See Something, Say Nothing

by Philip Haney

  I call the investigation odd for two reasons: first, because I had never talked to the person. Second, it was no secret that US personnel were attending ISNA meetings, despite the fact that the federal government was right in the middle of the Holy Land Foundation trial and despite the well-established fact that it was a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

  The Washington Times reported on August 7, 2007, that the Department of Justice cosponsored the annual ISNA convention in an effort to educate Muslims about their civil rights. As in previous years, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had a table at the ISNA convention – which is said to attract more than thirty thousand American Muslims – to hand out literature and answer questions about the division’s work.19

  I also regarded the investigation as odd because if I were an informant, I would consider being “sent to secondary” a pretty good way to maintain my cover.

  Apparently, someone must have thought I had access to a highly classified database, so the IG investigators were ordered to come and interview me. When I showed them the actual spreadsheet for the case involving the alleged informer, they were both quite impressed and realized that this particular individual was just one small part of a much bigger case.

  Two and a half years later, on February 5, 2013, I finally received a letter of exoneration, in which I was told that “based on the facts of the investigation, there was insufficient evidence to support an administrative action which has been taken. Therefore,” the letter concluded, “this case has been closed.”

  To this day, however, I still don’t know what the phrase “there was insufficient evidence to support an administrative action which has been taken” actually means.

  Meanwhile, on August 18, 2010, the men and women of CBP were notified via an e-mail from Commissioner Alan Bersin that the journeyman grade for CBP officers would be raised to GS 12, effective August 29, 2010, because, since the 9/11 attacks, the work has become “increasingly dangerous and complex” as the agency “confronts all threats to our national security.”

  A couple of months later, on October 28, 2010, I received a copy of an e-mail from my colleague Holly Banks, a program manager and senior intelligence officer in the Forensic Document Laboratory division of Homeland Security Investigations, asking the port’s upper management to release me to assist in an investigation:

  Good afternoon,

  In May 2010, as the FDL [Fraud Document Laboratory] Program Manager for Operation [author’s redaction], we requested the opportunity to provide refresher training to CBP Officers participating in Operation [author’s redaction] [passport and document fraud] at the ECCF’s and IMF’s nationwide.

  We received a positive response via DFO Robert Gomez. Our training in Memphis was very successful and the officers and supervisors were very attentive and dedicated.

  As a result of completing this nationwide training we have been receiving an increase in referrals and they all deserve our recognition. The FDL is submitting this request for the assistance of CBP Officer Philip Haney’s subject matter expertise, which will be explained hereafter.

  Recently, the FDL received an OWC referral from CBP containing 55 passports and other documents. I conducted a preliminary review of the information received at which time I noticed certain suspicious indicators and subjects that may be of potential national security interest.

  Based on some of the suspicious indicators I observed, I contacted Officer Philip Haney, who I consider a highly knowledgeable expert on many issues and most importantly Counterterrorism issues, to consult on my observations and theories.

  During our conversation, he was able to confirm that I was on the right path, but after this discussion, I realized that I cannot reiterate all the knowledge and expertise that he can provide during the research and analysis of this sensitive and urgent referral.

  One day later, management sent a negative response to Banks:

  Ms. Banks,

  Unfortunately, Officer Haney is assigned to CBP Atlanta’s core mission of passenger processing, and will not be able to provide the dedicated time for document / investigative support.

  In the interest of providing support for the request, CBP Atlanta can provide assistance through the use of its FAS staff if needed.

  Another lost opportunity, but at least in this case, I knew right away that the answer would be no.

  As the season changed and 2010 drew to a close, I took some time to review the major events and global trends that I had observed during the year. Chief among them was the buildup of violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East that soon became known as the “Arab Spring.”

  I put these observations into a November 1, 2010, memo, and sent it to port management, asking if they would like to meet to discuss the issues and offering suggestions for training:

  In all these years, I have never seen such a rapid, aggressive expansion of the Strategy & Tactics of the Global Islamic Movement (GIM) as I am seeing now. Briefly, the Strategy of the global Islamic movement is to establish Islamic Sharia Law in the entire world, while the Tactics of the global Islamic movement – including several distinct types of Jihad – are designed to first ensure that Sharia is established in the world, and then to protect and support it from that time forward.

  At this time, the GIM in the West is using two simultaneous aggressive tactics; [1] unifying the social/political narrative vis-à-vis the West (i.e., the OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] & “Islamophobia”), and [2] putting America into tactical check(mate).

  These two tactical methods are essential components of MB Supreme Guide Mohamed Badi’s September 30, 2010 call to global Jihad, citing the doctrine of Tumult & Oppression.20

  Recognizing that these are complex subjects that can’t be adequately covered in a memo, I would like to request an opportunity to meet with Management, to discuss these subjects in more detail, and to offer suggestions (e.g., more training in CT and in Strategy & Tactics) that could be helpful to Officers here in our Port.

