Recently in New York City Category

Just when the idea that suspicion of Muslims in America is all unjustified "Islamophobia" seems to be gathering steam, another guy like Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis has to come along and spoil everything by showing that such suspicion is abundantly justified and has nothing whatsoever to do with bigotry.

Pamela Geller encapsulates the hypocrisy of the mainstream media and groups like Hamas-linked CAIR regarding the Qur'an's teachings of jihad warfare, and how they influence Muslims like Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis: "Let's ask Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis which quranic verse most inspired him and use that one on our next AFDI ad."

"FBI Arrests Would-Be Terrorist In Alleged Plot To Bomb NY Fed," by Dan Bigman for Forbes, October 17 (thanks to Tonka):

The FBI and NYPD have reportedly arrested a man they’d led into a sting operation for allegedly attempting to blow up the New York Federal Reserve Bank building in lower Manhattan today.

According to WABC-TV, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, was arrested after he attempted to detonate a a van filled with what he thought to be explosives outside the fortress-like structure on Liberty Street. The suspect had been working on the plan with FBI agents he thought to be co-conspirators for months, according to the New York Post.

“This morning, after parking the van, he went to the Millennium Hotel near the World Trade Center, where he called the cell phone in the van,” according to the Post. “It did not explode, and he was arrested by federal agents.”

They were "within days of carrying out this attack." Will the Islamophobia never end?

Here is some useful background on this story.

"Trial opens for alleged New York bomb plotter," by Sebastian Smith for AFP, April 16 (thanks to David):

NEW YORK — The high-profile trial began of a man accused of being part of a New York trio that was only "days" from launching suicide bombs in the city's crowded subway to take revenge for the US war in Afghanistan.

The trial in Brooklyn features New York immigrant Muslims who became radicalized in the feverish post-9/11 atmosphere and allegedly became homegrown terrorists with a plan to cause carnage in America's biggest city.

Federal prosecutor James Loonam opened by pointing across the courtroom at defendant Adis Medunjanin, 27, and calling him an Al-Qaeda "terrorist."

Loonam detailed how in September 2009 Medunjanin, along with two former New York high school friends, put final touches on a plan to bomb either the subway, Times Square, or another packed location.

"Three men were prepared to strap bombs to their bodies and walk into crowded New York subway cars that were filled with innocent people," Loonam said. "These men came so close, within days of carrying out this attack, before they were stopped."

Gesturing at Medunjanin, who wore a suit, the prosecutor said: "One of those Al-Qaeda terrorists is inside the courtroom right now."

Medunjanin, a Bosnian whose family fled to the United States during the war with Serbia in the 1990s, is charged with nine terrorism-related counts.

He is accused of traveling to Pakistan in 2008 in a failed attempt to join the Taliban to fight against US forces in Afghanistan, then entering the bomb plot on his return home, and finally trying to use his car to cause bloodshed in a desperate last act before his arrest.

He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, said Medunjanin was only a passionate Muslim who wanted to go to Afghanistan because he was outraged by the US drone bombing of civilians and abuses in US military prisons.

"The truth is Adis Medunjanin is not a terrorist. The truth is, in this case, the government with all its inflammatory and incendiary allegations, is just wrong," Gottlieb said.

"Mr Medunjanin never planned to bomb the New York City subways, contrary to what the government has told you. Mr Medunjanin never joined any plan, as that term is defined in the law... to go to Afghanistan to kill members of the United States military."

The other two men in the alleged plot, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, have already pleaded guilty and turned on their old friend in hopes that cooperation with prosecutors will earn them lighter sentences.

Ahmedzay was the first witness called by the prosecution.

He told the court that Medunjanin had helped him grow closer to Islam. Then one day, when the three of them were in a car, they "made a covenant to go to Afghanistan" and join the Taliban.

He described Medunjanin as steadfast in his ambition to become a suicide bomber on return to the United States....

"If not for his arrest, he would have traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad and aim to kill American soldiers." "In another e-mail, Hasbajrami stated that he wished to travel abroad to 'marry with the girls in paradise,' using jihadist rhetoric to describe his desire to die as a martyr."

See? What Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S. have been saying is true! They've fought anti-Sharia laws all over the country by claiming that such laws would interfere with Muslim religious practice, and even make it impossible for people to marry in an Islamic ceremony. And here is Agron Hasbajrami, in an overflow of piety, wanting to marry with the virgins of Paradise promised to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (Qur'an 9:111; and for the virgins, 44:54; 52:20; 55:56; 55:72) and what happens? The Feds swoop in and arrest him! It's racism! It's bigotry! It's Islamophobia!

Honest Ibe Hooper, where are you on this? Call Dave Weigel! Call Eli Clifton! Call Adam Serwer! Call Ali Gharib! Call Scott Shane! Call Souad Mekhennet! This must not stand!

"Albanian National Arrested En Route to Fight Jihad Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Support Terrorists," from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, April 12:

Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen and resident of Brooklyn, pled guilty today in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York before the Honorable John Gleeson to attempting to provide material support to terrorists. At sentencing, Hasbajrami faces up to 15 years in prison. As a condition of his plea, Hasbarjrami has agreed to be deported from the United States.

