The group’s leadership was plucked directly from IAP and the Palestine Committee. In fact, all three CAIR incorporators—Ahmad, Awad, and Rafeeq Jaber—have held senior positions at IAP. The troika simply shifted positions to CAIR, as you can see in this diagram. New name, same old management.
Also, Ibrahim “Dougie” Hooper, a Muslim convert and TV producer who assisted Awad’s media efforts at IAP,5 became CAIR’s communications director. And Mohamed Nimer, a protégé of Marzook at UASR, transferred to CAIR to head up its research department.
It’s one big happy Islamofascist family at the new “alternative” front for Hamas in America.
CAIR continues to support Hamas and its wicked aims. The tax-exempt group stubbornly refuses to condemn Hamas by name, even in the wake of bus and pizza parlor bombings disemboweling innocent women and children. After one of its many suicide bombings killed teenagers at a Tel Aviv nightclub in 2001, Awad defended the atrocity and Hamas’s murderous tactics. “Palestinians are using legitimate means of resistance,” he said. “We should not be apologetic about it.”6
Ever since Hamas was designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1995, it’s been illegal to provide support to it within the U.S.
CAIR has strenuously denied such support, and has filed a request in a U.S. court to have its name stricken from the government’s list of co-conspirators underwriting Palestinian terrorism.7 The judge, however, has sided with the government and left the list intact.
As Assistant U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks argued, “Striking CAIR’s name will not prevent its conspiratorial involvement with HLF [Holy Land Foundation] and others affiliated with Hamas from becoming a matter of public record.”
And, he says, CAIR’s involvement in the terror conspiracy is “ongoing”: “CAIR has been identified by the government as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization—a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew.”8
In federal court documents, prosecutors have explicitly stated that CAIR is part of the pro-jihad, anti-U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and its U.S. network to benefit Hamas and other terrorists. Their language has been plain and unambiguous, yet the mainstream media have still managed to ignore their alarming conclusions.
“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg in a 2007 terrorism case involving CAIR, “CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.”9
This bears repeating: The U.S. government says CAIR has conspired to support terrorists. In other words, CAIR is the enemy in the war on terror. Its leaders are the bad guys.
Of course, you’ve probably heard CAIR insisting they’re the good guys, standing “unequivocally against terrorism” with the rest of America.10
Don’t be fooled, prosecutors say. CAIR and the other “conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists,” Kromberg asserts.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
That deception takes many forms, and we’ll explore them all in forthcoming chapters, but a key tactic is money laundering. Brotherhood leaders have conspired to conceal payments to terrorists as charity or business “investment.” They play an elaborate shell game to hide illicit funds—using dozens, if not hundreds, of fronts, shell companies, and cutouts, investigators say.
The Holy Land Foundation, busted as the main fundraising arm for Hamas in America, commingled funds and assets with CAIR to a degree previously unreported, raising new alarms in the wake of Holy Land’s recent conviction on terror money laundering charges.
As Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism has already revealed, Holy Land provided at least $5,000 in revenues to CAIR as it was starting up operations.11 CAIR, in turn, solicited funds for the Holy Land Foundation. After 9/11, as rescue workers were still pulling bodies from Ground Zero, CAIR tricked visitors to its Web site into contributing to the charitable front by telling them their donations would benefit World Trade Center victims—including New York firefighters—knowing full well their charity would help create new victims of terrorism. The link it posted actually took contibutors to the home page for the Holy Land Foundation—the main fundraising arm in America for Palestinian terrorists.12
All this is well known, however, at least among jihad watchers. What has not been reported is that CAIR in late 1995 contributed at least $40,000 to a Holy Land subsidiary that also was raided and shut down after 9/11. This item is revealed on a balance sheet attached to the original corporation franchise tax return that CAIR filed the following year with the District of Columbia.13 The subsidiary—InfoCom Corp.—fronted as a Web-hosting firm and shared officers and funds with Holy Land. In fact, InfoCom was located across the street from Holy Land’s headquarters in Richardson, Texas.
