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Smuggling for the jihad in Detroit, Dearborn, and Windsor, Ontario. "Windsor man called 'major player' in smuggling ring," from the Windsor Star, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
DETROIT - A U.S. judge denied bail Tuesday to a Windsor man accused of being "a major player" in a smuggling ring that sent money to a Lebanese terrorist group.Judge Virginia Morgan agreed with the prosecutor's argument that Karim Hassan Nasser, who was born in Lebanon and lives in Windsor, would flee the United States if he was let out on bail.
"These are allegations of a large-scale and well-organized conspiracy," said Morgan.
Nasser, 37, a Veteran Cab driver, was among nine men arrested last month in Michigan in connection with the multimillion-dollar ring, alleged to have smuggled cigarettes, counterfeit Viagra and Zig Zig rolling papers, socks, toilet paper and baby formula.
Ten others who live outside the U.S. were also named in the indictment. They include Naji Hassan Alawie, 44, and Hassan Hassan Nasser, 36, both from Windsor, and two Montreal men.
Authorities said profits of the operation were sent to Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based organization that Canada and the United States recognize as having links to terrorism, and used to support the families of suicide bombers.
As much as $500,000 worth of untaxed or low-taxed cigarettes were ferried each week between the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in New York state, North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan and New York, authorities allege.
Some of the proceeds included about $20 million in unpaid Michigan cigarette taxes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said in court.
She said authorities sought to detain two of the accused before trial for fears they would flee.
The other man, Imad Majed Hamadeh, 51, of Dearborn, Mich., was granted bail last week.
McQuade said Nasser, who was caught when he tried to cross the border into the U.S., is a flight risk because of his living arrangements.
Nasser was born in Lebanon and spent more than 20 years there, she said. He's a U.S. citizen but lives in Windsor with his wife and children.
Posted by Robert at April 5, 2006 5:18 PM
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Here's where George goes with the very program his former opponent Kerry recommended: deal with terror as a police matter.
We know who they were raising money for, but, remember, Islam is a religion. These criminals just happen to be Moslems. It would a violation of their U.S. Consititutional rights as Moslems to charge them with terror, even though they are jihadists.
ILAH ALLAH HA HA BLAH INSHALLAH ARABIA SYRIA HISBULLAH AHA OOO AHH
Thank you George. Thank you for joe bold leadership. Next time I see you holding hands with a Wahhabi male in a garden, I'll better understand of what's really going on.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 5, 2006 6:23 PM
I can’t wait until those anti smoking people use this for a commercial. You guys have seen them, body bags in the street. Now we can do a similar commercial with body bags and blame them half on smoking and half on terrorists using tobacco for funding. What a banner: smoking used to kill X number of people daily, now the numbers are double.
Posted by: Ronin at April 5, 2006 6:53 PM
"...counterfeit Viagra..."?
Is that just a new code name for the Koran?
Posted by: profitsbeard at April 5, 2006 6:55 PM
Windsor, Detroit, Dearborn... It won't surprise me at all if Toledo pops up again in all of this.
And while a terrorist mecca emerges at the foot of the Great Lakes, Medina, OH still seems to have been spared.
Posted by: Shinoliite at April 5, 2006 7:11 PM
At least the judge had brains and denied the windsor terrorist bail! l dont know the legality about putting them in a military court, not like those found on the battlefield. l read in the paper how his realitives denied he is a terrorist.. l dont get the Windsor Star everyday, last week l had a hard time keeping my lunch down when l read the editorial about how the muslim community had this outreach progam to get other people to better understand their terrorist cult.. l mean religion! seems we got a problem here on both sides of the border!
Posted by: Lulu at April 5, 2006 7:17 PM
And while a terrorist mecca emerges at the foot of the Great Lakes, Medina, OH still seems to have been spared. Posted by: Shinoliite
If one wants to get away from it all, might I recommend Mecca, in Riverside County, CA? I doubt one'll find any Mohammedans there, the name notwithstanding.