The guilty plea was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Janice K. Fedarcyk, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office; and Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner, New York City Police Department.

According to court documents, Hasbajrami attempted to travel to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (the FATA) for the purpose of joining a radical jihadist insurgent group. In addition, Hasbajrami sent over $1,000 in multiple wire transfers abroad to support terrorist activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In pursuing his goal of fighting jihad, Hasbajrami exchanged e-mail messages with an individual in Pakistan who told him that he was a member of an armed group that had murdered American soldiers. In order to preserve the secrecy of their communications, Hasbajrami and the individual used multiple e-mail addresses to disguise their correspondence. In one e-mail message, Hasbajrami stated that it was difficult to ask for money from fellow Muslims because they became apprehensive “when they hear it is for jihad.” In another e-mail, Hasbajrami stated that he wished to travel abroad to “marry with the girls in paradise,” using jihadist rhetoric to describe his desire to die as a martyr.

On September 5, 2011, Hasbajrami purchased a one-way airline ticket to travel to Turkey the following day. Based on Hasbajrami’s e-mail communications, he intended to travel from Turkey to the FATA to join a jihadist group. On September 6, 2011, Hasbajrami was arrested at an international departures terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York. At the time of his arrest, Hasbajrami was carrying a tent, boots, and cold-weather gear. Following his arrest, a search of Hasbajrami’s residence revealed, among other items, a note reading, “Do not wait for invasion, the time is martyrdom time.”...

FBI Assistant Director in Charge Fedarcyk stated, “The defendant has admitted to attempting to provide material support to terrorists, but this entailed much more than the money he wired overseas. If not for his arrest, he would have traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad and aim to kill American soldiers. Our mission includes not only preventing acts of terrorism here but also preventing would-be terrorists from going abroad to harm Americans.”

“The plea demonstrates that Brooklyn is no place from which to launch terrorist aspirations without the good chance of being captured and prosecuted,” Police Commissioner Kelly said. “Vigilance paid dividends again.”

Watch out, Kelly. You're veering perilously close to "Islamophobia."

The Muslim Students Association is a Muslim Brotherhood group. The NYPD was monitoring it. So what? As long as no Constitutional protections were genuinely violated, the NYPD is just doing its job. The purpose of articles like this is to stop them from doing that job, which will have the effect, intended or not, of allowing the jihadist and Islamic supremacist activities of the MSAs to advance unimpeded.

Discover the Networks here has documentation of the MSA's ties to the Brotherhood, as well as a lengthy list of inflammatory, jihadist statements and jihad activities by MSA members.

"NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast," by Chris Hawley for the Associated Press, February 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK—The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.

Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.

Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Asked about the monitoring, police spokesman Paul Browne provided a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations, which the NYPD referred to as MSAs. Jesse Morton, who this month pleaded guilty to posting online threats against the creators of "South Park," had once tried to recruit followers at Stony Brook University on Long Island, Browne said.

"As a result, the NYPD deemed it prudent to get a better handle on what was occurring at MSAs," Browne said in an email. He said police monitored student websites and collected publicly available information, but did so only between 2006 and 2007.

"I see a violation of civil rights here," said Tanweer Haq, chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse. "Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever. Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities that everybody else has."

In recent months, the AP has revealed secret programs the NYPD, built with help from the CIA, to monitor Muslims at the places where they eat, shop and worship. The AP also published details about how police placed undercover officers at Muslim student associations in colleges within the city limits; this revelation has outraged faculty and student groups.

Though the NYPD says it follows the same rules as the FBI, some of the NYPD's activities go beyond what the FBI is allowed to do.

Kelly and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg repeatedly have said that the police only follow legitimate leads about suspected criminal activity.

But the latest documents mention no wrongdoing by any students.

In one report, an undercover officer describes accompanying 18 Muslim students from the City College of New York on a whitewater rafting trip in upstate New York on April 21, 2008. The officer noted the names of attendees who were officers of the Muslim Student Association.

"In addition to the regularly scheduled events (Rafting), the group prayed at least four times a day, and much of the conversation was spent discussing Islam and was religious in nature," the report says....

Yes, and so? This is egregious, as far as Chris Hawley and AP are concerned, but when jihadis consistently explain and justify their violent actions by referring to Islamic imperatives, as the underwear bomber did just days ago, why shouldn't law enforcement consider it worth noting when young Muslims discuss Islam? What assurance can the Muslim Brotherhood-linked MSA give that discussions of Islam among its members differ fundamentally in character from discussions of Islam among people like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Nidal Hasan, and Faisal Shahzad? And in the absence of the possibility of any such genuine assurance, why shouldn't law enforcement be vigilant?

