Recently in Jihad in the U.S. Category

Apparently the Boston jihad mass murderer Tamerlan Tsarnaev practiced shooting in New Hampshire, perhaps in preparation for a different kind of jihad attack. "FBI questions former Chechen rebel living in Manchester about repeated meetings with Boston bomber," by Pat Grossmith for the New Hampshire Union Leader, May 16:

MANCHESTER - Boston Marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev went target shooting at a Manchester firing range and met up with an exiled former Chechen rebel living in the Queen City a month before the attack that killed three and wounded more than 260, according to a Voice of America report.

FBI agents on Tuesday searched the Manchester home of Chechnya native Musa Khadzhimuratov, and examined the hard drives on his computers, VOA reported. Police in Manchester confirmed the FBI agents searched Khadzhimuratov's home, according to the story, but Manchester Police Chief David J. Mara said police will not confirm anything because it is not their case.

The FBI, Mara said, also are not commenting on the matter.

At the Manchester apartment building where Khadzhimuratov lives, a woman responding to the buzzer by intercom said Khadzhimuratov was not home and will not be talking to reporters.

A resident who lives at the Eastern Avenue apartment complex said the FBI showed up about 8 a.m. Tuesday and did not leave until late in the afternoon.

Agents dressed in suits were posted at the front and back entrance to the Eastern Avenue apartment building at Hillview Apartments, preventing people from entering the building, she said.

About six other agents wearing white jumpsuits and black gloves entered the apartment where Khadzhimuratov lives with his wife, her parents and two or three children.

"I thought they were exterminators," said the resident. She only realized they were FBI after someone overheard an agent telling one of Khadzhimuratov's children, "Don't get scared. We're FBI and we're going to talk to your father."

The Khadzhimuratovs keep to themselves, the resident said, and do no socialize with other tenants. She thought his wife works but does not believe Khadzhimuratov is employed. He is paralyzed from being shot in the back in his native Chechnya.

Khadzhimuratov told a VOA reporter that FBI agents went to his home Tuesday with search warrants and took DNA sample and his fingerprints.

He said he repeatedly met with Tsarnaev over the past several years and that the FBI first questioned him on April 29, two weeks after the deadly attack. Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police while his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, was wounded and later captured.

Khadzhimuratov told the VOA reporter FBI agents asked him about Tsarnaev's target shooting at a Manchester firing range, which was linked to http://www.gunsnh.com/index.php – the home page for the Manchester Firing Line Range.

Cliff Ellston, compliance officer for the firing range, said it is the company's policy not to talk to the media.

The FBI also wanted to know about Tsarnaev's purchase of large amounts of fireworks from a Seabrook store on Feb. 6, Khadzhimuratov told VOA.

He said Tsarnaev visited him about three to four weeks before the bombings. He said he thinks the FBI believes he tried to help him when he was up in New Hampshire but he denied doing that or having any involvement in the bombings.

The FBI, he said, told him he was not a suspect in the Boston bombing case.

He said he came to the United States from Chechnya in 2004 through a United Nations program. He is paralyzed from the waist down from gunshot wounds suffered in Chechnya in 2001, according to the VOA article.

He said he first met Tsarnaev seven years ago at the annual meeting of the Chechen Society of Boston. Tsarnaev visited him three times in Manchester and once came with his wife and child.

He told VOA he never discussed Tsarnaev's Islam beliefs with him or any politics.

And in a New York Times puff piece trying to portray Khadzhimuratov as a victim, we get these details showing his allegiances:

Mr. Khadzhimuratov, 36, said he understood why investigators would want to take a look at him. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, along with his wife and daughter, stopped by Mr. Khadzhimuratov’s apartment a few weeks before the bombing, the last of several encounters. And long before coming to the United States in 2004, Mr. Khadzhimuratov was a bodyguard for Akhmed Zakayev, a prominent secular Chechen separatist leader who now lives in London....

Mr. Khadzhimuratov has been turned down repeatedly for a green card because of his previous association with the Chechen rebels, though his wife is an American citizen. Among the videos archived on Mr. Khadzhimuratov’s Russian YouTube page were a few that touched on Caucasus insurgency, including addresses by two militant leaders, Doku K. Umarov and Said Buryatsky, and video of a sniper attack on the police by militants in Dagestan.

He's an "Idaho man," AP tells us, as if the reason why he plotted these jihad terror attacks was to protect the potato industry. "Idaho man pleads not guilty in alleged Uzbekistan terror plot," from the Associated Press, May 17 (thanks to Darcy):

BOISE, Idaho — An Uzbekistan national living in Boise said little during his first court appearance Friday on federal charges that he gave support, cash and other resources to help a recognized terrorist group in his home country plan a terrorist attack there.

Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, was arrested Thursday during a raid of his small apartment. Prosecutors have offered few details of their investigation or Kurbanov's alleged role in helping a militant group back home. He was charged in Idaho as well as Utah as a result of an extensive investigation into his activities late last year and this year.

Kurbanov pleaded not guilty during the hearing that lasted about 20 minutes. Kurbanov — with a short, cropped beard, dark hair and wearing a jail jumpsuit — spoke only a few words to the judge, their communication complicated by language differences.

Federal officials said they will enlist the help of an interpreter when Kurbanov, who lists Uzbek as his first language and Russian as his second in court documents, appears Tuesday for his detention hearing.

Until then, he will be held in the Ada County Jail. Kurbanov said he couldn't pay for an attorney, so federal public defender Richard Rubin was appointed to handle the case.

"Given his arrest, we believe any potential threat he posed has been contained,” said U.S Attorney Wendy Olson, who declined to comment on whether federal agents are pursuing additional arrests. Their investigation is ongoing, she said.

