How could an imam get mixed up in a jihad plot? Can even an imam become a Misunderstander of Islam? How did he miss the Koran's true, peaceful teachings? New York/Colorado bomb plot update: "FBI says imam Ahmad Afzali worked both sides and tipped off suspects," by Elizabeth Hays and Helen Kennedy for the New York Daily News, September 21:
The Queens imam arrested in the Denver terrorism probe is an FBI informant the feds say became a double agent - tipping suspects that they were in the government's crosshairs.
Ahmad Afzali, 37, insisted he's been loyally helping the government root out extremists since 9/11.
His lawyer, Ron Kuby, calls him a fall guy.
"I think the FBI is angry that they blew this case, and they want to blame poor Imam Afzali for blowing the investigation," Kuby said.
Afzali told the News just hours before he was arrested Saturday night for lying to the feds that "someone is trying to set me up."
His parents immigrated to Fresh Meadows from Afghanistan when he was 7. They owned pizzerias and were wealthy enough to give their son every new gadget, schoolmates said.
He became religious in high school, and preached at the Masjid Hazrat Abu Bakr Islamic Center, New York's largest Afghan mosque, until 2007, when he opened a funeral business....
In interviews last week, he told The News he was always happy to help the FBI.
"They come for information, and I always help," he said. "I have helped them many times."
According to the government, agents approached Afzali Sept. 10 and showed him a photo of Najibullah Zazi, 24, a fellow Afghan immigrant who moved from Queens to Denver.
The next day, Sept. 11, FBI wiretaps caught Zazi's father telling his son he'd gotten a call from Afzali warning him the FBI was showing his photo.
The father was urging his son to call Afzali when call-waiting beeped: Afzali was on Zazi's other line.
"They asked me about you guys," the imam told the suspected terrorist, according to a transcript. "They came to ask me about your characters."
He continued, "I'm not sure what happened. And I don't want to know ...I told them that 'they are innocent, law abiding.'"
Afzali told Zazi to take comfort that the FBI was just asking around about them.
"Trust me, that is a good sign," he said. "The bad sign is for them coming to you guys and picking you up automatically."
Afzali told Zazi: "Listen, our phone call is being monitored."
Hours later, Zazi called the imam to say his rental car had vanished. Afzali allegedly asked if there was any "evidence" in the car and Zazi said no.
The car contained bomb making notes, the FBI says.
According to the government, when questioned April 17, Afzali said it was Zazi who called him, not the other way around.
He allegedly denied tipping Zazi to the probe or asking about evidence in the car - and even denied saying the call was being taped.
Kuby said that charge made no sense. "Why on earth would he lie about the contents of a conversation that he knows is being recorded?" he said. "It would be insane for him to lie about that!"
Kuby said his client might have been confused about who called whom, but was trying to help. "The government asked him to make contact with (Zazi) and find out what he was up to," Kuby said. "So he left out a bunch of things. He's not a trained stenographer. He is doing everything they want him to do."
Prosecutors are skeptical. "Why would he ask Zazi about 'evidence' in his car?" said one official close to the case.
Cousin John Afzali, 42, manager of the family-owned pizzeria Valentino's, called the charges "bogus."
"He's a good guy. He's not extreme. I don't think they got the right person," he said....
"He's a good guy. He's not extreme." said John Afzali, manager of Valentino's, a pizzeria apparently owned by the Afzalis (and one I hope sees its clientele quickly abandon it).
If Islam is good, what's wrong with being an "extreme" Believer in Islam? If Islam is good, then isn't the person who takes Islam most completely to heart, follows its teachings most closely, a wonderful guy? What's wrong with being "extreme" in your following of Islam, if Islam itself is simply swell?
War is deceit, said the prophet of Islam.
He also said the unbelievers are dumb, deaf and blind. Looks like he got that right from the beginning...
LGF is sinking.
Sheik - I suspect that that line you mentioned, about the unbelievers being deaf, dumb and blind, expresses the malevolent arrogance of the successful conman and shyster. It's the equivalent of P T Barnum's 'there's a sucker born every minute'.
Interesting that this post should be next to the Dr. Strangelove/Pakistan post.
What's the common denominator? Why, Islam, of course.
There can't possibly be loyalty, honesty, trust between the infidel and the muhammadanm, nor between the infidel country and the muhammadan land. The muhammadan's loyalty (individual or collective) is always to the cult of the fiend muhammad.
Should a muhammadan be trust-worthy, it would have to be because on some level the self-identified muhammadan was well on the way to apostacy.
All the idols of the West, multiculturalism, the new international world order will have to be ammered to bits. When we're all Gert Wilders, then we'll know that the grand pedagogical effort that is Jihad Watch has succeeded.
A few observations.
First, from the article: ."I told them that 'they are innocent, law abiding.'"
And again," He's a good guy. He's not extreme."
This needs the Islamspeak decoder. The Muslims speaking are using words that mean one thing in Islamspeak, but which they also know quite will be taken very differently by their Infidel hearers.
'Innocent' in Muslimspeak - 'Muslim'. Qua Muslim, all Muslims are 'innocent' (and conversely, all kafir are guilty and deserve whatever horrible things happen to them or are meted out by the righteous and innocent Muslims).
'Law abiding' = abides by Muslim law, sharia.
Translation - they are good sharia-respecting Muslims.
'Good guy' = Good Muslim, doing whatever he can, under difficult circumstances, to promote the advancement of the dominance of the Ummah.
'Not extreme' = 'just doing what he ought to do, no more and no less'.