He was within an hour of finishing a pipe bomb, just a couple of days after Muslims protested in front of the NYPD against surveillance of their communities. More on this story. "Terror suspect Jose Pimentel plotted to kill cops and soldiers with bombs he was building in Manhattan apartment, authorities say," by Alison Gendar and Bill Hutchinson for the New York Daily News, November 20:

A lone wolf with an anti-American grudge has been charged with plotting to kill cops and soldiers with bombs he was building in his Manhattan apartment from an Al Qaeda recipe, officials said Sunday.

Jose Pimentel, 27, told cops he was within an hour of finishing a powerful pipe bomb when the NYPD raided his Washington Heights apartment at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Pimentel planned to test three bombs on mailboxes and was plotting to eventually use the explosives on soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Kelly said Pimentel, an American citizen who was born in the Dominican Republic, also targeted a police station in Bayonne, N.J., and postal facilities.

Pimentel, who also went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, told a police informant that he hoped his attacks would grab the public’s attention to show “there was mujahideen in the city ready to wage Jihad.”

“The suspect was a so-called lone wolf, motivated by his own resentment of the presence of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as inspired by Al Qaeda propaganda,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a press conference Sunday night, adding there was no evidence Pimentel was linked to an organized Al Qaeda cell....

Like father, like son. At least in this case, that now means both have failed. An update on this story. "Father guilty of protecting subway plotter," from the Telegraph, July 22:

A Brooklyn jury found the father of Najibullah Zazi guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

The case featured the evidence of two other family members who pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the government to avoid stiff prison terms. They detailed the Afghan-American family's failure to acknowledge Zazi as a budding terrorist and its clumsy attempts to protect him once his plot fell apart.

A cousin of Najibullah Zazi told jurors that, while living in Pakistan, he had introduced Zazi to a cleric who arranged for Zazi and two childhood friends from New York to get explosives and other instruction at an al-Qaeda outpost.

Zazi admitted in a guilty plea last year that he returned from Pakistan to his family's Denver-area home to practise making bombs using chemicals extracted from cosmetic supplies. He then drove to New York in September 2009 with plans to attack the subway system in a "martyrdom operation" before he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado.

The defendant's nephew and brother-in-law both said that the FBI and immigration agents "put the squeeze" on the Zazi clan as soon as the plot unravelled.

When it became clear Najibullah Zazi was a suspect and family members were getting grand jury subpoenas, the nephew said "Uncle Wali" recruited him to get rid of plastic containers of peroxide and other evidence.

The family agreed to code name the chemicals "medicine" in case the FBI was eavesdropping, he said. The verdict came on the second day of deliberations. Sentencing is set for Dec 2.

Until May of this year, the Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, better known to some by his initials DSK, was the influential head of the International Monetary Fund. His arrest in New York City in May of this year on sexual assault charges has been one of the most spectacular and possibly over-reported news stories of 2011. DSK's downfall has had all the elements of a long-lived scandal: a powerful personality, accusations of a violent and heinous crime, and all brought about by a mere hotel chambermaid. There was more than a whiff of schadenfreude in the media's accounts that eagerly reported on DSK's initial detention at Riker's Island in New York, right down to his daily routine, meals, and even what sort of clothes he had to wear while incarcerated. DSK's reputation as a womanizer who has had numerous liaisons over the years has done little to help his case.

Of course, it just so happens that DSK's accuser, a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York, is duly described in many media accounts as a "...very pious, devout Muslim woman."  And it also so happens that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is Jewish. Coincidence? 'Coincidence' may be what many have thought up to this point, but it may be time to revisit this assumption.

And here's why. Six weeks after DSK's initial arrest, more information is now emerging about DSK's accuser, a woman who migrated from the African nation of Guinea to the US. And these revelations are the reason why the legal case against DSK is unraveling with such amazing speed. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has in fact already been released from house arrest.

The migrant from Guinea, who came into the United States on an asylum claim in 2004, has apparently lied from beginning to end. Her story that her husband was killed opposing the regime in Guinea and she was forced to flee her homeland was all a lie. She lied about her finances in order to secure public housing. She claimed a friend's child as her own in order to increase her Federal tax refund. She has had numerous associations with criminals, including her own boyfriend who is now languishing in an Arizona prison. And her own story of her supposed encounter with DSK has changed over the last six weeks, chock full of inconsistencies. In other words, she's emerged as about the worse sort of witness imaginable for the prosecution.

Probably the most damning evidence to come to light is the fact that, while DSK's accuser spoke to her incarcerated boyfriend by phone, she is reported to have said, in effect, that "...DSK has a lot of money and I know what I'm doing." She attempted to hide these intentions by speaking in an African dialect, but apparently the Feds were listening and eventually had it translated.

This is not the first time a Muslim has tried to run an extortion racket against an 'infidel', with the only difference now being that the target was a very high-profile one. Many Muslims have long been noted for their intimate involvement in the criminal underworld, exploiting Westerners, running welfare scams, and in general 'parasiting' non Muslims and western society at every opportunity. The case against DSK appears to be but a recent and high-profile instance of 'stealth' or 'legal' jihad, when Muslims attempt to exploit the infidels' own laws for maximum advantage.

