July 29, 2005
American Muslim clerics issue fake fatwa against terrorism
I owe a big hat tip to Powerline's Scott Johnson for pointing me to The Counterterrorism Blog where, inter alia, terror experts Steve Emerson and Walid Phares have important things to say, like this:
The American Islamic Leaders' "Fatwa" is Bogus
This morning a group of American Islamic leaders held a press conference to announce a fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, against “terrorism and extremism.” An organization called the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) issued the fatwa, and the Council on American - Islamic Relations (CAIR) organized the press conference, stating that several major U.S. Muslim groups endorsed the fatwa.
In fact, the fatwa is bogus. Nowhere does it condemn the Islamic extremism ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism. It does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.
I spoke with Judea Pearl, father of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl who told me that the fatwa was “vacuous because it does not name the perpetrators of Islamic terrorist theologies and leaders of Islamic movements like Yousef Al Qaradawi, Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahari, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.” Pearl told me that these groups are “trying to perpetrate a deception on the American public.”
[Too bad they also deceived talk radio's Hugh Hewitt who gave 3 hours of his show this week to the spokesman from CAIR, who acted as if he were only nice enough to him as a guest that all Muslims would magically become peace-loving "moderates."
Good thing Emerson sets us back on the path about CAIR below.--Jen]
The Chairman of the Fiqh Council, Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Sami al-Arian, the alleged North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose trial began in June 2005 in Tampa, Florida. Mr. Alwani has been named in court documents as an official of several entities in northern Virginia suspected of being connected to terrorist financing. Documents released in the Al Arian trial show that Alwani funded the Islamic Jihad front groups in Tampa.
Another past trustee of the Fiqh Council, Abdurrahman Alamoudi, is serving a 23-year prison sentence for illegal financial dealings with Libya and immigration fraud, has admitted to his part in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Crown Prince, and has vocally announced his support for the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Additionally Alamoudi was just named by Treasury as having been a financier for Al Qaeda.
In 1998, Fiqh Council member Sheikh Muhammad al-Hanooti, gave a speech calling for jihad against the United States and the United Kingdom, saying that “Allah will curse the Americans and British” and “Allah, the curse of Allah will become true on the infidel Jews and on the tyrannical Americans.” Additionally, Hanooti is strongly linked to Hamas, having served on the board of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). A 2002 INS memo extensively documented IAP’s support for HAMAS and noted that the “facts strongly suggest” that IAP is “part of HAMAS’ propaganda apparatus.”
On October 28, 2000, Muzammil Siddiqui, the President of FCNA, at a rally in Lafayette Park in Washington D.C., said, “America has to learn -- if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come!"
In the past 4 years, several CAIR officials have been convicted of or charged with various terrorism-related offenses.
CAIR has championed and defended officials of Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzook, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian, Palestinian Islamic Jihad fundraiser Fawaz Damra, and the radical Egyptian cleric Wagdy Ghoneim.
CAIR has repeatedly attacked the prosecutions of Islamic terrorists arrested and/or convicted since 9-11 and has attacked the government’s freezing of Islamic terrorist fronts as part of a “war against Islam” by the United States.
CAIR has led protests against the deportation of radical Islamic clerics who have called for Jihad or who have been fundraisers for Hamas.
CAIR has asserted that the indictment of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian on conspiracy to murder more than 100 people was “politically motivated” and instigated by “the attack dogs of the pro-Israeli lobby.
CAIR has been named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the family of former FBI official John O’Neill, who was killed on 9-11.
One of the signatories to today’s fatwa is Fawaz Damra who was convicted of immigration fraud related to his ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and denaturalized. He is currently awaiting a deportation hearing.
Another signatory, the Muslim American Society, is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States and whose publications have repeatedly supported suicide bombings.
There's a link to a long report on the terror ties between American Muslim clerics and fundraisers and terror organizations.
Hugh Hewitt, are you listening?
For the time being, some Americans are marvelling at our "moderate" Muslims who've assimilated into our melting pot, as if there aren't a terrible few that can wreak the havoc that those native-born jihadis did in Britain.
Let's hope and pray that they're right and that none of "our" Muslims are the infidel-killing kind, but we shouldn't be too self-satisfied yet.
When "moderate" Muslims gave a
March Against Terror in Washington, D.C. only 2 months ago,
50 people showed up and there's a considerable Muslim community around our nation's capital.
