Muslim Mafia
Page 28
Samir Abou-Issa
Anwar Auluqi (aka Anwar al-Awlaki)
Abdulhamid Abusulayman
Taha al-Alwani
Hisham Altalib
M. Omar Ashraf
Muhammad Ashraf
Bassam Estwani
Jawad F. George
Yaqub Mirza
Tanveer Mirza
Fawaz Mushtaha
Cherif Sedky
Khaled Saffuri
Mohammed Cheema
Ali al-Timimi
Osama M. Kandil
Ashraf Nubani
Abdulwahab Alkebsi
Rabih Haddad
Omar Abdul Rahman (aka Blind Sheik)
Gaddour Saidi
Ahmed Elkadi
Hamed al-Ghazali
Zeid al-Noman (aka Zaid Naman)
Jihad Fahmy
Khalid Iqbal
Hani Sakr
Ziad Abu-Ghanimeh
Mohammed M. Shamma
Mahdi Bhadori
Ilyas Ba-Yunus
Moinuddin Siddiqui
Mahmoud Rashdan
Talat Sultan
Ibrahim Hassaballa
Syed Imtiaz Ahmad
Haroon Qazi
Anwar Ibrahim
Mohamed Hadid
Bassam Othman
Hammad Zaki
Ahmed Elhatab
Mohammed Elharezi
Abdel Jabbar Hamdan
Ghassan Saleh
Riad Ahmed
Abdul-Rahman Baraksi
Akram Kharroubi
Amin Ezziddine
Souheil Ghannouchi
Dawood Abdulrahman
Oussama Elbaba
Abdulkareem Jama
Ali Mohamed
Abdalla Idris Ali
Abdullah bin Laden
* * *
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NUCLEUS: ISNA
“A logical investigation will confront why four foreign students from Southern Illinois University came to Plainfield [Indiana] to buy a large land mass and build a multimillion-dollar mosque where there were no Muslims within hundreds of miles.”
—Tim Pitchford, retired FBI agent, Indianapolis field office1
IF THERE ARE ANY DOUBTS about the financial might of the Muslim mafia, stop by the headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America next time you’re in the Indianapolis suburbs. It reeks of money.
You can’t miss it: There, towering above the prairie, looms a mammoth all-brick structure with two rows of tiny slots for windows. The geometric cluster of cavernous buildings resembles an Islamic fortress, and it’s surrounded by a fiefdom of privately held land.
More than thirty years ago, a handful of Muslim college students and engineers from the Middle East acquired 124 acres of farmland near the Indianapolis airport and moved the offices of the Muslim Students Association there, forming the roots of ISNA.2
They soon announced plans for a forty-two-acre compound on the Plainfield, Indiana, site to include a $3.5 million mosque, along with classrooms, residences, a gym, and a recreational area. Today, the sprawling ISNA campus also includes an eighty-thousand-volume library and a research facility.
Where did these foreign students get the money to erect such an extravagant religious monument?
“Where they got the money is a key question,” says Tim Pitchford, a retired FBI agent who worked terrorism and counterintelligence cases in Indianapolis. “It came from overseas banks, and the FBI never was able to investigate, as we were talking about a ‘religion’ and bank records,” and religious institutions are generally considered off-limits and bank records the domain of the Treasury Department.3
However, such restrictions may be easing, he says, now that ISNA has been named a co-conspirator in the war on terror and now that FBI headquarters is better educated regarding the Muslim Brotherhood threat.
“A logical investigation will confront why four foreign students from Southern Illinois University came to Plainfield to buy a large land mass and build a multi-million-dollar mosque where there were no Muslims within hundreds of miles,” Pitchford says.4
Like CAIR, ISNA was developed as a front for the radical Muslim Brotherhood and bankrolled by shady, terror-tied partners in the Middle East.