Kurbanov has been living in the United States legally, but his immigration status is unclear. He said he had a job driving trucks in Boise and listed his only assets as a couple of used cars and a small amount of cash in checking and savings accounts.

His trial on the three counts filed in Idaho is scheduled for July 2.

Olson said she has seen Internet comments blaming Idaho's Muslim community, something she called inappropriate. She said her office enjoys “outstanding partnerships” with its members.

“These charges shouldn't be seen as a reflection on that community,” Olson said.

This caveat is obligatory nowadays, and there is nothing particularly wrong with it except that it reflects the influence of Islamic supremacist advocacy groups like the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which push the fiction that Muslims in the U.S. are in danger of a large-scale "backlash" after jihad attacks occur or jihad plots are revealed.

The Idaho indictment charges Kurbanov with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and possession of an unregistered explosive device.

It alleges that between August and May, Kurbanov knowingly conspired with others to provide support and resources, including computer software and money, to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the U.S. has identified as a terrorist organization. The group's purpose is to overthrow the government of Uzbekistan, said David B. Barlow, U.S. attorney in Utah. The alleged co-conspirators were not named.

The indictment also alleges Kurbanov provided material support to terrorists, knowing that the help was to be used in preparation for a plot involving the use of a weapon of mass destruction. On Nov. 15, Kurbanov possessed an explosive device, consisting of a series of parts intended to be converted into a bomb, according to the indictment. Those parts included a hollow hand grenade, a hobby fuse, aluminum powder, potassium nitrate and sulfur.

A separate federal grand jury in Utah charged Kurbanov with distributing information about explosives, bombs and weapons of mass destruction. For 10 days in January, Kurbanov taught and demonstrated how to make an “explosive, destructive device, and weapon of mass destruction,” the document states.

The Utah indictment, which will be handled separately after the Idaho prosecution is resolved, alleges that Kurbanov provided written recipes for how to make improvised explosive devices and went on instructional shopping trips in Utah showing what items are necessary to buy in order to make the devices, Barlow said. Kurbanov also showed Internet videos on the topic, Barlow said.

The prosecutor declined to say whom Kurbanov took on the shopping trips in Utah but said that information will come out as the case proceeds.

The indictment from Utah also alleges that Kurbanov intended that the videos, recipes, instructions and shopping trips be used to make an explosive device for the “bombings of a place of public use, public transportation system, and infrastructure facility.”...

The U.S. has brought large numbers of Somali jihadists into the country without making any attempt to determine whether or not they support the bloody Somali jihad, or to stop them from doing so. And so we have effectively imported the Somali jihad to the U.S.

"2 Minnesota women sentenced for funding Somali militants," by Faith Karimi for CNN, May 17 (thanks to Suneil):

(CNN) -- A federal court has sentenced two Minnesota women to lengthy prison sentences for soliciting donations in the name of charity, then funneling the funds to Somali militants.

Authorities said the two women went door-to-door in Somali neighborhoods in the U.S. and Canada, seeking contributions.

Amina Farah Ali, 36, got two decades in prison on 13 terror-related counts that include providing material support to Al-Shabaab.

Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 66, got half of that on one count of conspiracy to support a terror group and lying to authorities.

Both women, naturalized U.S. citizens from Somalia, were convicted in October 2011. They were sentenced Thursday in Minneapolis.

Evidence presented at their trial showed they supported the terror group between 2008 and 2009, according to B. Todd Jones, a United States Attorney.

Teleconference appeal for Al-Shabaab

"Ali communicated by telephone with Somalia-based members of Al-Shabaab who requested financial assistance on behalf of the group," Jones said in a statement. "Ali often sought the money under false pretenses, contending that it was to help the poor."

In both years, authorities said, she hosted teleconferences and urged listeners to give money to the terror group instead of the poor.

In one instance, she recorded $2,100 in pledges at the conclusion of that teleconference, according to officials.

She would then funnel the funds to the terror group using various remittance companies under false names.

'Questioned by the enemy'

Ali has maintained that the funds were for the poor, but authorities said monitored phone calls reveal otherwise.

"On July 14, 2009, the day after the FBI executed a search warrant at Ali's home, she telephoned her primary Al-Shabaab contact, saying, "I was questioned by the enemy here . . . they took all my stuff and are investigating it . . . do not accept calls from anyone."

Hassan, on the other hand, made false statements when questioned by federal agents about international terrorism, Jones said....

The women were among a group sentenced this week in the federal government's probe focusing on Al-Shabaab, which is believed to recruit young men in the Minneapolis area. The U.S. has designated it a terrorist group, and has said it has ties to al Qaeda.

In recent years, about 20 Somali-American men have traveled from the area to Somalia to train with the terror group, and some have gone on to fight with the militants, according to U.S. officials.

Cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health -- in a whole new way. "New York says breaks cigarette-smuggling ring linked to militants," by Mark Hosenball for Reuters, May 17 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

(Reuters) - Fifteen men of Palestinian origin have been arrested on charges of running a multi-million-dollar cigarette smuggling ring in New York, and New York authorities who announced the arrests on Thursday said several of the suspects have ties to Hamas and other Islamist militant groups.

The men are accused of smuggling more than a million cartons of untaxed cigarettes from Virginia to be sold in grocery stores across New York, with $55 million in sales uncovered so far, Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, and Ray Kelly, the New York City police commissioner, said at a press conference.

"We don't know where all of that money went, but what we do know is deeply troubling," Schneiderman said. "We know that some members of this group have ties to very dangerous people, we know they were arrested with weapons, we know that they made tens of millions of dollars but so far we have found only a fraction of that."