It's an exit from I10 - one exit going north to 29 Palms, and the other headed south, towards Mecca. If I remember right, between Blythe and Indio.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at April 5, 2006 7:41 PM
Too many Marines in that neighborhood. Armed.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at April 5, 2006 7:50 PM
As a Detroiter, I've been wondering when someone was going to bust up a local cigarette smuggling ring. I do find it somewhat interesting that the perpetrators are Muslim, because its likely many of their customers(business owners) in this neck of the woods are Chaldean.
Unfortunately, the Chaldean businesses tend(this is a generalizaation) to be urban, and the paisano-led syndicates have long sinced moved out to the 'burbs running semi-legit businesses. Otherwise the Mohammedans would have to look elsewhere for their terrorist financing.
at April 5, 2006 11:18 PM
From a legal perspective, Islam indeed amounts to (and in fact is) conspiracy to commit multiple murders. "A large-scale and well-organized conspiracy" US legal authorities call it. Indeed! That is like calling a great white shark a one-celled animal. Our so-called "large-scale and well-organized conspiracy" involves about a billion persons and is responsible for the massacre of about 50 million Christian persons during the 20th century alone!
Although US law authorities may yet succeed in putting this guy and the other nine cronies of his away, I am still quite convinced our country's legal authorities are nowhere near picking up on this reality as they should be.
And of course the United States should have outlawed Islam by now and established a special governmental branch for the apprehending of Islamic killers on US soil.
at April 5, 2006 11:20 PM
Nothing to do with this article but WHY was the article about antiCair pulled off the website?
Was it another example of euphemism, that father of dhimmitude, running amok and failing to be respected, invokeed the rule of the censor? ie, not game just to delete the "offensive" note as the author was known by not a few here, so the whole kit and kaboodle of article and comments was wiped.
Clearly not objecting as I do KNOW who der Fuhrer is here but just curious.
Posted by: Zathras at April 5, 2006 11:33 PM
Pythagoras,,while the myth of the "moderate" muslim continues to be perpetuated by western governments there is no real hope.
The enemy is Islam and any muslim a potential or actual soldier for islam. They have been operating upon this principle for well over a millenium. It is TIME that we did this also.
Only the OUTLAWING of Islam, the destruction of madrassas and mosques and the instant "removal" of any muslim who assists terrorism or commits or advocates violence will suffice. Everying else is dhimmitude. You can never turn the other cheek to a ruthless, ethicless enemy. You must drop humanitarian principles when you deal with an enemy who treats his enemies like subhumans.
If the west wins we can always reinstate humanitarian ideals. If Islam wins there will NEVER be any humanitarianism only the blind sword and prejudiced stone of dark age arab law.
Posted by: Zathras at April 6, 2006 12:53 AM
Counterfeit Zig Zags???
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
at April 6, 2006 1:24 AM
Eisenhund (? Irondog...my basic german is very rusty) if that was the article about Daniel Pipes and the AntiCAIR victory and payout from CAIR then: "yes". I am not sure about the numbering system here but when I looked it up directly I could not find it.
Posted by: Zathras at April 6, 2006 3:53 AM
-Zathras
Yeah, it means 'Iron Dog'. I don't remember which article it was. I use the Opera browser and I usually keep quite a few pages open at any given time. All I know is when I tried to refresh the page with the number I mentioned, I got the 'not found' message. I can only assume that it was the article that you mentioned. I don't recall seeing anything in it or in the comments that would warrant erasing the page in its entirety, but that would just be my opinion. In any case it is, of course, Mr. Spencer's or one of the other webmaster's prerogative. I was just curious. I'm more concerned with researching Mohideen's kewpie guns that cause earthquakes.
BTW-which Zathras are you and how goes the Great Machine?
Posted by: Eisenhund at April 6, 2006 4:23 AM
EisenHund...the last post that I read there was one from someone whose name I cannot recall but who is apparently wellknown in the US for his activity. However his choice of language was not of the kind that the praetorians here approve of and I was very curious to see whether someone had the courage of his convictions and would delete the post.
The fact that the whole topic was "deleted" means (to myself) that while courage was sadly lacking, the enforcement principle was not.