Why would a Muslim, and a 'pious, devout' one at that, be so adept and experienced at lying? Surely Islam has nothing to do with this woman's pathological lying, and nothing to do with her criminal attempts to extort money from a powerful, rich Jew. Of course.

As jihad-minded and Islamic supremacist Muslims continue to pour into the US and other Western countries, permitted to do so by clueless or complicit authorities, the next attempted shakedown (high profile or otherwise) is but a matter of time. What happened to Dominique Strauss-Kahn will eventually happen again.

The judge said they were "motivated by hatred for Jews." Yes, and... An update on this story. "New York synagogue bomb plotters jailed," from BBC News, June 29:

Three men convicted of plotting to set off bombs at a New York City synagogue and shoot down military planes have been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

James Cromitie, David Williams and Onta Williams were arrested in 2009 after planting what they thought were bombs at a Jewish temple.

Federal Judge Colleen McMahon said the men were motivated by hatred for Jews.

But their lawyers said they were duped by a paid FBI informant and never posed a threat.

The men were convicted in October of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and other charges following testimony from FBI informant Shahed Hussain, who met Cromitie at a mosque north of New York City.

A fourth man, Laguerre Payen, was also convicted but his sentencing was postponed pending a psychiatric evaluation.

'Ticking time bombs'

Prosecutors said the men tried to detonate what they thought were explosives at a Jewish centre in the Riverdale section of the Bronx borough of New York, and plotted to fire missiles at New York Air National Guard planes at a base north of New York.

In surveillance video played at trial, the men were seen examining a shoulder-fired missile launcher in a warehouse.

Jurors also heard recordings of Cromitie, the alleged ringleader, ranting against Jews and saying he wanted to exact revenge against the US for military aggression in the Middle East.

Judge McMahon acknowledged the men never posed a legitimate threat, as they were under surveillance during most of the case and never possessed genuine explosives or weapons.

Lawyers for the men argued the federal government had manufactured the crime, saying the four defendants were motivated by small amounts of cash and meals the informant provided.

But prosecutors had called the men "ticking time bombs".

"This would have been a colossal terrorist attack and the fact that it was all fantasy really doesn't matter because in their minds, they thought it was real," Assistant US Attorney David Raskin said.

"Ticking time bombs" is right. And in that regard, the sting operations that are decried as "entrapment" have been a crucial tool in steering those with the intent to commit mass murder into a controlled "off-ramp" from active plotting into jail. These operations have saved lives across the country by taking jihadists out of action from Springfield, Illinois, to Dallas, Portland, Baltimore, and Lubbock, Texas.

I should care, I should go around weeping
I should care, I should go without sleeping
Strangely enough, I sleep well
'cept for a dream or two
But then I count my sheep well
Funny how sheep can lull you to sleep

So I should care, I should let it upset me
I should care but it just doesn't get me....

That's as far as Bloomberg would get in this Sammy Cahn tune, for now. At some point, either on a future Election Day, or when a problem that could have been avoided arises from within this mosque, he'll get to the last part:

"I should care, and I do."

"Mayor Bloomberg doesn't care where money to build Ground Zero mosque comes from," by Adam Lisberg for the New York Daily News, August 6 (thanks to Twostellas):

Mayor Bloomberg said he doesn't know where the planners of the proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero will get the money to build -- and he doesn't care.

"People say, well, you know, 'Do they have the money? Can they raise the money? Where does it come from?' " the mayor said Friday on his WOR-AM radio show with John Gambling.

"I don't know, and government shouldn't -- do you really want every time they pass the basket in your church and you throw a buck in, they run over and say, 'Okay, now, you know, where do you come from? Who are your parents? Where'd you get this money?'

Big difference: What supremacist middle finger to America is the corner church trying to put up at Ground Zero?

"No! This is just not -- and I can't for the life of me -- a handful of people ought to be ashamed of themselves." [channeling a Fred Armisen character from SNL's Weekend Update? - ed.]

Bloomberg gave an impassioned defense of the rights of the Park51 Islamic center this week after the Landmarks Preservation Commission gave the founders permission to tear down the existing structure on Park Place.

Organizers have not yet raised money to construct the proposed 13-story building.

They have said they may accept some foreign donations, but have pledged to weed out any contributions from people and groups with anti-American agendas.

So, no money from Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan? Fabulous!

Yes, you read that right. And Wilders, only Wilders, is standing up to this breathtaking short-sighted idiocy: "'Netherlands Subsidising Mosque by Ground Zero,'" from NIS News, July 21 (thanks to Fjordman):

AMSTERDAM, 21/07/10 - The Party for Freedom (PVV) is demanding clarification by the Dutch government regarding reports that the Netherlands is co-financing the construction of a mosque a stone's throw away from Ground Zero in New York with 1 million dollars of Dutch taxpayers' money.

On the foreign ministry's website, it says that a subsidy of 1 million dollars has been awarded to the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). This organisation is, in partnership with the Islamic organisation Cordoba Initiative, responsible for the Islamic centre including a mosque, costing 100 million dollars, to be built near Ground Zero.