Investigators are still tracking where much of the money ended up, but they noted similar rings in the past have funneled money to Hamas, the Islamist government in Gaza, and Hezbollah, the militant Shi'ite group based in Lebanon, both of which are considered to be terrorist organizations by the United States.

All 15 men remained in custody on Thursday and could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately clear if they had retained lawyers.

A 16th man accused of taking part in the ring, Ribhi Awadeh, 39, from Guttenberg, New Jersey, remained at large after flying to Jordan several weeks ago, Schneiderman said.

In a 224-count indictment, the men are charged with enterprise corruption, money laundering and other tax crimes, for which each defendant faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. In addition to costing New York State and New York City an estimated $80 million in lost sales tax revenue, the ring generated at least $10 million in profit, Schneiderman and Kelly said.

None of the men lived extravagantly, Schneiderman said, adding that this supported the idea the money was being funneled elsewhere.

"This is not the lifestyles of the rich and famous," Schneiderman said. "We are very concerned about where the money went."

Kelly said that Youssef Odeh, 52, of Staten Island, who is accused of being a distributor for the ring, received an investment for an illegal baby formula distribution business in the 1990s from Omar Abdel Rahman, often dubbed the "blind sheik," who is imprisoned for helping plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Muaffaq Askar, 46, of Brooklyn, who is accused of being one of the ring's resellers, was a confidant of Rashid Baz, Kelly said. Baz, a Lebanese immigrant, is serving a 141-year prison sentence after being convicted in the 1994 shooting of Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old yeshiva student in Brooklyn, which Baz said was in retaliation for the killing of Muslim worshippers in the West Bank by a Jewish settler from Brooklyn.

Mohannad Seif, 39, of Brooklyn, another accused reseller, had been under police surveillance in part because he had lived in the same three-story Brooklyn building as a former secretary to Moussa Abu Marzouk, a deputy leader of Hamas.

Authorities said the ring was headed by two brothers, Basel Ramadan, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 40, both of Ocean City, Maryland, who ran a couple of local Subway restaurant franchises. Investigators said they found $1.4 million stashed in Basel Ramadan's home, some of it stuffed in black plastic trash bags, and three handguns following his arrest on Thursday....

He also railed at the Infidels. An update on this story. "'F***' America,' Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Wrote in Boat: Officials," by Michele McPhee, Aaron Katersky and Brian Ross for ABC News, May 16:

As police searched for him, and as he lay bleeding in his boat hideout, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote "F*** America" on the side panel of the boat, police in Massachusetts told ABC News.

Officers said they also discovered the phrase "Praise Allah" on the boat's side panels and several anti-American screeds, including references to Iraq, Afghanistan and "the infidels."

A Massachusetts official showed ABC News what he said was a cell phone picture of the phrase "Praise Allah," written in black ink, with a bullet hole above it, believed to have been written by Dzhokhar as he hid inside the boat in Watertown, Mass.

Also seen in the picture was the faintly written word "brother," which the official said was part of a reference by the younger Tsarnaev "that was something about his brother is lucky to be with Allah first."...

Pakistanis and Saudis caught in a no-trespass zone after midnight at a water reservoir for a major city that has just been the site of an Islamic jihad attack. And Islamic jihadists have often spoken about poisoning water supplies -- most recently in the Canada/New York jihad plot. So even if the water tests safe, it is still exceedingly suspicious that they were there at all.

An update on this story. "Boston reservoir tests safe after late-night trespassers nabbed," by Perry Chiaramonte for FoxNews.com, May 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Massachusetts State Police beefed up patrols around the reservoir that supplies Boston's drinking water after seven foreign students were caught trespassing in the area late at night.

With the city still jittery after the April 15 terror attack at the Boston Marathon, word that two women and five men, reportedly from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Singapore, had been found in the restricted area around the Quabbin Reservoir caused concerns. The reservoir serves Boston and some 40 other communities in the area.

“As an extra precaution, water quality samples were analyzed at MWRA’s lab yesterday and all came back normal," Ria Convery, of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, told the Boston Herald. “There is no evidence of any water quality issues at the Quabbin Reservoir following the trespassing incident.”

It was after midnight on Tuesday morning when a state trooper on patrol at the reservoir spotted two cars parked on the grass near one of Quabbin’s entrances. The cop investigated and found a group of seven people, five men and two women walking from the water back to their cars. When the police officer asked why they were trespassing, members of the group replied that they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates who had an educational interest in the reservoir, according to police.

The group was briefly held at the scene while background and warrant check were conducted but let go after their records turned up clean.

“There was no evidence that the seven were committing any crime beyond the trespassing,” Massachusetts State police spokesman David Procopio told FoxNews.com, adding that officers on the scene checked the vehicles and the park area and did not locate any items out of place or of a criminal nature.

Procopio also said that a preliminary investigation determined the individuals were originally from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. The Springfield field office of the FBI was contacted by the State Police and is assisting in an investigation.

“Further investigation is being undertaken because of the late hour when they were observed, their explanation for why they wanted to see the reservoir, and the fact that they were in an area marked no trespassing,” Procopio said....

In Islamic theology, jihad warfare is fard kifaya, an obligation of the community as a whole but not of every individual believer. Jihad becomes fard ayn, obligatory on every individual Muslim to aid in some way, when a Muslim land is attacked. So what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote on the boat is consistent with traditional Islamic theology. It is unlikely, however, that anyone will notice that or consider its implications. Most will instead fasten on the fact that he enunciates a grievance, and assume that if the U.S. got out of Afghanistan, the jihad would be over. That kind of analysis (like so many others) stems from a fundamental (and usually willful) misunderstanding of the jihad doctrine. In defensive jihad, the grievances always shift, but the jihad imperative remains.