  For an example of a possible training course, please see my PowerPoint presentation entitled Strategy & Tactics II, which is saved on the Share Drive. For additional historical background, also see my 2006 article entitled “Green Tide Rising.”

  By the way, the Muslim Brotherhood leader Badie, mentioned in the memo, called for global jihad based on the principle of fitna, which is commonly translated as “oppression.” But it also means “opposition,” “tumult,” or “resistance” to the global advancement of Islam and the implementation of Islamic law.

  I never received any feedback from management regarding the memo.

  On December 29, 2010, I closed out the year in a meeting with one of my chiefs to discuss a couple of promising TDY opportunities.

  The first was an offer to work with William Ferri – the Green Tide Rising fact finder from Newark Airport I’d met in 2006 – who invited me to come up to his port for a week or two and help teach CBP officers about counterterrorism, targeting, and the strategy and tactics of the global Islamic movement, with a focus on Tablighi Jamaat and the Muslim Brotherhood network in the United States.

  The other pending opportunity was to liaison in Washington, DC, as a supervisory intelligence analyst with the FBI’s Threat Review Unit in the Counterterrorism Division.

  I’m sure it will come as no great surprise by now that neither one of these proposals ever saw the light of day.

  7

  THE GREAT PURGE

  On December 21, 2010, US Attorney General Eric Holder went before a television audience to warn the nation that the threat of terrorism had evolved, and that Americans should be aware that fellow citizens within their borders could pose a danger.

  “What I am trying to do in this interview is to make people aware of the fact that the threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant,” Holder said in an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America.

  “The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying
about people in the United States, American citizens – raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.”1

  One month later, on January 31, 2011, the Obama administration declared for the first time that it supported a role for the Muslim Brotherhood in a reformed government in Egypt, where the organization had been banned.2

  In a February 10, 2011, hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-NC, questioned James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, about the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

  Clapper described the Muslim Brotherhood as “a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam … They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt,” he said. “In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally.”3

  While the Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s in response to brutal crackdowns by autocratic regimes in the Middle East, including Nasser’s Egypt, it hasn’t changed its motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!”4

  As the Arab Spring arose in 2011, the uprising was characterized by the Obama administration and the media as a popular, secular movement, empowered by the noble goals of liberty, freedom, and democracy.

  But analysts who thoroughly studied the Muslim Brotherhood knew from the very beginning that the real forces behind the Arab Spring were ominous and malevolent.

  For example, on February 18, 2011, an immense crowd numbering in the hundreds of thousands gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo to welcome leading Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is banned from entry into the United States.

  At his first public speech in Egypt since 1981, the crowd chanted and roared in approval as Qaradawi spoke.

  “Don’t let anyone steal this revolution from you – those hypocrites who will put on a new face that suits them. The revolution isn’t over. It has just started to build Egypt. Guard your revolution,” he said.5

  While Qaradawi was speaking, the crowd chanted, “Al-Quds, Ra’ahin, Shahadin, Al-Mil’yoneen,” or, “To Jerusalem we will march, as jihad martyrs by the millions.”6

  The imperious declaration was echoed in 2012 by prominent Egyptian Muslim cleric Safwat Hagazy, who said to an enthusiastic crowd at a rally for Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi that Jerusalem will become Egypt’s capital, and “Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem.’”7

  In the crowd at Tahrir was Shadi Hamid, a research director at the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center in Qatar, who explained to the Christian Science Monitor that Qaradawi “is very much in the mainstream of Egyptian society, he’s in the religious mainstream, he’s not offering something that’s particularly distinctive or radical in the context of Egypt. He’s an Islamist and he’s part of the Brotherhood school of thought, but his appeal goes beyond the Islamist spectrum, and in that sense he’s not just an Islamist figure, he’s an Egyptian figure with a national profile,” Hamid said.8

  Another example of the true Islamic nature of the Arab Spring was seen on May 21, 2011, when the well-known Muslim Brotherhood leader Rashid Ghannouchi returned to Tunisia after a long exile in the United Kingdom to become the leader of the Tunisian Islamist Movement, also known as Ennahda.

  From the beginning, Ennahda was directly tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood network though Ghannouchi’s affiliation with the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and the International Union of Muslim Scholars. Both of these organizations are still led today by Qaradawi.

  According to Ghannouchi, the Arab Spring wasn’t really about democracy. Instead, it was about the dawning of a new age of Islam that would lead not only to the destruction of Israel, Islam’s greatest enemy, but also to the fall of the West:

  Altogether, the Arab revolutions are positive for the Palestinians, and threaten to bring Israel to an end. The Palestinian problem lies at the heart of the [Islamic] Nation [umma], and … all the land between the mosque in Mecca and Jerusalem represents the heart of the Islamic Nation, and any [foreign] control over part of this heart is a stamp on the umma’s illness. There is no doubt … that the revolutions open a new age, in which the regimes which support the West and Israel will fall – Egypt, Tunis and soon Libya, Yemen and Syria. The foundations of Western interests in the Arab countries are shaking.9

  So, what to do?