July 27, 2005
6 more terror cells poised to strike U.K.
'Six further terror cells are poised to strike'
AS MANY as six more terrorist cells may be preparing to launch bombing attacks in Britain, with each unaware of the existence of the others, two of the world's most respected al-Qaeda experts warned yesterday.
[...]
Despite the seizure yesterday of a car believed to have been used by the gang, there have been no sightings of the men themselves since they were seen returning to the Curtis House flats after their failed attack.
[They're talking about the killers who did the failed 7/21 attacks in London.--Jen]
One theory is that the men picked up more explosives and then headed for another safe house, where they are waiting to strike again. But another possibility is that they will now lie low while other cells prepare their own attacks. '
[Either way, this is a nightmare!]
[...]
Mr Rana, the author of The Seeds of Terrorism, a new book on the jihadi threat, said he suspected the involvement of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba network, which has sought to expand its operations in recent years.
He said the group retained strong links with al-Qaeda leaders and had the facility to raise large amounts of money to fund its operations, often through charitable donations from sympathetic Muslims in western countries, including Britain.
[Watch with interest as University of S. Florida professor and Palestinian Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian defends his "innocent" Muslim fundraising activities here in the U.S.]
[...]
The problems facing the intelligence services in linking the cells are demonstrated by the failure of Spanish investigators, more than a year on from the Madrid attacks, to find solid connections between the perpetrators and al-Qaeda's leaders.
[It didn't help that some of these bad guys blew themselves up rather than being taken into custody by the police.]
The amount of help that can be expected from Pakistan is also in doubt. Despite a much-vaunted crackdown on extremists, there have been no arrests directly linked to the London attacks, and on Monday the country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said that al-Qaeda was too weak to organise terrorist attacks from Pakistan.
Would God that Musharraf was right, but I doubt it.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit if OBL was in Waziristan and had been there since November of 2001.
Perv's still trying to make up his mind as to whether it's worth his while to cooperate with the West and really fight the war on our side or whether he should cave to the Sunni/Waahab IslamoCrazies in his own country.
We need to hang onto ourselves in both the U.K. and the U.S.
As Friday's booms in Sharm el-Sheik showed us, the long, horrible summer is still not over and there are bad men who mean us harm still at large.
May God guide and protect us and lead our people to the evildoers before they can wreak their mayhem on us.
16 bombs found in 7/7 London bombers' car
Photo of one of the nailbombs found in Luton.
The deadly nailbombs meant for London commuters
Shocking new images have emerged of unexploded bombs, some packed around with nails, which were found in a car left behind by the July 7 London bombers.
In total, 16 bombs were found in the red Nissan car parked at Luton railway station. It is is believed the car was rented in Leeds by Shehzad Tanweer, one of the four bombers who killed themselves and 52 others in a co-ordinated attack on three London Underground trains and a bus earlier this month.
The sheer number of devices has raised fears that the scale of the July 7 bomb plot was much larger than originally imagined.
[If they could have killed 520 or 5,200 rather than 52, they would have.
I suppose in a way, the British were "lucky" they weren't able to use the rest of their cache.
Frightening.--Jen]
The presence of nailbombs graphically illustrates that the bombing cell wanted to inflict the maximum possible pain, injury and risk of death on innocent London commuters, security analysts say.
[...]
"And the nails are put there so that when the bomb goes off, the nails will tear tissue and kill people in the area. Bombs don't kill by concussion. Small bombs, they kill by the blast effects of fragments of glass or metal, and this is designed to kill people."
[Ask the Israelis or anyone who's been following the Intifada about nailbombs;
to their sorrow, they knew only too well how lethal and/or maiming these nailbombs are.]
Meanwhile police were continuing to question Yasin Hassan Omar, named by police as one of the would-be terrorists in the attempted second wave of London bombs on July 21. Omar is believed to have been on the run since a bomb failed to detonate on a tube train at Warren St station last Thursday. Three others, whose devices also failed to go off, are also wanted by police.
Omar was felled with a Taser stun gun after a scuffle with police officers who raided a house at 04.30.
[The British police have now resorted to the stun gun due to the blow back from shooting that "innocent" Brazilian suspect.
I still think we haven't heard the whole story about him.]
[...]