The company was run by convicted terrorist and CAIR-Texas founding director, Ghassan Elashi. InfoCom itself was convicted on charges of terror money laundering in 2004. At least $250,000 in investment capital was funneled through InfoCom by senior Hamas leader Marzook, who was designated a terrorist in 1995 and had his accounts frozen. The FBI says he “financed terrorist activities.”14
Most alarming, CAIR made its own $40,000 “investment” in InfoCom just months before InfoCom’s parent, the Holy Land Foundation, wired an early 1996 payment of exactly $40,000 to the Islamic Relief Committee, a charitable front for Hamas in the Palestinian territories.15
Islamic Relief Committee had requested more money to finance “weapons to carry out the jihad operations,” according to one hand-written missive.
“You do not know how happy people become when they watch those mujahideen,” it added, referring to Hamas terrorists, “and how proud they feel when they parade in their uniforms and weapons—and the extent of their honor when they carry out their jihadist operations against the Jews and their tentacles.”16
CAIR’s “investment” in InfoCom (as the item is listed on its balance sheet) was a large sum for the young organization. In fact, it represented more than half its total assets at the time, tax records show.17
And it was made after the U.S. government officially designated Hamas a terrorist group. In January 1995, President Clinton banned transfer of money to Hamas through charitable donations from U.S. groups and citizens.
The financial transaction is yet another piece of evidence that can be added to the pile of evidence prosecutors presented at trial confirming CAIR conspired with Holy Land to raise money for Hamas.
“There is no question CAIR supports Hamas,” says retired FBI special agent John Vincent, a twenty-seven-year veteran who worked Hamas terror funding cases in Chicago.
And not just Hamas, but terrorists operating here in our backyard, too.
CHAPTER FOUR
TERROR SUPPORT GROUP
“Washington must attempt to understand Islamic movements in the area, and start supporting Islamic groups including Mr. Bin Laden and his associates.”
—Draft of 2004 talking points memo found in CAIR’s executive files1
IT COMES AS LITTLE SURPRISE that a Palestinian terrorist front run by Palestinian refugees and created from a Palestinian terrorist group would support Palestinian terrorists. But CAIR also supports al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists, as well as homegrown terrorists who kill cops. It’s a full-service terror support group.
Consider the following clients:
IMAM JAMIL AL-AMIN
The black convert to Islam was a founding member of the Islamic Shura Council of North America and a darling of the Muslim Brotherhood. Then he shot two sheriff’s deputies and, instead of being shunned, became a martyr celebrated by CAIR and the rest of the Muslim mafia.
The Atlanta deputies were shot while trying to arrest al-Amin for failing to appear before a judge to answer auto theft charges. The Muslim preacher pulled out two guns and shot one deputy in both legs, the left arm, and the chest. He pumped another six bullets into the other deputy, kil
ling him, before fleeing the scene. He was captured after a multistate manhunt.
The surviving officer identified al-Amin from mugshots. Formerly known as H. Rap Brown, al-Amin had done time in New York for robbery. Bullets removed from the officers and recovered from the scene of the shooting, which took place outside al-Amin’s Atlanta home, matched al-Amin’s weapons.
In 2002, a jury convicted al-Amin and sentenced him to life in prison without parole for the murder of Fulton County Deputy Ricky Kinchen. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the verdict two years later.2
Despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, CAIR has practically canonized this vicious cop killer. The group participated in a news conference in Atlanta decrying his guilty verdict, and CAIR’s executive director even visited al-Amin in jail.
Worse, recent internal correspondence reveals that CAIR has been bankrolling the murderer’s legal defense fund.
“We extend appreciation to you and CAIR for the additional contribution of $9,000 to be used for legal expenses relative to Imam Jamil al-Amin’s case,” attorney Karima al-Amin wrote CAIR director Awad in a 2007 letter. “The contribution particularly was needed to defray the cost of the recent habeas hearing held in Reidsville, Georgia.”