"Boston bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left note in boat he hid in, sources say," from CBS News, May 16 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

(CBS News) Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a note claiming responsibility for the April 13 attack, reports CBS News senior correspondent John Miller.

Sources tell Miller that Tsarnaev wrote the note in the boat he was hiding in as police pursued him, and as he bled from gunshot wounds sustained in an earlier shootout between police and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

The note, scrawled with a pen on the interior wall of the cabin, said the bombings were retribution U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims collateral damage in the way Muslims have been in the American-led wars. "When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims," the note added.

Dzhokar said he didn't mourn older brother Tamerlan -- the other suspect in the bombings -- writing that by that point, Tamerlan was a martyr in paradise -- and that Dzhokar expected to join him there.

Miller's sources say the wall the note was written on was riddled with bullet holes from shots fired into the boat. The shots were fired after Dzhokhar came up through the tarp that was covering on the boat and a police officer watching that side of the boat thought Dzhokhar had another bomb.

According to Miller, the note will be a significant piece of evidence in any Dzhokar trial -- it is "certainly admissible," and paints a clear picture of the brothers' motive, "consistent with what he told investigators while he was in custody," Miller said Thursday on "CBS This Morning."

Miller explained that while Dzhokar admitted many of the same details to authorities, those admissions came "during the time he was interrogated but before he was given his Miranda warning." The note gives prosecutors supporting, clearly admissible evidence even if there is an fight over whether things he said before he was given his Miranda rights are admissible as evidence.

Investigators struggled without a clear claim of responsibility, Miller observes. It took days to learn the identity of the bombers, and there was no official claim of responsibility, which is unusual in these cases. As investigators move forward with the investigation, "the last big question remaining is going to be who else knew anything? Is it going to be the wife? Is it someone overseas?" Miller added.

The suspects didn't plan to stop after the Boston bombings, authorities say. They intended to go to New York City and set off a device or devices in Times Square.

The brothers didn't have well-developed plans for New York, but they still had intent, Miller says. So as Dzhokhar lay in the boat, he wanted to leave a message behind clearly supporting what the note says he and his brother had just done.

For a plot as organized as the one was for Boston, it seems odd that -- with a choice of leaving behind a martyrdom video on a computer or a more formal claim of responsibility -- the brothers had nothing prepared, Miller says. A larger terror organization ensures that such videos are made out of the country and are ready to launch after the attack.

It appears these guys cobbled their plot together themselves and didn't have the organizational skills to plan out their end game, which would have included putting together a formal claim of responsibility.

So in the end, Miller concludes, the boat note was a way for Dzhokhar to get on the record as publicly claiming responsibility for the bombings.

Erwin Antonio Rios is apparently a convert to Islam. He seems to have attended a mosque in Raeford, North Carolina. They, of course, will say that they never knew him, that he never went there, or that if he did, he never gave any hint of his "extremist" beliefs, or that they tried to talk him out of those beliefs but he wouldn't be dissuaded.

But how did this convert to Islam get the idea that Islam gave him the responsibility to murder Infidels? Was he "self-radicalized" on the Internet? Or did the Raeford mosque have some hand in his "radicalization"? The problem with these questions about "radicalization" is that they ignore the fact that the Qur'an contains numerous exhortations to fight against and kill Infidels (2:191; 4:89; 8:39; 8:60; 9:5; 9:29; 47:4, etc.), so that anyplace where the Qur'an is taught fully and in accord with mainstream Islamic tradition, any Muslim believer could end up getting "radicalized." What program does the Raeford mosque have to prevent this from happening? In fact, no mosque has any such program. And law enforcement and government officials don't seem to notice or care, or to realize the implications of that.

More on this story. "FBI says Fayetteville teen planned local jihad," by Caitlin Dineen for the Fayetteville Observer, May 15 (thanks to Kenneth):

Members of the FBI thwarted a Fayetteville teenager's plan to rob and kill people who did not share his Islamic beliefs, according to documents.

Erwin Antonio Rios, 19, of the 1200 block of Oak Knolls Drive, allegedly planned to obtain a gun illegally and take part in a local religious jihad against non-believers, or kuffar, and members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Rios met with an FBI informant over several months and detailed his attacks. They included robbing armored vehicles, killing guards protecting them, and luring police to a home and setting off bombs, documents say.

Rios adhered to the ideology of radical Islamic extremism groups, according to court documents. Those groups believe violence is religiously justified.

Rios told an FBI informant he wanted to be a soldier for Allah, according to an affidavit signed Feb. 7 by Special Agent Frank Brostrom.

Rios started talking to the informant June 27, after meeting at an Islamic house of worship in Raeford.

Part of his planned attacks included staging a robbery of an armored vehicle and shooting two of the guards in the face, the documents say.

Another attack would have involved police, according to records. Rios said he wanted to make bombs and plant them in a house.

After doing so, Rios said he would call police about a crime in progress at the home and then trigger the explosives when police arrived.

Other planned attacks were smaller robberies and murders. Money made from those incidents would go toward purchasing weapons and planning larger attacks, the documents say.

During subsequent meetings with the informant, the two discussed how to get Rios access to a weapon.

The teenager told the informant he did not think he could legally obtain one because of his criminal history.

He had been convicted in January 2010 on several charges, including breaking and entering, breaking and entering a motor vehicle and possession of a stolen firearm, according to court records.

On Tuesday, Rios pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen firearm in U.S. District Court in Greenville, U.S. Attorney Thomas Walker said in a news release.

