximately 8,500 gallons, for a combined single vehicle capacity of 17,000 gallons of gasoline. According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission - that amount of gasoline is equivalent in energy content to over 100,000 pounds of TNT.

A similar load of liquid hydrogen would be far more deadly, it has over twice the energy content of gasoline and its laminar flame velocity is nearly 10 times as fast [2.7 to 3.3 m/s for hydrogen vs. .37 to .43 m/s for gasoline] hence a far higher potential explosive effect.

Of course that number is theoretical and you are not going to get these kinds of yields by simply tossing a few books of matches in front of fuel carrying semis. However, with the proper amount of oxidizer and correctly applied ignition, the energy release from such potential mobile bombs would be massive.

Imagine the effect that would be caused by the simultaneous detonation of hundreds of gas stations during rush hour while gasoline, liquefied natural gas and propane transports were set off on major bridges, as well as outside political and military targets?

There are many other possibilities along these lines, the point is merely that in a high tech society such as the United States it is impossible to control every potential source of destructive energy available to crafty, scientifically aware, foes.

Absent that we have to judge people by what they do, what they say in private, when they think they are not being overheard by outsiders and by their associations.

On these three fronts American Islam, not to mention the Islamic movement outside of the United States, stands looking very suspect.

© 1999-2005 Beila Rabinowitz & William A. Mayer.

US: University Says Printing Facts of Islam is Form of 'Harassment'

Factual Statements=Unprotected Harassment!? A Terrifying Precedent at Tufts

by Greg Lukianoff

May 11, 2007

Today, FIRE announced the decision by a disciplinary panel at Tufts to find the conservative student newspaper, The Primary Source, guilty of “harassment” for, among other things, publishing a satirical ad that listed less-than-flattering facts about Islam during Tufts’ Islamic Awareness Week. You can see the ad here, and Eugene Volokh has also published it with excellent commentary over at his blog, but, just to make sure people see the ad for themselves, I have reprinted the full text:

Islam

Arabic Translation: Submission

In the Spirit of Islamic Awareness Week, the SOURCE presents an itinerary to supplement the educational experience.

MONDAY: “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.” – The Koran, Sura 8:12

Author Salman Rushdie needed to go into hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeni declared a fatwa calling for his death for writing The Satanic Verses, which was declared “blasphemous against Islam.”

TUESDAY: Slavery was an integral part of Islamic culture. Since the 7^th century, 14 million African slaves were sold to Muslims compared to 10 or 11 million sold to the entire Western Hemisphere. As recently as 1878, 25,000 slaves were sold annually in Mecca and Medina. (National Review 2002)

The seven nations in the world that punish homosexuality with death all have fundamentalist Muslim governments.

WEDNESDAY: In Saudi Arabia, women make up 5% of the workforce, the smallest percentage of any nation worldwide. They are not allowed to operate a motor vehicle or go outside without proper covering of their body. (Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2001)

Most historians agree that Muhammed’s second wife Aisha was 9 years old when their marriage was consummated.

THURSDAY: “Not equal are those believers who sit and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit. Unto all Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit by a special reward.” – The Koran, Sura 4:95

The Islamist guerrillas in Iraq are not only killing American soldiers fighting for freedom. They are also responsible for the vast majority of civilian casualties.

FRIDAY: Ibn Al-Ghazzali, the famous Islamic theologian, said, “The most satisfying and final word on the matter is that marriage is form of slavery. The woman is man’s slave and her duty therefore is absolute obedience to the husband in all that he asks of her person.”

Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari’s eyes in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 following a heated argument about her refusal to have sex with him. (Herald Sun)

If you are a peaceful Muslim who can explain or justify this astonishingly intolerant and inhuman behavior, we’d really like to hear from you! Please send all letters to tuftsprimarysource@gmail.com.