Today his family said in a press conference that the electrician had acted as "training" for the security forces. They said that by shooting dead 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes the police had learned the wrong course of action - and were now using stun guns instead.
Stun guns aren't the answer: if the suspect is wearing an explosive/suicide belt, the electricity could set off the bomb.
(This is why the police shot for his head and not in the stomach.)
The police were right to shoot Menezes, even if he wasn't one of the bombers.
They shouldn't hesistate to shoot anyone who acts similarly suspicious in future.
He ran from the cops when they told him repeatedly to stop--apparently, his English was just fine, although I maintain that a human being would understand the situation in any language other than his own.
Further, Brazilians are used to deferring to police commands to halt, according to people who've lived there.
Menenez's apologists also said that he was running because he was in the UK illegally, but Jack Straw said that wasn't true either.
This man was running from armed police (who announced themselves as such) from the vicinity of a terrorists' nest and wearing a heavy coat on a
very warm day.
He was even thought to have tried to take a woman hostage when he fled onto the Tube train.
British police shouldn't give his "suicide by cop" another thought.
Millenium bomber gets only 22 years' prison term
Would-be airport bomber gets 22 years
The man convicted of plotting to blow up the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison.
Ahmed Ressam got a lighter sentence than prosecutors had requested, reflecting his cooperation in telling international investigators about the workings of terror camps in Afghanistan.
[This is what happens when we pursue terrorism like a domestic crime. Pathetic.
This killer wanted to kill thousands and would have had a sharp U.S. border agent not caught him with the bombs.--Jen]
But Ressam, 38, could have received a shorter sentence had he not stopped talking to investigators in early 2003. Prosecutors argued that his recalcitrance has jeopardized cases against two of his co-conspirators.
In sentencing Ressam, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said he hoped to balance U.S. resolve to punish potential terrorist acts with Ressam's cooperation. Coughenour also said he hoped to send a message that the U.S. court system works in terrorism cases.
[I'm sad to say that President Reagan appointed this guy.
The U.S. court system does not "work" in terrorism cases and this case is a case in point.
This is the reason we have Gitmo and why terror detainees will be tried under a military tribunal, not a domestic criminal court where the trend has been to give lighter and lighter sentences and where they treat terrorists as if they were pedophiles and we're none too happy about how lenient they are with child molesters, either.]
"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely or deny the defendant the right to counsel. ... Our courts have not abandoned the commitment to the ideals that set this nation apart," he said.
[That would be fine, Judge, if this man were an American citizen, but he's far from it!
He's an Algerian IslamoFascist murderer who had the intent to kill thousands of us and deprive us of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the real ideals that set this nation apart.--J.T.]
Ressam, an Algerian, was arrested in Port Angeles in December 1999 as he drove off a ferry from British Columbia with a trunk full of bomb-making materials.
[Just like the Islamist mass killers in Britain who bombed London on 7/7.]
[...]
Coughenour and federal prosecutors want Ressam to testify against his two co-conspirators, Samir Ait Mohamed and Abu Doha, who are awaiting extradition from Canada and Britain, respectively.
Information provided by Ressam in the past was given to anti-terrorism field agents around the world -- in one case, helping to prevent the mishandling and potential detonation of the shoe bomb that Richard Reid attempted to blow up aboard an American Airlines flight in December 2001, Hillier[Ressam's Lefty ACLU-loving lawyer] said.
['Scuse me, but it was the brave flight attendants and passengers on that flight who kept Richard Reid from lighting his shoes and blowing up the plane!--Jen]
This slimebucket should have gotten life, if not the death penalty.
22 years won't be that long---he could be out in 13-14 years with "good behavior."
As long as these butchers can work our system(s), they will.
The Brits are now finding out first hand how impotent and ineffective it can be to pursue, prosecute and punish terrorist killers as domestic criminals with "civil rules" can be.
PM
Tony Blair is even fighting with his wife about it in public!
Don't let it escape your attention, also, that this killer came in through the Canadian border;
we need to secure both the Mexican and Canadian borders!
Let's do something to make sure this velvet glove treatment of terrorists will stop!
What say you, America?
And for pity's sake, let's keep Gitmo going and the ACLU lawyers away from the detainees!
We need to add a provision to the Patriot Act that requires that all non-U.S. citizens charged with terrorism be remanded to custody at Gitmo for military trial and incarceration there.