The PVV is demanding an explanation and terms the plans to build a mosque right next to Ground Zero absurd and an insult to relatives of the thousands of victims who lost their lives on 11 September 2001. The party wants the subsidy to ASMA to be withdrawn immediately.

An update on this story. "Feds: NYC Subway Plotters Targeted London, Too," from CBS News and the Associated Press, July 7:

A failed plot to set off bombs in the New York subway system last year was part of larger al Qaeda conspiracy that planned a similar attack in England, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday.

In a terrorism indictment unsealed Wednesday, prosecutors added several al Qaeda figures to the case, including Adnan Shukrijumah, whose name is on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists.

Shukrijumah, an al Qaeda leader in charge of plotting attacks worldwide, was directly involved in recruiting and plotting the New York attack, prosecutors said. Attorney General Eric Holder has called that plot one of the most dangerous since Sept. 11, 2001.

Two of the men indicted Wednesday, Abid Naseer and Tariq Ur Rehman, were linked to a previously undisclosed companion plot in England.

"These charges underscore the global nature of the terrorist threat we face," David Kris, the Justice Department's top national security prosecutor said.

After 9/11, Shukrijumah, 34, was seen as one of al Qaeda's best chances to attack inside the United States or Europe, captured terrorist Abu Zubaydah told U.S. authorities. Shukrijumah studied at a community college in Florida, but when the FBI showed up to arrest him as a material witness to a terrorism case in 2003, he already had left the country.

In 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft called Shukrijumah a "clear and present danger" to the United States. The U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Three U.S. citizens were arrested in September 2009 before, prosecutors said, they could carry out a trio of suicide bombings in Manhattan. Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty and admitted planning to detonate homemade bombs on the subway during rush hour.

A third man, Adis Medunjanin, awaits trial. Prosecutors added new terrorism charges against him Wednesday.

Intelligence officials began unraveling the subway plot last year, when U.S. intelligence intercepted an e-mail from an account that al Qaeda had used in a recent terrorist plot, officials said. The e-mail discussed bomb-making techniques and was sent to an address in Denver, setting off alarms within the CIA and FBI from Islamabad to the U.S.

Najibullah Zazi and two friends were arrested in September 2009 before, prosecutors said, they could carry out a trio of suicide bombings in Manhattan. Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty and admitted planning to detonate homemade bombs on the subway during rush hour. A third man, Adis Medunjanin, awaits trial.

A fourth suspect, a midlevel al Qaeda operative known as Ahmed, traded the e-mails with Zazi, who was frantically trying to perfect his bomb making recipe, officials said. The U.S. wants to bring the Pakistani man to the U.S. for trial on charges that are not yet public.

Pakistani officials also have arrested a fifth person, known as Afridi, who worked with Ahmed, officials said....

"War is deceit," Muhammad said, and this tactic would stretch resources thin and tempt residents to take the suspicious packages less seriously until an actual bomb went off among the decoys. "Jihadi Web site asks supporters to plant fake bombs in New York City," by Alison Gendar for the New York Daily News, June 8:

They want to kill us, but in the meantime, terrorists may just mess with our heads.

Psychological jihad is part of the package. Muhammad also said: "I have been made victorious with terror." And Qur'an 8:60 commands believers to "strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah."

A well-known jihadi Web site called on supporters to plant fake bombs in the city to wreak havoc, exhaust law enforcement and lure New Yorkers into complacency, an FBI alert says.

Local FBI and NYPD sources downplayed the internal report, which was issued out of the FBI's Field Office Intelligence Division in Washington.

"We handle hundreds of false alarms each week, and have for years, and still managed to react quickly when the real thing happens," said an NYPD source.

The alert was part of a routine internal bulletin. FBI sources said the city has a strong system in place to handle suspicious packages.

In the week after the failed May 1 Times Square car bombing, the number of calls to the NYPD for suspicious packages topped more than 140 a day, compared with 80 to 90 a day in the days before the attack.

Even though Shahzad settled on Times Square, to whom did the information on other targets go? "Times Square bomb suspect eyed other targets, official says," from CNN, May 18:

New York (CNN) -- The man accused of attempting to set off a car bomb in Times Square considered other targets in and around New York before the failed attack, an investigator said.

Faisal Shahzad, 30, pondered attacks on Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Center and Connecticut helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky, going so far as to case some of the targets, a senior counterterrorism official with oversight of the investigation said Tuesday.

Dressed in a gray sweatsuit, free of handcuffs, Shahzad appeared before a federal magistrate on Tuesday afternoon to hear the charges against him. As he walked into courtroom, Shahzad gave a slight smile to his public defender, Julia Gatto. At the end of the hearing, Gatto requested that Shahzad be served halal food -- prepared according to Islamic dietary laws -- while jailed.

That is: "Please go to extra trouble on the taxpayer dime to respectfully accommodate the belief system under whose orders (cf. Qur'an 9:5, for starters) my client tried to commit mass murder."

Of course, the politically correct dogma currently in force prevents most in the justice system from acknowledging that Islam has anything to do with jihadist terrorism. But, if for no other reason than fiscal responsibility: How about some Tofurky?