That gun, a 9 mm Beretta pistol, was sold to Rios for $100 on Feb. 7 by a second FBI informant in Lillington.

Before agreeing to purchase the weapon, Rios told the first informant he was worried the seller might be a member of law enforcement and the sale was entrapment.

But he bought it anyway.

FBI officials removed the gun's firing pin, making the weapon inoperable, according to court documents.

In one of the multiple meetings between Rios and the first informant, Rios said he had found someone who would sell him two AK-47s and a handgun for between $350 and $500, according to records.

"The FBI set up a sting where Rios bought what he was told was a stolen handgun and was then immediately placed under arrest." Watch for the claims of "entrapment" from Islamic supremacist groups. He pled guilty? Pah! That won't stop them!

"North Carolina man pleads guilty to buying gun for terrorist jihad," from the Associated Press, May 14:

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A North Carolina man who the FBI says spoke of killing U.S. Army soldiers as part of a personal jihad has pleaded guilty to possessing a stolen firearm.

Erwin Antonio Rios admitted guilt Tuesday in U.S. District Court as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

In an affidavit filed with the court, FBI Special Agent Frank Brostrom said the 19-year-old from Fayetteville holds extremist Islamic views and told a government informant he would like to kill Fort Bragg soldiers.

Authorities said Rios also plotted to travel overseas to commit violence and devised a scheme to commit armed robberies to get money to buy weapons. The FBI set up a sting where Rios bought what he was told was a stolen handgun and was then immediately placed under arrest.

The Star Tribune's headline calls him a "Minneapolis man." Is the salient aspect of his identity, and the reason why he is going to prison for jihad activity, really that he is from Minneapolis?

"Minneapolis man gets 12 years for Somali terror case," by Randy Furst for the Star Tribune, May 14 (thanks to Block Ness):

One of the “middlemen” who helped send young men from Minneapolis to fight in Somalia was sentenced to 12 years Tuesday by U.S. Chief Judge Michael Davis.

Omer Abdi Mohamed, 28, of Minneapolis, is among nine people being sentenced this week in federal court in Minneapolis for their roles in helping the anti-government group Al-Shabab fight in Somalia’s chaotic civil war.

Mohamed and others met at mosques and restaurants, raising money and arranging travel for recruits to go and fight.

Mohamed cut a deal in July 2011 allowing him to plead guilty to one conspiracy count, which carries a maximum term of 15 years. He was free on bond until October, when Davis ordered him returned to jail after authorities discovered his activities as a “parent liaison” at Essential Learning of Minnesota Institute in Minneapolis, a private nonprofit school that offers after-school programs on the Qur’an.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Chief Judge Michael Davis sentenced Abdifatah Yusuf Isse of Seattle and Salah Osman Ahmed of Brooklyn Park to three years in prison.

At Tuesday’s back-to-back hearings, the prosecution made motions for lighter sentences for Isse and Ahmed because of their willingness to cooperate with the FBI in its investigation. Davis granted their motions before issuing the sentences.

Attorneys for both men said they do not plan to appeal....

Why not? The Qur'an tells men to beat women: "Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them." (Qur'an 4:34)

Muhammad’s example is normative for Muslims, since he is an “excellent example of conduct” (Qur'an 33:21) – and according to a canonical hadith, Muhammad’s favorite wife, his child bride Aisha, reports that Muhammad struck her. Once he went out at night after he thought she was asleep, and she followed him surreptitiously. Muhammad saw her, and, as Aisha recounts: “He struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?” (Sahih Muslim 2127) Aisha herself said it: “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.” (Sahih Bukhari 7.72.715)

And the egregious tool Lisa Wangsness of the Boston Globe just published a puff piece about this mosque.

"Boston bombers’ mosque recommended men beat their wives," by Patrick Howley for the Daily Caller, May 12:

The Islamic Society of Boston, the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, posted an article on its website in September 2004 that advocated for the beating of women as a last resort to force them to behave.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based mosque posted an English translation of Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajid’s 1997 work, “The Muslim Home: 40 Recommendations in Light of the Quran and Sunnah,” which the mosque headlined, “40 Recommendations for the Muslim Home.”

“Hinting at punishment is an effective means of discipline, so the reason for hanging up a whip or stick in the house was explained in another report, where the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: ‘Hang up the whip where the members of the household can see it, for this is more effective in disciplining them,’” the article states.

“Seeing the means of punishment hanging up will make those who have bad intentions refrain from indulging in bad behaviour, lest they get a taste of the punishment. It will motivate them to behave themselves and be good mannered,” it says.

“Hitting is not the way to discipline; it is not to be resorted to, except when all other means are exhausted, or when it is needed to force someone to do obligatory acts of obedience, as Allah says (interpretation of the meaning): ‘… As to those women on whose part you fear ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful),’” it goes on.

The author of the work, Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajid, said on religious program that “Jewish websites” can justifiably be hacked by Muslims as part of the “war against (Jews).”...

Such cases will grow increasingly common in the U.S. in the coming years. "Judge gives Somali men 10- and 20-year sentences in terror case," by Randy Furst for the Star Tribune, May 13 (thanks to Kenneth):

Kamal Said Hassan will serve 10 years in prison for his role in the “Minnesota pipeline” that carried young men to Somali to fight in that country’s civil war.

U.S. Chief Judge Michael Davis issued the sentence Monday afternoon in federal court in Minneapolis. Hassan was facing up to 38 years in prison but federal prosecutors recommended that he serve no more than 10 to 12 years because of “extraordinary cooperation” with the investigation.

Hassan was one of the key witnesses who testified against Mahamud Said Omar last October. Omar was sentenced to 20 years.