The massive ISNA complex was funded with a whopping $21 million raised in part from radical Brotherhood figures Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Saudi-tied Youssef Nada, as well as the emir of Qatar, where Qaradawi is based.5
Nada, a Brotherhood bigwig originally from Egypt, founded Bank al-Taqwa (“Fear of Allah”), which funneled money to Hamas and al-Qaida through a close associate of Osama bin Laden. Nada is a specially designated global terrorist.
Saudi money also was funding ISNA from the very beginning of the organization.
Muslim Students Association co-founder Jamal Barzinji was business partners with Nada and was working for one of his companies in Saudi Arabia during the time ISNA’s headquarters was being planned, funded, and built. Barzinji also headed the financial arm of ISNA—the North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT.
In 1981, ISNA was founded as “a nucleus for the Islamic Movement in North America,” according to an internal Muslim Brotherhood document.6
It’s now the umbrella organization for the Brotherhood, controlling several front groups and hundreds of mosques and schools. While CAIR enjoys more notoriety and is more visible in the media, ISNA is more venerable and ingrained in U.S. society.
Its predecessor, the Muslim Students Association, still serves as the main recruiting tool for the Brotherhood in the U.S.
MSA’S CAMPUS JIHAD
With 150 campus chapters, MSA is one of the nation’s largest college groups. CAIR chief Nihad Awad, for example, got his start as an MSA activist at the University of Minnesota.
MSA also organizes anti-Israel student rallies and hectors college administrators into Islamizing campus facilities.
MSA chapters from New York to California have extolled suicide bombers and other terrorists as “martyrs” and the “only people who truly fear Allah.” And they are a big reason why, according to a recent Pew Research poll, one in four college-age Muslims in America support suicide bombings.
MSA is also the catalyst behind Shariah creep on college campuses.
The militant group has set up a national task force to pressure college administrators into accommodating Muslim students with, among other things:
Islamic prayer rooms;
Paid campus imams;
Special restroom facilities, such as footbaths, for ritual washing;
Separate food and housing for Muslim students;
Campus-wide observance of Islamic holidays; and
Separate athletic hours for Muslim women.
ISNA’S ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
After MSA and ISNA established their beachhead in Indianapolis, Pitchford says he noticed that immigrants from the Middle East began pouring into the state. He and other agents observed a pattern: many of the immigrants were in the country illegally, and they were sponsored by ISNA.
“Six-month visitor visas started coming into Indiana sponsored by ISNA by the thousands over the years,” Pitchford says in an exclusive interview.7
Unfortunately, “the visa fraud cases we presented were not prosecuted by Washington,” he says. “These same visa visitors are still here illegally.”
ISNA denies any wrongdoing. And it has fought its recent inclusion on a list of co-conspirators in the terrorism case against the Holy Land Foundation. ISNA argues it was “unjustly branded by the government,” a move that has “profoundly harmed” its reputation and “adversely impacted the organization’s efforts to advance its mission.”8
The blacklisting may indeed have hurt ISNA. Attendance at last year’s ISNA convention was low, and even ISNA’s flagship mosque in Plainfield has been drawing fewer and fewer Muslims. Attendance at Friday services is down sharply, local observers say.
ISNA, which promotes itself as a voice of moderation, insists it “h
as not now or ever been involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, or supported any covert, illegal, or terrorist activity or organization.”9
In a separate statement on its Web site, the group goes even further, arguing it has never been “influenced” by the Muslim Brotherhood.10
Of course this is a blantant falsehood. The evidence designating ISNA as a leading branch of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood is overwhelming, and ISNA’s links to fundraising on behalf of Hamas are equally strong.
TWO DOZEN COURT EXHIBITS
In 2007, the Justice Department officially labeled ISNA and its financial subsidiary NAIT a U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and listed both entities as co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terror case. When ISNA protested, federal prosecutors pointed to nearly two dozen court exhibits that establish:
…both ISNA’s and NAIT’s intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case. Accordingly, there is no possible basis for petitioner’s “expungement” from the government’s list of co-conspirators.11
For starters, the U.S. Brotherhood’s own internal memos confirm that ISNA and NAIT were among those groups created by the Brotherhood. A 1991 memo identified twenty-nine front groups. Topping the list was the Islamic Society of North America.