So does this paint Islam in a nice light? No. Is it one-sided? Yes, but that was kind of the point. The students were responding to what they thought was a one-sided and overly rosy depiction of Islam during Islamic Awareness week. But is it unprotected harassment!? One certainly hopes not, or else “harassment” just became a truly lethal threat to free speech—an “exception” that completely swallows the rule.

This is perhaps the most troubling and far-reaching aspect of this case. The Primary Source published a satirical ad filled with factual assertions and because this angered people it was ruled to be unprotected harassment. If what the complaining students wanted to say was that the TPS facts were wrong, then—while this still would not be harassment—that could have been an interesting debate. But instead, in sadly predictable fashion, the students plowed ahead with a harassment claim that, based on the hearing panel’s decision, appeared not even to raise the issue of whether or not the statements in the ad were true, but turned only on how they made people feel. A panel consisting of both faculty and students found the publication guilty in flagrant abuse of what harassment case law and regulations actually say, and demonstrating total ignorance of the principles of a free society. Even in libel law (one of the oldest exceptions to the rule of free speech is that you can be punished for defaming people) truth is rightfully an absolute defense. Here, the fact that TPS printed verifiable information—with citations—was apparently no defense, nor was the fact that the ad concerned contentious issues of dire global importance. Such an anemic conception of free speech should chill anyone who cares about basic rights and democracy itself.

I doubt that the Tufts disciplinary board thought through the full ramifications of their actions. If a Muslim student had published these same statements in an article calling for reform in Islam, would that be harassment? If Tufts wished to be at all consistent (a dubious bet here), it would be.

Since those students and faculty obviously did not think about the ramifications of this decision, we put it to you, President Bacow: do you think the publication of factual assertions should be a punishable offense if they hurt the wrong people’s feelings, regardless of whether or not they are true? I hope he will think hard on what the U.S. would look like if that was the law of the land. It’s not a country that most of us would recognize or even want to live in. We ask again for President Bacow to live up to the best principles of a liberal university in a free society and overturn this dangerous decision.

Behold the Peace of Islam: Picture of the Week
Hamas uses Mickey Mouse to inspire hatred and violence in children. Meanwhile an Australian cleric says that it's OK to kill children in battle.
But how surprised should we really be to find that a religion founded by a "prophet" who used a 9-year-old girl for sex isn't all that kid-friendly?

THE ANTI-WHOREHOUSE T-SHIRT by Dr. Jack Wheeler

THE ANTI-WHOREHOUSE T-SHIRT by Dr. Jack Wheeler

Posted by The Bear under Global War on Terrorism , Culture

Want to send a powerful - yet discrete - message to Islamofascists? Or a message of encouragement to moderate Moslems who oppose them? Wear our Anti-Islamofascist T-Shirt. Although we don’t label it as such - it’s officially called The Anti-Whorehouse T-Shirt.

The greatest insanity of Radical Islam is its adherents blowing themselves up to slaughter “infidels” as a ticket to Moslem heaven, where they believe, six dozen eternally virginal whores await to satisfy their every desire.

It’s difficult to imagine a more blasphemous insult to God than to claim He will reward you in Heaven for mass murder. Such a god would be an evil monster to be condemned as criminally deranged as the suicide bombers, not a merciful loving deity worthy of worship.

That’s why such suicidal maniacs may claim to be devout Moslems, but they actually worship Satan, not Allah.

So the message needs to be broadcast: Allah is not a pimp for murderers and doesn’t run a whorehouse in heaven.

Yet you’ll note that our t-shirt says nothing - nothing - about Islam or Moslems. Who could object to its message? Someone who thinks heaven is a whorehouse? Someone who condemns it as “anti-Islam”? But how can it be anti-Islam when there’s no mention of Islam at all?

So here it is. There’s an order link in the right side bar. Order one today and wear it proudly - get one for your friends. The belief that heaven is a whorehouse for murderers is what sustains Islamofascism. Do your part in denouncing this evil conviction.

Source: To The Point