My second observation is a hearty seconding of Hugh's remark above -' John Afzali, manager of Valentino's, a pizzeria apparently owned by the Afzalis (and one I hope sees its clientele quickly abandon it)'.
Knowing what I now know about the depth of hatred and hostility that is inculcated in Muslims, toward non-Muslims, and having read portions of the 'sermon' in which Abu Hamza exhorted Muslims in the UK to use 'mice poison' to attack the Infidels around them, if more potent and broadly applicable chemical weaponry were not to be had, and having read the documented reports of Mohammedans in Israel, Canada, the UK and the USA deliberately contaminating (with powdered feces, with spittle, with inserted needles), or plotting to contaminate/ poison foodstuffs intended for Infidels, there is now absolutely no way that I would patronise a coffee cart, an icecream van, or a pizzeria or a curry house or a kebab shop or *any* kind of establishment owned and staffed by Mohammedans that was purveying food to Infidels. Not simply in order to deny my custom as a way of lessening the funding for jihad, but as a much more immediate practice of Safety First, or, Better Sure than Sorry. For how can one be sure that that spicy dish, that turkish coffee, does not contain hidden extras: anything from at best, spittle, urine or dried-and-powdered feces, and at worst, a soupcon of arsenic or thallium or warfarin or godknowswhat else?
And why oh why does any Infidel employer still insist on employing Mohammedans in any capacity that gives them unobserved access to foodstuffs primarily intended for non-Muslims? Because although there are non-Muslims who maliciously contaminate food (the notorious Typhoid Mary, and assorted would-be extortionists trying to extract cash from food chains, etc) they are random cases; the Mohammedan who contaminates infidel food, on the other hand, is doing so as the result of an ideology; s/he is waging Jihad, weakening the camp of the Infidel by the means at his or her disposal.
Perhaps the 'halal' designation. by separating Muslim from non-Muslim foods, is in part intended to make it easier for Muslims to contaminate non-Muslim foods and know that their sabotage won't inadvertently harm fellow Muslims?
this terrorist in the making was normal until he became the "pious muslim". when in other religions when you become pious you are not a danger to society, when you become pious within islam you are a powder keg. I think they need more Robert talking to the FBI to understand the mindset of islam.
OT: There is another Islam apologist on the u-haul topic (http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/09/al-qaeda-linked-new-york-jihad-plotters-tried-to-rent-a-u-haul-truck.html).
He's making the claim that there are only a tiny minority(tm) of no goods in Islam.
I've been trying to answer his claims, though I feel not as eloquent as other writers here, I thought I'd make you aware of it since it is an somewhat old topic if you'd want to fill in points I missed.
Here are some excerpts from The Times story on this imam:
"Ahmad Wais Afzali had for years been a popular imam in Queens. First at one mosque, and then at others, he had become known for his moving sermons. He also ran a funeral home, and won praise for helping families deal with their grief."
.............................................
"But on Saturday night, federal officials arrested Mr. Afzali, 37, effectively claiming that their onetime source of assistance had betrayed them by tipping off Mr. Zazi, and then lying to them about it."
..............................................
"Though it was unclear if Mr. Afzali had rediscovered Afghanistan of late, his neighbors described his passion for cars."
“He always had fresh, expensive cars,” said Messia Ben Yosef, 23, a pharmacy student who said Mr. Afzali lived on his street for at least 15 years. He said Mr. Afzali drove a white Jaguar XJ8."
..............................................
"Mr. Afzali’s wife said her husband was a Muslim 'from the inside out.'"
Imam Ahmad Afazali was no doubt being paid to "report" anything amiss to the poliice and the FBI. And he is not alone. One can well imagine the huge sums now being used to bribe Muslims to report -- how well we do not know -- on other Muslims in this country. The quality of those reports, the trustworthiness of those informants, surely must be in doubt. And we could save a whole lot of money simply by not admitting any of those Muslims int he first place or, at the very least, we could stop shooting ourselves not in the foot, but in the chest, as we do by allowing Muslim immigration to continue.
Qaere #1: did Taxpayers' Money -- as money for this meretricious "informant" -- go to pay for Imam Afzali's white Jaguar XJ8?
Quaere #2: Was that a white Jaguar XJ8 or wasthat a white Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas?
What makes any given Muslim trustworthy, to be trusted with our lives? A smile, a friendly demeanor, Western clothes? No observable "extremist" behavior or associations (as defined by the irrationally narrow guidelines of our PC MC-straitjacketed authorities)?
Apparently, the only thing that makes any given Muslim trustworthy -- out in the indiscriminately broad world outside those narrow guidelines -- is the abstract principle that there must exist trustworthy Muslims and that, furthermore, stretching this principle further to the breaking point, that those trustworthy Muslims constitute the majority, if not the "vast majority" of Muslims worldwide.
Come to think of it, what possible guidelines could be rationally devised by which to establish with sufficient certainty -- for the purposes of our safety -- the existence of that wondrous species, the trustworthy Muslim? Can anyone help me with this?
This is no different then how the FBI partners with other dubious Islamic figures from CAIR on down. Or, on a national scale, how both Republican and Democratic politicians bandied about with convicted jihad terrorists Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi.
That the FBI thought this imam was on their side and was later surprised that he was a "double agent" shows just how far they are behind the power curve.
Good on them that they caught these guys but they need to take off the blinders ~ and the gloves.
VIRGIL POSTED:
"Or, on a national scale, how both Republican and Democratic politicians bandied about with convicted jihad terrorists Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi"
Virgil surely had Grover Norquist in mind.