Of the nine people to be sentenced this week, federal prosecutors have sought the longest prison terms for Omar, who helped arrange travel for Hassan and other young men.

Four people will be sentenced Tuesday and three more on Thursday.

Kamal Said Hassan: “I was a foot soldier”

Hassan pleaded guilty Aug. 12, 2009, to two terror-related counts, and in 2012 he testified against Mahamud Said Omar in hopes of receiving a shorter sentence.

In Omar’s trial Hassan testified that he left Minneapolis for Somalia in 2007. He went to a training camp where he learned to fight and was featured in a promotional video encouraging other Americans to join the fight.

In 2008 he said he and other Minnesotans were involved in an ambush of Ethiopian soldiers. After that, he said he fled Al-Shabab with the help of his family and the FBI.

In a memorandum filed last month, prosecutors said the long sentence was necessary to both deter Hassan from using violence “to bring about change in the governments of foreign countries” and to “send a message to the community at large that the United States does not tolerate such abhorrent criminal conduct.”

They noted that while Hassan cooperated with the FBI, he lied to agents about some of his activities in initial interviews....

Pressure cooker bombs were used in the Boston Marathon jihad bombing. "Saudi traveler with pressure cooker arrested at Detroit Metro Airport," by Tresa Baldas for the Detroit Free Press, May 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Federal agents arrested a suspicious traveler with an altered Saudi Arabian passport at Detroit Metro Airport over the weekend after discovering a pressure cooker in his luggage.

According to a criminal complaint filed today in U.S. District Court, the passenger, Hussain Al Khawahir arrived at Detroit Metro on Friday from Saudi Arabia via Amersterdam [sic]. He had a visa and a Saudi Arabian passport, and told officers in the baggage control area that he would be visiting his nephew at the University of Toledo, the complaint said.

In the baggage area, two customs officers interviewed the passenger and noticed a page had been removed form the man’s passport, the complaint said. The man said that he did not know how the page was removed form the passport, and stated that the passport was locked in a box that only he, his wife and three minor children have access to in his home, the complaint said. His hometown was not listed in court documents.

While at the airport, customs and border officials also examined his luggage and found a pressure cooker inside. When questioned about it, the man initially said that he brought the pressure cooker for his nephew because pressure cookers are not sold in Saudi Arabia, the complaint said. The man then changed his story and admitted his nephew had purchased a pressure cooker in America before, but it “was cheap” and broke after the first use.

Then came the Miranda rights.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement officer read the passenger his rights. The man acknowledged that he understood those rights, both verbally and in writing at 4:25 p.m. A minute later, he invoked his right to remain silent, the complaint said.

Kawahir is in federal court in Detroit this afternoon, making his initial appearance on charges that he knowingly used an altered Saudi Arabian passport with missing pages, and made a materially false statement to a CBP officer about his pressure cooker in his possession, all to gain entry into the United States....

Unrepentant: "The Koran is the truth that invalidates all other religions. If you do not submit, he will severely judge you, and on the day of judgment you will enter hellfire."

"Man sentenced in plot against terror witnesses," by Michael Biesecker for the Associated Press, May 10 (thanks to Lookmann):

A North Carolina man was sentenced Friday to four life terms for plotting to behead federal witnesses whose testimony helped convict him for his role in an earlier plot to slaughter U.S. servicemen and their families.

Hysen Sherifi, 29, was one of six Raleigh-area Muslims convicted in 2011 of planning to attack the Marine base in Quantico, Va., and overseas targets.

Shortly after starting his 45-year prison sentence in the terror case, Sherifi approached another inmate to help him hire a hit man to behead government informants and FBI agents. He recruited his younger brother Shkumbin Sherifi, 23, and former special education teacher Nevine Aly Elshiekh, 48, to help pay the hit man and organize the murders.

But the inmate whose help Sherifi sought turned out to be yet another government informant. FBI agents then staged an elaborate sting that involved secretly videotaped meetings with a woman posing as the go-between for a fictional hit man named Treetop and doctored photos that appeared to show the corpse of a beheaded witness in a shallow grave.

Federal prosecutors recommended leniency for the two coconspirators, who pleaded guilty last year and agreed to testify at the elder Sherifi's trial on nine felony counts.

Citing their extensive cooperation, U.S. District Senior Judge Earl Britt sentenced the younger Sherifi to 3 years in prison, while Elshiekh got 3 1/2 years. They had faced as much as 10 years each.

Before Hysen Sherifi was sentenced, he lectured the judge about Islamic teachings.

"The Koran is the truth that invalidates all other religions," said Sherifi, who declined a court-appointed lawyer and represented himself at trial. "If you do not submit, he will severely judge you, and on the day of judgment you will enter hellfire."

"That it?" asked Britt, who has served more than three decades on the federal bench. The judge then tacked the four life sentences onto the end of Sherifi's earlier 45-year prison term, along with another 50 years on top of that.

"There can be no doubt Mr. Sherifi, the defendant in this case, meets the definition of a terrorist," Britt said. "He was the genesis of this conspiracy. He was the mastermind, though I'm hesitant to use that term because it affords him more credit than he is due."...

The victims were all Jews who all had their throats slit on September 11. Hmmm.

"You will surely find the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers [to be] the Jews..." -- Qur'an 5:82

"So when you meet those who disbelieve, strike their necks..." -- Qur'an 47:4

"'Mounting evidence' links Tsarnaev brothers to earlier triple homicide," from RT, May 10:

There is “mounting evidence” which suggests that Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were involved in an unsolved triple homicide in 2011, according to Massachusetts investigators.