In answer to your question:" not the other one, nor the last one but the real one!!", and "alas the Great Machine here no longer works to protect its people but instead is being ruined by its selfish controllers who are more interested in their wallets than in the future of mankind, and I do just mean western mankind, as if Islam wins, 90% of the world's population will probbaly be dead in 10 years(mass starvation), so competent are Muslims(e.g., Gaza greenhouse debacle) at running a business let alone an advanced industrial state.
Posted by: Zathras at April 6, 2006 5:25 AM
O.T.
This via LGF:
The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution
This is an attempt to set up a state within a state.
I wonder how the MSM will report this, if they do. It ought to be be obvious to everyone that this is not a purely a "religious" matter, although it may well be spun as that. Comparisons with religious communities, or "enclaves" as they are called here, are beside the point, because, as the article says, "there are few if any internal enclaves that adhere to a polity dedicated to the active abrogation of [US] law". But this is an attempt to set up an "enclave" on United States soil where the writ of US law no longer runs but sharia and the whim of mullahs rule the roost instead.
It represents nothing less than a direct challenge to the sovereignty of the US.
Posted by: Yojimbo at April 6, 2006 6:27 AM
The Methodists strike again.
Posted by: petegood at April 6, 2006 8:49 AM
The fact that Judge Morgan ordered that Karim Hassan Nasser be detained without bond is encouraging. It shows that our public officials can learn from the past (see CAPS below).
http://truthnews.com/world/2004050127.htm
Hezbollah Terrorist Returns To US For Trial
Gary Fitleberg, May 25, 2004
According to a report in the Detroit News, an accused Hezbollah terrorist has returned and surrendered to the United States to face trial for terrorist activities pursuant to a 1996 anti-terrorist law.
The man who fled to Lebanon after being the first charged under the legislation fled to Lebanon in 1998 surrendered to authorities when he was taken into custody at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The suspected terrorist was accompanied by an FBI agent on his flight back to America.
Fawzi Mustapha Assi, 44, was arrested on July 13, 1998 after being stopped at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with night-vision goggles and other equipment that the FBI said was meant for the Lebanese-based Hezbollah guerrilla group.
FBI agents tapped Assi's work and home phone and discovered he was trying to export military goods to Hezbollah, a terrorist organization in Lebanon.
Federal agents followed Assi to the airport in July 1998 and stopped him just as he was about to board a plane to the Middle East, Local 4 reported.
One day after Assi was stopped at the airport, agents spotted him dumping several boxes of items into trash dumpsters in Dearborn. Customs Agents sifted through the dumpsters and discovered more night-vision devices, thermal imaging scopes and literature on Israeli Cabinet members with their locations.
Customs agents seized seven pairs of night-vision goggles, one infrared heat detection device and two global positioning satellite modules, each worth $25,000, according to officials.
He was charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization but denied the charge and fled to Lebanon after he was released on bond. Assi was released on $100,000 bond when his father put up his Dearborn home as collateral, vouching that his son would appear back in court. Unfortunately, Assi never returned to the courthouse, his father lost his home and federal agents lost a man with suspected ties to terror, Local 4 reported.
Assi was last seen at a federal court appearance in downtown Detroit. Prosecutors asked the judge to deny Assi's bond, saying he was a flight risk, but the judge disagreed.
"This offense is neither a crime of violence nor does it involve a narcotic drug. It is an offense that involves allegations of support for an international terrorist organization. However, the items that were alleged in the offense do not involve weapons or indications of a crime of violence," said the judge.
ASSI WAS CHARGED IN A CRIMINAL COMPLAINT 10 DAYS AFTER BEING STOPPED AND INDICTED THE NEXT MONTH. WHEN U.S. MAGISTRATE VIRGINIA MORGAN RELEASED HIM ON AN ELECTRONIC TETHER, federal prosecutors appealed to U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood. Assi disappeared on the second day of the hearing.
When he did not return for his trial originally, his former attorney David Steingold reported that he may have fled the country, committed suicide or was murdered by Hezbollah.
Assi, a native Arab from Lebanon came to America at age 18 and lived here for twenty years and was a U.S. citizen. He received a master's degree from Wayne State University. He was a former Ford Motor Co. engineer at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn. Assi was divorced but lived with his wife and three children on Middlepoint Street in Dearborn.