“As always,” al-Amin closed, “Imam Jamil sends his greetings and appreciation for the assistance.”3
In other words, CAIR has been conspiring behind the scenes to release a cop killer from a maximum-security prison and put him back on the street.
AMERICAN TALIBAN
First CAIR defended John Walker Lindh, who’s serving a twenty-year sentence for fighting alongside the Taliban against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Then it tried to defend a second American Taliban before thinking better of it.
After the 2006 arrest of Kobie Williams, aka Abdul Kabeer, CAIR’s legal department considered rallying to his defense until the Houston college student pleaded guilty to charges he conspired to aid the Taliban. Even his lawyer admitted he made a “grave mistake,” creating a political dilemma for CAIR.
“It is a difficult case,” concluded then-CAIR national legal director Arasalan Iftikhar in an email to Awad and Hooper. “We need to stay away from this case publicly, in my opinion” (emphasis added).4
CAIR ultimately decided to back off the case because of the PR problem it would generate. However, later that month CAIR sent a representative from Houston to support another homegrown terrorist who happened to be a confederate of Williams in the so-called Houston Taliban group. Unlike Williams, Shira Syed Qazi did not admit guilt. So CAIR’s Houston chapter vice president showed up in court to cheer him on. A judge nonetheless found Qazi guilty.5
AHMED OMAR ABU ALI
CAIR’s leaders have received in their executive suites the lawyers and relatives of not only convicts Randall “Ismail” Royer and Lindh, but also those of the al-Qaida operative convicted of plotting to assassinate President Bush.
On April 22, 2004, just before noon, Abu Ali’s father left his office at the Saudi Embassy in Washington and met with CAIR director Awad, CAIR’s visitor register for that year shows.6 Then a few weeks later, Awad traveled to Saudi Arabia with the attorney for the Ali family. On May 14, Awad personally met with the U.S. consul in Saudi Arabia to challenge Abu Ali’s ongoing detention in a prison there and to lobby for his release.7
Awad and Abu Ali’s lawyer Ashraf Nubani met several times to coordinate efforts to free the al-Qaida-trained terrorist, even after he made a detailed confession.8 After a federal jury convicted Abu Ali on all counts of aiding al-Qaida and plotting terrorist attacks, CAIR continued to support and defend him. The young terrorist, who was recently linked to the al-Qaida ringleader of the London suicide bombings, is serving a life sentence in a supermax facility.
Entries in CAIR’s visitor register reveal its headquarters has an open door policy for such terrorists. CAIR is the only place in America (outside of criminal defense law firms) where terrorists are valued clients.
Curiously, there are no clients or visitors listed in CAIR’s national register during the month of September 2001. By comparison, numerous visitors made entries during the months of August 2001 and October 2001.
SAMI AL-ARIAN
CAIR has long championed the case of this convicted Palestinian terrorist, including co-sponsoring the premiere of a documentary film lionizing him. CAIR in 2007 hosted the screening of USA vs. Al-Arian at a Washington theater just a year after al-Arian was sentenced to fifty-seven months in prison followed by deportation.9
In a plea deal, he copped to a reduced charge of “conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods, or services to, or for the benefit of, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” a federally designated terror group.
After the former Florida professor was released from prison last year, CAIR issued a congratulatory statement. “We welcome Dr. al-Arian’s release and hope that it is an indication that justice may ultimately be served in this disturbing case,” said CAIR chief Awad.10
However, al-Arian remains under house arrest in northern Virginia on a federal contempt citation after refusing to testify in front of a Virginia grand jury investigating a network of Muslim Brotherhood fronts known as the Safa group, despite being granted immunity from prosecution. Al-Arian, a senior Muslim Brotherhood member, received funds from leaders of the Safa group.