Another Brotherhood document confirms the relationship by stating that the secret group exercised leadership and direction over ISNA, including “setting expectations for ISNA for the next decade.”12 Yet another Brotherhood document, in the form of a spreadsheet, lists ISNA under the heading: “The Apparatuses.”13
BANKROLLING HAMAS
Equally convicting is the evidence that reveals ISNA collaborated in the Holy Land Foundation conspiracy to funnel money to Hamas terrorists.
Prosecutors say Brotherhood leaders sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas through bank accounts controlled by ISNA and its financial arm NAIT. The proof ranges from wiretapped conversations to bank records and other documents, including:
ISNA checks deposited into the ISNA/NAIT account for the Holy Land Foundation, which were often made payable to “the Palestinian Mujahadeen,” the original name for the Hamas military wing;14
An expense voucher from NAIT made out for $10,000 in the name of Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook;15
A $10,000 check drawn on a NAIT account made payable to Abu Marzook;16
Another NAIT check for $10,000 made out to Abu Marzook’s wife, Nadia Elashi;17
FBI recordings revealing Hamas leaders discussed ISNA during their secret 1993 Philadelphia meeting to plot ways to launder payments through Brotherhood charities and nonprofit organizations;18
A NAIT check for $30,000 made out to a Hamas school in the Gaza Strip with the name of Shukri Abu Baker—the now-convicted U.S.-based leader of Hamas—written in the memo line;19
A Brotherhood phonebook listing Abu Baker and two Indianapolis phone numbers for him—including an ISNA fax number still in use today—indicating the Hamas leader had worked out of ISNA’s headquarters near Indianapolis;20 and
A three-page internal Brotherhood memo citing Abu Baker as the point man for “coordinating with ISNA in the accounting” of funds for the Palestinian “Intifada,” the bloody anti-Israel uprising led by Hamas.21
FBI investigators say they’re continuing to collect evidence against ISNA that could sway prosecutors to seek a full criminal indictment. The FBI’s Washington and Indianapolis field offices recently put together a fifty-page dossier on the Brotherhood front group.
ROGUES’ GALLERY
In addition, several ISNA founders and board members have been accused of supporting or having ties to terrorism. They include:
Jamal Badawi: a founding father of the U.S. Brotherhood and a current ISNA board member who was listed among unindicted co-conspirators who raised money for the terrorist front Holy Land Foundation;22
Siraj Wahhaj: an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who has urged Muslims to overturn the U.S. system of government and set up an Islamic dictatorship. He has served as an ISNA vice president and board member;
Abdurahman Alamoudi: Former MSA president and ISNA regional representative for Washington now in prison for plotting terrorism and financing al-Qaida;
Sami al-Arian: Confessed Palestinian terrorist who admits he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood during the time he helped found ISNA;
Bassam Osman: Longtime NAIT director and landlord of al-Arian’s Islamic Academy of Florida, a madrassa accused of raising funds and providing other support for Palestinian terrorists;
Yusuf al-Qaradawi: U.S.-designated supporter of terrorism barred from entering the country. He co-founded ISNA’s office in Boston and helped finance ISNA’s national headquarters;
Sayyid Syeed: Former board member of Dar al-Hijrah, the 9/11 mosque, and longtime director of academic outreach at IIIT, the Brotherhood think tank under investigation for bankrolling terrorism. He has served as secretary general of ISNA, and is currently director of ISNA’s Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances in Washington;
Esam Omeish: Dar al-Hijrah vice president who personally hired the 9/11 imam, and who recently was exposed on video encouraging “the jihad way” and praising Palestinian terrorists as martyrs. He’s a former MSA president and ISNA board member; and
Jamal Barzinji: Original trustee holding title to Dar al-Hijrah accused by federal authorities of being “closely associated” with Hamas and other terrorist groups, according to court records. He served as president of MSA, and was a key founder and board member of ISNA. As an MSA leader in the early 1970s, in fact, Barzinji hosted top leaders of the Egyptian Brotherhood, just released from sixteen years in prison, for two weeks of meetings in Indianapolis.23
In 2008 ISNA awarded Barzinji for his “pioneering service” with its annual Dr. Mahboob Khan Community Service Award. Khan, one of the early founders of the Brotherhood movement in America, started a mosque in Santa Clara, California, which hosted and raised money for Egyptian Brotherhood leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, now second in command of al-Qaida. (Khan’s son, who claims to be a Republican, infiltrated the White House and U.S. Transportation Department during the previous administration.)