Forensic evidence from the crime scene matched the brothers’ DNA, and cell phone records put them in the area of the murders on the date they occurred, officials told ABC News.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, authorities in Middlesex County began to investigate the link between Tamerlan and Brendan Mess - one of the three men killed in the triple homicide.

Mess and two other men were found in a Waltham, Massachusetts residence with their throats slit and their bodies covered with marijuana on September 11, 2011. Tamerlan and Mess were once roommates and practiced boxing and martial arts together.

The officials stressed that until more definitive DNA testing is complete, it is still too early to bring an indictment against the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar.

The cold case was made active again once the victims’ family and friends saw the Tsarnaev brothers’ photos in the media. It was then that they were reminded of Tamerlan’s behavior after the murders. He did not attend Mess’ funeral and disappeared from the martial arts gym where the men had sparred together....

Yet more evidence that the politically correct and deliberately miseducated FBI completely dropped the ball on this case. "Suspect in Boston Bombing Talked Jihad in Russia," by Ellen Barry for the New York Times, May 9 (thanks to Kenneth):

KIZLYAR, Russia — It’s not every day that a well-dressed American shows up in this town, where shaggy cows meander over deeply rutted roads, so people remember Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Among the things that made the young visitor stand out, two acquaintances recalled on Thursday, was his avid interest in waging jihad.

“He already had jihad views when he came; I think because he was Chechen, he was rooting for his homeland,” Zaur M. Zakaryayev, 29, a member of a Salafi advocacy organization, the Union of the Just, said Thursday. “When he got here he was surprised at the conditions. I think he expected to find a full-fledged war, that one people was fighting with another.”

These new accounts out of Kizlyar, where Mr. Tsarnaev spent time with a cousin who is a prominent Salafi Islamist leader, have begun to flesh out a picture of what he did during his six months in Russia last year.

On Sunday agents from the Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B., interrogated Mr. Tsarnaev’s cousin, who is in police custody, asking if he impressed the young man with “extremist” views, his lawyer said.

But the cousin, Magomed Kartashov, told them it was the other way around. In interviews, several young men here agreed, saying that Mr. Kartashov spent hours trying to stop Mr. Tsarnaev from “going to the forest,” or joining one of the militant cells scattered throughout the volatile region, locked in low-level guerrilla warfare with the police.

“Magomed explained to him at length that violent methods are not right,” Mr. Zakaryayev said.

Russian investigators have been eyeing the possibility that Mr. Tsarnaev may have engaged in discussions as early as 2011 over serving as a courier for underground groups in Russia, according to a Russian law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But it appears those discussions were curtailed, perhaps because his contacts were killed during his visit.

In 2011, based on an intercepted phone call between Zubeidat Tsarnaev and an unidentified person, Russia’s Federal Security Service cautioned the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. that he had “changed drastically” and that he was headed to Russia to connect with militants.

Mr. Tsarnaev’s friends in Kizlyar may be responsible for a crucial change in his thinking. When he left, he was no longer focused on the local grievances that fueled the fighting against the police — but instead broader issues in the Islamic world, including the effect of United States and Russian policy in the Middle East.

Rasim B. Ibadamov said that by last summer, Mr. Tsarnaev was taking steps that suggested he had let go of the idea of joining the underground — for instance, applying to renew his Russian passport. “What I can say is there was the impression that Tamerlan listened to Magomed and to some extent, he changed,” Mr. Ibadamov said. “His behavior changed. He started to read more, and to read different books. In general, as far as I understand, he changed his views.”...

With numerous ties to jihadists. "Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is a Prominent Islamist," by Simon Shuster for Time.com, May 8 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.”

Since April 19, when Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar were publicly identified as being the key suspects in the bombing of the Boston Marathon, investigators have been trying to work out how they were radicalized to the point of wanting to kill and main people in the United States, the country the brothers had called home for much of their lives. (Tsarnaev was killed during a manhunt for the two men in Boston; his younger brother was shot but survived and has been charged with acts of terrorism including using a weapon of mass desctruction resulting in death. If convicted he could face the death penalty.) Much of the investigators’ attention has focused on Tsarnaev’s visit to Dagestan in 2012. It appears that investigators have only recently begun exploring Tsarnaev’s links to his cousin.

On May 5, three agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, the agency known as the FSB, interrogated Kartashov for the first time about the Boston bombings, according to his lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva. The FSB agents were interested in whether Kartashov and Tsarnaev had ever discussed Islamic radicalism, Abdullaeva says.

Kartashov told them that they had, but claimed that Tsarnaev was the one trying to “pull him in to extremism,” says the lawyer, who spoke to Kartashov soon after the interrogation. (It was impossible to ask Kartashov about this directly; he has been in jail since April 27 after a brawl with police in northern Dagestan, and prison officials denied TIME’s requests to visit him or have him answer questions in writing. His lawyer agreed to pass a reporter’s questions to him in jail.) In recounting her client’s replies, the lawyer said: “Kartashov tried to talk [Tsarnaev] out of his interest in extremism.”...

If the judge's head had still been in the sand, you see, he would have been more lenient toward her sweet boy the would-be jihad murderer. "Mother of North Bergen terrorist outraged son sentenced day of Boston Marathon bombing," by Michaelangelo Conte for The Jersey Journal, May 8 (thanks to Kenneth):

The mother of the North Bergen man serving 22 years on terrorism-related charges told The Jersey Journal Tuesday that she feels her son's sentencing 10 minutes after the Boston Marathon bombing led to an injustice.

"It was at the same time, the same minutes," Nadia Alessa, 53, said at her North Bergen home of the sentencing of her son, Mohamed Alessa, 23, who is in a federal correctional facility in Brooklyn.