Why the assumption that we have something to prove? Meanwhile, we're expected to take Islam's claims of "tolerance" (which is according to its own definition and standards, not the Western tradition) as an article of politically correct faith. The tasteless positioning of a mosque near Ground Zero is also intended to foist another part of that dogma on New Yorkers -- namely, that Islam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, so a mosque in that location ought to be quite alright, right?

But there are two problems here: 1. Islamic jihad was the motivation behind those attacks, and 2. it is Islam that has a problem with tolerance, as is made clear by its own texts and teachings (one may start with Qur'an 9:29, 98:6), and the abundance of Islamic nations cited as "Countries of Particular Concern" in the annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Lastly, the fact that this project is called the "Cordoba House" adds a certain level of insult to injury. In that vein, someone might ask Imam Rauf about the Hagia Sophia sometime.

"New Yorkers Wary Of Future Ground Zero Mosque," from CBS, May 6:

NEW YORK (CBS) ― In a building damaged by debris from the Sept. 11 airliners that brought down the World Trade Center and soon to become a 13-story mosque, some see the bridging of a cultural divide and an opportunity to serve a burgeoning, peaceful religious population. Others see a painful reminder of the religious extremism that killed their loved ones.

Anything having to do with that day, that place, carries enormous meaning. Now two Islamic organizations have partnered to build something that they say will bring some good from something very bad.

Organizers say the project will create a venue for mainstream Islam and a counterbalance to radicalism. It earned a key endorsement this week from influential community leaders.

"This is a community center, a community and cultural center, which would include certainly prayer space for Muslims and we hope for non-Muslims as well, to bring about a new discourse in the relationship between the United States, New York City, and the Muslim world," said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative.

He's hoping the 13-story, $100 million Islamic center will join the other buildings; the banks, offices, and apartments, going up at ground zero. It will serve a growing Muslim population in lower Manhattan.

The closest mosque to this area is a dozen blocks away and very over-crowded, but this site was also chosen for exactly what happened here on 9/11, and what America stands for, Rauf told CBS station WCBS-TV in New York City.

"Definitely, this is a victory of American tolerance over hatred," Rauf said.

But some 9/11 victims' families say the issue isn't tolerance.

It's sensitivity.

"I don't like it," said Evelyn Pettigano, who lost a sister in the attacks, during a phone interview on Thursday. "I'm not prejudiced. ... It's too close to the area where our family members were murdered."

"I lost my brother, Sean. He was a fireman," Rosaleen Tallon said.

"As an American I am so proud of our freedom of religion, but I also think we have to be historically sensitive to what happened in that area," Tallon said.

Tallon wants to teach her son, Paddy, to be tolerant of other religions. But she wonders if other religions, like Islam, are teaching their children to be tolerant of hers. There are other places in the city, she said, for another mosque.

"I don't think that they would build a German cultural center right near Auschwitz. Just because you're looking at what happened to the people that died there. That's all that should be focused on," Tallon said.

The organizations publicly unveiled the preliminary plan for the project, known as the Cordoba House, on Wednesday at a meeting of the finance committee of the local community board, which is composed of influential stakeholders in lower Manhattan. While the agency has no authority over what can be developed at the site, their support is viewed as key to gaining acceptance from residents....

Of course, Al-Awlaki did not invent the ideology he has become widely known for propagating. Nor did Osama bin Laden, nor did al-Qaeda. Authorities would have to dig into some highly politically-incorrect territory to get to the root of what motivated Shahzad to pursue violent jihad, especially since his case cannot be written off as the product of poverty or a lack of education. "A Newly Religious Immigrant Is Linked to a Militant Yemeni-American Cleric," by Scott Shane and Marc Mazzetti for the New York Times, May 6:

WASHINGTON -- The Pakistani-American man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square has told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots, an American official said Thursday.

Curious NYT decorum:

The would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, said he was "inspired by" the violent rhetoric of Mr. Awlaki, said the official, who would speak of the investigation only on condition of anonymity.

"He listened to him, and he did it," the official said, referring to Saturday's attempted bombing on a busy street in Times Square.

Friends of Mr. Shahzad have said he became more religious and somber in the last year or so, and asked his father's permission in 2009 to join the fight in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces. Investigators believe he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that previously focused mainly on Pakistani government targets.

A senior military official said Thursday that Mr. Shahzad has told interrogators that he met with Pakistani Taliban operatives in North Waziristan in December and January. Later he received explosives training from the same operatives, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Counterterrorism officials want to know how Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen who had earned an M.B.A., married and had children and worked in several corporate jobs, came to embrace violence.

It is no surprise to counterterrorism officials to find that an accused terrorist had been influenced by Mr. Awlaki, 39, now hiding in Yemen, who has emerged as perhaps the most prominent English-speaking advocate of violent jihad against the United States.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of Mr. Awlaki, making him the first American citizen on the Central Intelligence Agency's hit list.