THE ISNA-CAIR NEXUS
ISNA is a sister organization of CAIR. The two Brotherhood fronts coordinate operations, share funding, and maintain interlocking boards of directors.
For example, Ishsan Bagby—the Islamic “scholar” who advises Muslims they can “never be full citizens of this country” until they change it—currently sits on the boards of both CAIR and ISNA.
Safaa Zarzour also has a high-level role in both groups, as chairman of CAIR’s Chicago chapter and ISNA’s Education Forum. Khalid Iqbal, moreover, served as CAIR’s national operations director as well as an ISNA vice president and director, chairing ISNA’s annual convention for six years, according to a copy of his resumé.
Despite ISNA’s proven ties to terrorism and extremism, politicians in Washington continue to reach out to it, fooled as they are by the front group’s carefully manicured facade of moderation.
A PRAYER FOR OBAMA
Most recently, a top aide to President Obama this summer provided a keynote address at ISNA’s national convention in Washington. The senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, had the dubious distinction of being the first White House official to address ISNA.
Earlier in the year, Obama invited ISNA President Ingrid Mattson to deliver a prayer at the inaugural National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. As a woman, Mattson, an ex-Catholic convert to Islam, cannot be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. But she has served to soften ISNA’s image and put a more benign face on its operations.
Mattson also spoke at a prayer service at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. James “Yousef” Yee, the Gitmo military chaplain accused of spying for al-Qaida, worked ISNA’s table at the convention, while serving as an Obama delegate.
In 2007, the Justice Department’s c
ivil rights division actually co-sponsored ISNA’s annual convention in Chicago over the objections of career prosecutors who feared the outreach would undermine its case against the Holy Land Foundation and its co-conspirators.
Justice officials even manned an information booth at ISNA, angering Republicans.
“It is disgraceful that our Department of Justice was prosecuting ISNA in Texas while attending an ISNA conference in Illinois,” said Representative Sue Myrick (R-NC), who fired off a letter to the attorney general protesting the overture.24
The Justice Department wasn’t alone. The Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Defense also set up tables at the ISNA event.
Most disturbing, the Pentagon put up a job booth to recruit Muslim chaplains and Arabic linguists. Pentagon officials even met with ISNA leaders. One of the military officials was Hesham Islam, an Egyptian immigrant who rose to the position of special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense.25 Just months earlier, Islam spoke privately with CAIR Governmental Affairs Director Corey Saylor, notes from a CAIR executive staff meeting reveal.
That same year, Islam invited ISNA officials to lunch with then-Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England at the Pentagon. England spoke at ISNA’s 2006 convention. Islam arranged it.
Raising more suspicion, Islam has run major interference for ISNA. For example, he recently convinced Pentagon brass not to renew the contract of Pentagon analyst Major Stephen Coughlin after Coughlin argued in briefings that the Defense Department should cease outreach programs with ISNA because of its radical Muslim Brotherhood ties.
PLANTING MUSLIM CHAPLAINS
Islam’s influence is particularly alarming concerning chaplain recruitment.
ISNA maintains a chaplaincy board to recommend Muslim clerics for the military. One of the board members is Ahmed Alwani, dean of the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences. The GSISS president is Taja Alwani, a key Brotherhood figure and an unindicted co-conspirator in the al-Arian terror case.26