TAHA AL-AWANI
Federal prosecutors listed al-Alwani as an unindicted co-conspirator in the al-Arian terror case. His International Institute of Islamic Thought, or IIIT, was the single biggest donor for al-Arian’s Tampa-based terror front group.11
The Virginia think tank IIIT (pronounced “triple I-T”) is at the center of a long-running terror financing probe vehemently protested by CAIR.
After federal agents raided IIIT and the other Brotherhood fronts in the Safa group network after 9/11, CAIR rushed to their defense, even lobbying members of Congress to pressure the Treasury Department and FBI to back off their investigations, internal CAIR documents detail.12
In one of its internal phone directories, CAIR lists another IIIT honcho among its “Recommended Community Leaders.” Jamal Barzinji, a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, remains the subject of a federal terror financing investigation. “Barzinji is not only closely associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad], but also with Hamas,” said senior federal agent David Kane in a sworn court affdavit.13
CAIR has a lot at stake in the Safa investigation. The ties between it and the Saudi-backed group are incestuous. For starters, CAIR contracts with Barzinji’s brother’s printing company to publish the books and other propaganda materials it distributes. Amana Limited’s offices were among those searched after 9/11.
Also, CAIR opened its Maryland/Virginia chapter right across the street from IIIT in Herndon, Virginia in an office owned by another Safa entity, Sterling Management Group.14 CAIR’s landlord, Sterling CEO Yaqub Mirza, a Safa ringleader also under terror suspicion, attended its ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2004.15
Of all the office space available in Fairfax County, CAIR chose to set up shop not just in Herndon, but on Grove Street, where many of the companies raided by federal agents are located. It was a natural fit, of course. CAIR intern Chris Gaubatz says he often walked across the street with CAIR employees—including his boss, Khalid Iqbal—to pray at the notorious IIIT, which has contributed thousands of dollars to CAIR’s operations, internal donor records kept by CAIR show.
Lucky for CAIR it did not operate an office in Herndon back in 2002 when agents conducted their raids on IIIT and the other Grove Street fronts. If it had, investigators say CAIR more than likely would have been included in the search warrant.
ZAID SHAKIR
CAIR keeps inviting this radical Muslim cleric back to speak at its events even though the FBI questioned him about a copy of one of his incendiary pamphlets found in the apartment of a suspect in the first World Trade Center bombing. The pro-jihad pamphlet lauded the “armed struggle” that brought about the rule of the Taliban
in Afghanistan.
In his lectures, Shakir preaches treachery against the United States. He once told a Muslim audience that hijacking U.S. military aircraft is fair game in jihad, as a forthcoming chapter will detail.
Shakir, who recently confided to the New York Times that he “would like to see America become a Muslim country” ruled by Islamic law,16 is a regular speaker at CAIR and ISNA events. Recently, he helped host workshops or delivered the keynote speech at banquets held at CAIR chapters in Chicago, Orlando, and San Diego, among others.
“Imam Zaid’s speeches are very practical and bring the best out of his listeners,” claims former CAIR official Ibrahim Moiz, a close personal friend who invited Shakir to speak to Muslims in Maryland.17
Perhaps the cleric has tempered his jihadist views? Not a chance: “I don’t regret anything I’ve done or said,” Shakir says.18
JAMES “YOUSEF” YEE
CAIR has also championed the cause of this former Army Muslim chaplain charged with espionage while serving at the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yee was caught returning to the U.S. with maps of Gitmo prison facilities and lists of U.S. interrogators and Taliban and al-Qaida detainees among other classified materials, and was arrested at a U.S. airport.
He was charged with espionage, mishandling classified documents, and lying to investigators; he served hard time in a South Carolina stockade. Two of his Muslim cronies at Gitmo, both Arabic interpreters, were convicted of stealing or mishandling classified documents.
Far from being exonerated, as he and CAIR contend, the military only dropped charges against him to protect national security. Guantanamo commander Major General Geoffrey Miller, who originally accused Yee of spying, explained that there were “national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence” if the case moved to trial.
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