"His family lives here and he wants to return to a normal life and put this behind him as swiftly as possible," Mullkoff told The Detroit News for a news story. Apparently Assi had been negotiating for several months for his safe return to the U.S.
"Fawzi Assi is a U.S. citizen," Mullkoff said after Assi was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Tuesday. "He has been attempting for several months to arrange for a voluntary return to deal with this case -- to put it behind him and to get on with his life."
Assi was reportedly teaching physics while in Lebanon.
Assi, who emigrated from Lebanon when he was 18, has denied any links to Hezbollah, which was still fighting the Israel Defense Forces and its Lebanese allies in south Lebanon when Assi was arrested.
He was one of the first people arrested under a 1996 terrorism law that outlaws financial assistance or "material support" to organizations including Hezbollah that are classified as terrorist by the State Department.
Although his attorney would not comment on the substance of the charges or the reasons for why he fled or why he returned to stand trial it is reported that Assi was sympathetic to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
Assi told agents he was planning to deliver the equipment to Hezbollah, which has been designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group. Assi allegedly told agents that the global positioning modules were to be used to navigate unmanned aircraft to spy on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Agents said Assi told them he was sympathetic to Hezbollah's cause of removing Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and that two of his cousins were killed fighting for the group. He allegedly told agents that he had shipped bulletproof vests and videotapes and books about security and electronic surveillance to his Hezbollah connection in the previous 2 1/2 years.
Agents had been watching Assi for months and obtained a court order from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to tap his phone in Dearborn, according to testimony in 1998 from FBI Agent Michael Thomas.
Assi had an appearance before U.S. Magistrate Steven Whalen prior to standing trial.
Assi could face up to a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine if he is convicted.
Gary Fitleberg is a Political Analyst specializing in International Relations with emphasis on Middle East affairs.
Copyright © 2004 Gary Fitleberg
at April 6, 2006 10:23 AM
ZATHRAS:
At no point did I EVER POST ANYTHING TO THE EFFECT THAT 'moderate' Islam exists.
It doesnt. I learned that years ago.
In fact I think I am far ahead of you on that point.
As for Islam, it is a NO BRAINER that Islam can NOT be reformed in any way! It is designed to kill people and is in essence HUMAN SACRIFICE. Islam will continue to kill people that we all can be sure of.
That you believe that the US must outlaw Islam ASAP--well, WELCOME TO THE WORLD!!!!(Gee aren't you original!!!). I have only been stating that for about the last 5000 posts for the past 3 years or so!!! If you did not figure out that I am trying to have Islam outlawed in the USA by now, either your head is thicker than the Manhattan Telephone Directory or your reading comprehension skills aren't up to snuff.
In fact, FYI the Council of American-Islamic Relations singled one of my posts as "anti-Muslim" in a press release about this very website some months back. Now, if CAIR members can understand my postings how come you couldn't??
If you are going to respond to one of my posts the least you could do is READ IT MORE CAREFULLY.
Having to respond to your post wasted my time actually and I do not appreciate that. Since it is clear you didn't bother to read what I wrote carefully.
pythagoras
ps--By the way, there are no cookbook formulas on how to get rid of Islam. So please, forget about lecturing me about what we must do to get rid of Islam as no one really knows. And that is why we have been stuck woth it for 14 centuries.
Posted by: pythagoras at April 6, 2006 3:05 PM
The latest example of the fact that Muslims are not required to obey kaffir law.
Posted by: kevin at April 6, 2006 9:22 PM
Pythagoras....
I NEVER said that was what you said, I simply went on from what you said. At no time was my post either a criticism of or even a commentary upon your post and yes I do have an overfacile ability to state the obvious but at least my hackles do not raise over every post remotely connected to my own. My post finished up being only an addenda to yours.
As for wasting your time, your hypersensitivity has wasted both of our times. However I can see where the problem arose and I should never have left your name on it as it far diverged from what I initially intended to write. I was initially going to say that I totally agree with you and that there was the only one solution to the problem with any guarantee of success but you cannot be that blatant here despite the reverse being the open intention of Islam for 1400 years. Even here islamic hypocrisy rules.
Posted by: Zathras at April 7, 2006 5:15 AM
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