  How does any active duty federal officer, who has sworn an oath to protect the country from threats, both foreign and domestic, navigate through such treacherous water and avoid crashing into the rocks of an overtly hostile administration?

  For me, the answer was to communicate and document.

  Sometimes, being direct and right out in the open is the best defense.

  On January 29, 2011, I had the opportunity to give a PowerPoint presentation to the entire port, titled Strategy & Tactics of the Global Islamic Movement – “Going to the Source.” In it, I highlighted three major fatwas calling for global jihad against America and Israel that were issued amid the chaotic Arab Spring.

  On July 19, 2010, Anwar al-Awlaki issued a fatwa calling on Muslims everywhere – including those living in San Diego and Washington, DC – to wage continuous jihad against the West. In this case, Awlaki called for al jihad bi-al-mal, or jihad against the West’s financial system.

  The declaration was followed by an October 6, 2010, fatwa by Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie, titled “How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,” which explicitly called for a never-ending global jihad against the “Zio-American arrogance and tyranny.”10

  The third fatwa was issued January 8, 2011, by Imad Mustafa, professor of fiqh at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, declaring that engaging in a continuous global jihad against non-Muslims everywhere, especially Israel and the West, was legitimate.

  Yes, that’s the same Al-Azhar where President Obama gave his “A New Beginning” speech just a year and a half earlier with the top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the audience.

  Moreover, at least two of these fatwa authors were public leaders of the same so-called moderate Muslim Brotherhood organization with which the Obama administration had just formed a public alliance.

  The third fatwa author, Awlaki, may or may not have been an “official” Muslim Brotherhood member, but it is known that Brotherhood affiliates in Yemen sheltered him before he was killed by a drone strike in October 2011.

  With all of these developments in mind, I requested an informal meeting with CBP Chief Evans to review and discuss the three fatwas, the Hamas network in America, and the rapid Islamization of the Arab Spring. At Evans’s request, I had another informal follow-up meeting with him on May 12, 2011. In both cases, he expressed alarm about what I was reporting and appreciation that I was keeping management abreast of current events. In every meeting we ever had, Evans was always courteous and professional.

  In April 2011, my colleague asked me to help teach a portion of the counterterrorism class that was part of our port-level, post-FLETC training program for new CBP officers. Technically, I had been an NTC-certified counterterrorism instructor since 2006, so I was qualified to teach the course and did so on several occasions in the next three years. It was one of the most enjoyable collateral duties of my career, and I appreciate my colleague’s enthusiasm and willingness to let me participate in these classes.

  These opportunities, especially the positive feedback from our new CBP officers, encouraged me to keep moving forward during some of the difficult challenges I faced.

  On April 6, 2011, BBC News published an article titled “Salafist Groups Find Footing in Egypt After Revolution,” which confirmed the s
hift from a secular, political protest movement toward Islamism that some Middle East specialists were already seeing:

  The Salafists have a strict interpretation of the Koran and believe in creating an Islamic state governed by Sharia law as it was practised by the Prophet Muhammad, and enforced by his companions in the 7th Century.

  They argue that the Muslim Brotherhood has become too focused on politics at the expense of religion.

  “An Islamic government is a government that is based on Sharia law,” said Abdel Moneem Al-Shahat, a rising star of the Salafist satellite TV circuit. “Sharia can’t be changed because it comes from the days of Prophet Mohammed.”11

  It’s true: sharia cannot be changed, not for democracy, and not even for America. The constitution of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islam, is the Quran (or, Koran, as it is variously spelled). It is not compatible with our political system, which is based on the self-evident truths of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not the rigid statutes of Islamic law.

  As the year progressed, much of our attention was focused on Arab Spring events, which pertained mainly to the Muslim Brotherhood network case, but there was also a lot activity in the Tablighi Jamaat case.

  On July 11, 2011, with the trend of visa waiver abuse having been confirmed, NTC prepared a draft operations plan for establishing criteria to deny entry to suspected members of Tablighi Jamaat.

  Back on the ground in Atlanta, on July 31, 2011, I provided management with a status report on the Madrassa Boys project, which included “information from a series of 33 interviews in 2010 & 2011 with (mostly) USC’s returning from Zakariyya Madrassa in RSA.”

  I continued:

  This project is derived from long-term observations on the emerging influence of two closely related groups: [1] Darul Uloom-Deoband & [2] Tablighi Jamaat. It is also reinforced by at least two [author’s redaction] rules, with an added sense of urgency derived from the [administration’s] growing recognition of an emerging “homegrown threat.”