Mr. Awlaki's English-language online lectures and writings have turned up in more than a dozen terrorism investigations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, counterterrorism experts have said. And in two recent United States cases, Mr. Awlaki communicated directly with the accused perpetrator.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, exchanged about 18 e-mail messages with Mr. Awlaki in the year before the shootings, asking among other things whether it would be permissible under Islam to kill American soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan. After the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as "a hero" on his Web site, which was taken offline by the Internet host company shortly after the posting.

In addition, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner on Christmas Day, is believed to have met Mr. Awlaki during his training by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

It is unclear whether Mr. Shahzad ever directly communicated with Mr. Awlaki.

A video broadcast on April 26 on Al Jazeera showed Mr. Awlaki speaking in Arabic and accusing the United States of participating with Yemeni forces in two air strikes in December, one of which was directed at a house where Mr. Awlaki was believed to be meeting with leaders of the Al Qaeda branch. The video carried the logo of the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mr. Awlakiwas questioned by the F.B.I. late in 2001 about contacts with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers who had attended his mosques in San Diego and Virginia. He denied any radical ties and denounced the 9/11 attacks in public statements.

He was imprisoned in Yemen in 2006 and 2007, and after his release he was more overtly approving of violence. Last year, he published a tract entitled "44 Ways of Supporting Jihad" that was widely circulated on the Internet.

There are 50 ways to leave your lover, but only 44 ways to support jihad. Now you know.

Mr. Awlaki's Web site became a favorite for English-speaking Muslims who were curious about jihad, and hundreds of people sent e-mail messages to his site. It is not known whether Mr. Shahzad was among them, and there is no evidence that Mr. Shahzad visited the cleric in Yemen where he was believed to be hiding in a harsh region of desert and mountains.

It ought to be, and it would be long overdue with regard to American tolerance of Pakistan's foot-dragging, highly selective approach to addressing jihadist groups within its borders, and the frequent complicity of the Inter-Services Intelligence with those groups' activities, whether involving Kashmir or the western frontier provinces. "Congressman cites probable link between Shahzad, Pakistani Taliban," from CNN, May 6:

(CNN) -- The ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee says "there probably is a strong link" between Times Square car bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and the Taliban in Pakistan.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra told CNN's American Morning on Thursday that he has drawn that conclusion from a number of sources.

"If this is accurate, it would be a game-changer," Hoekstra said.

"We're going to get much more aggressive and perhaps more creative in terms of how we gather intelligence to find the plots and find individuals to stop them," he said.

He said his committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will be getting an official briefing later Thursday.

According to a law enforcement source with knowledge of Shahzad's questioning, the suspect made a practice run in Manhattan the day before he allegedly tried to blow up a car bomb in Times Square.

Last Friday, Shahzad drove his white Isuzu from Connecticut through Times Square, where he staked out potential locations for the following night's planned attack, the source said. He then parked the Isuzu several blocks away from Times Square, though the precise location was unclear, and took a train back to Connecticut, the source said.

Separately, authorities in Pakistan have rounded up a number of people for questioning, as U.S. law enforcement officials sought Wednesday to piece together Shahzad's actions and motivations.

Iftikhar Mian, the father-in-law of the suspect, and Tauseef Ahmed, Shahzad's friend, were picked up in Karachi, Pakistan, on Tuesday, two intelligence officials said.

An intelligence source said Wednesday that Muhammed Rehan, an associate of Shahzad, also was detained Tuesday.

New details began to emerge on how Shahzad made his way to Times Square on Saturday night.

With his recently acquired Pathfinder loaded with his makeshift explosives, Shahzad drove southbound along Manhattan's East River on FDR Drive to the 49th Street exit, the law enforcement source said.

Shahzad then pulled over and reached into the Pathfinder's rear compartment where he attempted to set into motion the process needed to set off the homemade bomb, the source said.

The source, who did not explain how Shahzad had attempted to set off the bomb, said he then took a number of turns and wound up entering Times Square by driving south down Seventh Avenue.

It's unclear why Shahzad left the Pathfinder's engine running and hazard lights blinking.

But because of an incredible goof, Shahzad couldn't use his escape car. He had accidentally left the keys to that vehicle in the Pathfinder that he thought was about to blow up, the source said....

"Another clue in the investigation is a video posted online early Sunday morning by persons in Connecticut." More on this story. "Authorities Have Identified Person of Interest in Times Square Bomb Attempt," by Richard Esposito, Pierre Thomas, and Brian Ross for ABC News, May 3:

Federal authorities are closing in on the man they say is a person of interest in the Times Square car bomb attempt this weekend, who is described as a naturalized American citizen who hails from Pakistan and just returned after spending five months there.

There is growing evidence the bomber did not act alone and had ties to radical elements overseas, with one senior official telling ABC News there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate.

Officials declined to provide the specifics that led them to believe there were overseas links to a larger plot.

Authorities said another clue in the investigation is a video posted online early Sunday morning by persons in Connecticut, who may have been involved in the bomb attempt and are being sought by law enforcement. The video, posted on a site registered one day before the attack, has the Taliban in Pakistan claiming responsibility for the attempted bombing....