"I don't think the judge had any mercy in his heart," Nadia Alessa said of U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise who also sentenced her son's codefendant, Carlos Almonte, 27, of Elmwood Park, on April 15 in Newark to 20 years in prison. "There was no mercy. If he had mercy, not even for my son, for me ... I don't have anyone but him."

Alessa said killers receive sentences as severe as her son and she said he hurt no one.
"In court they said 'Mohamed said to Carlos. Carlos said to Mohamed.' They never said 'Mohamed did.' They never said 'Carlos did,'" the mother said.

The pair were arrested at JFK International Airport in 2010 as they were about to board separate flights to Egypt and they pleaded guilty in 2011 to conspiring to join an armed Islamic group in Somalia with ties to al-Qaida.

At a press conference after the guilty pleas, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said, "Their aim was to murder people with beliefs not aligned with their own extremist philosophy ... They wanted to commit violence on non-believers."...

In PJ Lifestyle today I consider what goes on in jihad families like the Tsarnaevs:

“Peace will come,” Golda Meir once famously remarked, “when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us.” The obstacle to peace was not actually Arabs as such, but Muslims who had imbibed Islam’s doctrine of jihad and hatred of non-believers and primarily Jews — a hatred so intense that it drives people to prefer death (and murder) to life. And as we have seen recently with the monstrous grandstanding of Mama Tsarnaeva, this hatred is passed on in some Muslim families – and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is by no means the only mother from hell.

Islamic supremacists avowedly and proudly love death. Jihad mass murderer Mohamed Merah said that he “loved death more than they loved life.” Nigerian jihadist Abubakar Shekau said: “I’m even longing for death, you vagabond.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri’s wife advised Muslim women: “I advise you to raise your children in the cult of jihad and martyrdom and to instil in them a love for religion and death.” And as one jihadist put it, “We love death. You love your life!” And another: “The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death.” That was from Afghan jihadist Maulana Inyadullah.

Ultimately, this idea comes from the Qur’an itself:

“Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful.” — Qur’an 62:6

This love of death is instilled in children. A Muslim child preacher recently taunted those he has been taught to hate most: “Oh Zionists, we love death for the sake of Allah, just as much as you love life for the sake of Satan.” This young man’s mother was probably much like the quintessential mother from hell, Mariam Farhat, or Umm Nidal (mother of Nidal), a Palestinian parliamentarian who died in March. No one more fully embodied the Hamas ethos — and the ethos of infanticide that permeates contemporary Palestinian culture as a whole — than Umm Nidal, a mother who willed the death of her own children and the children of others.

The New York Times in 2006 called her as “the mother of three Hamas supporters killed by Israelis.” This was a highly tendentious appellation, as the Times report itself made clear when it said that “she bade one son goodbye in a homemade videotape before he stormed an Israeli settlement, killing five people, then being shot dead. She said later, in a much-publicized quotation, that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way. Known as the ‘mother of martyrs,’ she was seen in a campaign video toting a gun.”

Umm Nidal’s oldest son Nidal was killed in 2003, and his brother Rawad in 2005 — both as they were involved in jihad actions against Israelis. Muhammad Farhat was the first of her sons to die. In June 2002 he stormed the Atzmona settlement in Israel, firing indiscriminately, murdering five teenagers and wounding twenty others before he himself was killed.

Umm Nidal cried out “Allahu Akbar” when she learned of Muhammad’s murders and his own death; she “prepared boxes of halva and chocolates, and handed them out to his friends.”

There is more.

It would be hubristic for anyone to derive any schadenfreude from Bishop McManus's weekend adventures. All of us have had lapses in judgment. This does, however, highlight the fact that perhaps the Bishop made an error in judgment also when he barred me from speaking at a Catholic conference in Worcester about the reality of a jihad threat in the interests of dialogue with Boston-area Muslims, almost exactly a month (as it turned out) before two Boston-area Muslims demonstrated the reality of that jihad threat in an unforgettable way.

I hope that eventually Bishop McManus will acknowledge that earlier error in judgment as well. In the meantime, I wish him all the best with his legal and personal travails.

Background:

"My decision to ask Mr. Spencer not to speak at the Men’s Conference resulted from a concern voiced by members of the Islamic community in Massachusetts, a concern that I came to share. That concern was that Mr. Spencer’s talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims and possibly generate suspicion and even fear of people who practice piously the religion of Islam." -- Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester, February 8, 2013

Two members of the Islamic Society of Boston set off jihad bombs at the Boston Marathon, murdering three, April 15, 2013.

"Bishop McManus of Worcester arrested for drunken driving; admits ‘terrible error in judgment,’" by Travis Andersen and Todd Feathers for the Boston Globe, May 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Bishop Robert J. McManus, head of the Diocese of Worcester, was arrested for driving under the influence this weekend after police stopped him in Narragansett, R.I., police said.

McManus was arrested at 10:32 p.m. Saturday on charges of drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and refusing a chemical test, Narragansett Police Captain Sean Coorigan said. McManus is to be arraigned Tuesday in district court in Wakefield, R.I.

“I made a terrible error in judgment by driving after having consumed alcohol with dinner,” McManus said in the statement. “There is no excuse for the mistake I made, only a commitment to make amends and accept the consequences of my action.”

“More importantly,” he said, “I ask forgiveness from the good people whom I serve, as well as my family and friends, in the Diocese of Worcester and the Diocese of Providence.”

Corrigan told reporters this afternoon that McManus allegedly struck another motorist at the intersection of Bridgetown Road and Boston Neck Road.

The alleged victim followed McManus and called police, who arrested the bishop about 20 minutes later in the Bonnet Shores beachfront community on suspicion of drunken driving, Corrigan said....