More on this story, and what continues to be Pakistan's most prominent export. "Times Square Bomb: U.S. Officials Finding Foreign Links to New York Bomb Plot," by Richard Esposito, Pierre Thomas, and Brian Ross for ABC News, May 3:

Federal authorities are closing in on the man they say tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square Saturday, and there is growing evidence the bomber did not act alone and had ties to radical elements overseas.

Police release video of possible suspect seen near site of failed attack.

One senior official said there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate. [...]

Other law enforcement officials said the investigation was closing in on the driver of the vehicle and an unknown number of others connected to him.

"This is moving very fast because they left behind a treasure trove of evidence in the unexploded car," one US official told ABC News.

Officials told ABC News Senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas that the Connecticut owner of the vehicle told them he had sold the Nissan SUV last month in an unrecorded sale to an "Arabic or Latino looking man" in his 20's or 30's, for a few hundred dollars in cash.

The license plate on the car was apparently stolen from an auto repair shop outside Bridgeport, Connecticut, according to law enforcement officials.

The authorities told ABC News that the previous owner provided a description of the man who bought the car, and told investigators the vehicle was sold for several hundred dollars in cash, with no written records identifying the purchaser. [...]

"They would not have been able to have stopped the bomb if it had been wired properly," said former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "Someone was able to drive into New York with what looks like bomb parts, drive right into the heart of Times Square, pull up on the sidewalk, jump up and run away and not get caught."

The bomb bore similarities to two Al Qaeda-connected attacks on a London nightclub and an airport in Scotland in 2007. Three vehicles used in the attempted bombings contained propane gas tanks.

Al Qaeda has posted videos showing how to construct a bomb using propane tanks and gasoline.

He has citizenship in two of the most prosperous, advanced societies on the planet. How 'bout that gratitude? More on this story. "Aussie on NY terror charges," by Carly Crawford for the Herald Sun, May 1:

The Australian man arrested as part of a growing al-Qaeda probe in New York is a devoted follower of fundamentalist Islam, sources say.

New York-based Sabirhan "Tareq" Hasanoff, who has both Australian and US citizenship, was one of two men charged with conspiring to provide material support al Qaeda in the US yesterday.

He is accused of lending the extremist network his computer expertise and handling huge sums of money for the group in New York.

Hasanoff's co-accused, Wesam El-Hanafi, 33, allegedly travelled to terror hotbed Yemen to receive orders, later purchasing seven digital Casio watches online.

Such watches are often used as timers to set off terrorist bombs.

He and Hasanoff were arrested overseas and flown to the US ahead their court appearance in Virginia yesterday.

They each faced one count of conspiring with al Qaeda between November 2007 and March 2010 and face up to 15 years in jail.

Hasanoff, 34, allegedly received $US50,000 ($A66,000) from an al Qaeda associate in 2007 and later discussed joining the radical terror cell, court documents show.

The tenant who occupies his townhouse in Flushing, Queens, described Hasanoff as a polite family man who, like his wife Wahida, is heavily into fundamentalist Islam.

"She's very religious and her husband is too," Fahima Rustam told News Limited at the neat split-level home yesterday.

"I'm scared - he was very nice, very quiet person," she said.

The FBI interviewed Ms Rustam early one morning about six months ago, digging for details about her landlord.

Hasanoff has two children - a boy aged five and a four-year-old daughter.

Two days ago, Ms Rustam got a phone call from Hasanoff's sister who asked her to start writing her rent checks in the sister's name, rather than her brother's.

"She didn't say why," said Ms Rustam, who has rented the home for the past four years.

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly played down fears of a looming terror attack, saying there was no evidence of a specific plot.

"This was part of an on-going investigation into material support for al-Qaeda," NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly said.

"Najibullah Zazi and his two co-defendants wanted to inflict maximum casualties around the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks."

An update on this story. "Source: Terror plot targeted Times Square, Grand Central stations," by Susan Candiotti for CNN, April 12:

New York (CNN) -- The three men accused of plotting to bomb the New York City subway last year planned to attack trains at Times Square and Grand Central stations, a federal law enforcement source said Monday.

Najibullah Zazi and his two co-defendants wanted to inflict maximum casualties around the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the source said.

The trio, wearing homemade bombs, plotted to position themselves in the middle of busy subway cars in order to kill the most people, probably targeting the 1, 2, 3, or 6 line trains, the source said.

Since his arrest, Zazi has given authorities information about the plot. The law enforcement source said Zazi would probably have chosen September 14 for the attack, but was also considering the September 15 or 16.

Zazi's co-defendants, Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay, are indicted in the plot and have pleaded not guilty.

All three men went to the same high school in Flushing, Queens, New York.

The plot was foiled when the FBI began following Zazi and police stopped him on a bridge into New York. Zazi said that prompted him to dump his bomb materials and return to Denver, Colorado, where he was working as a shuttle driver, authorities said.

Prosecutors have said they plan one or two more arrests overseas.

Zazi is scheduled for sentencing in June.