From the Edmonton Journal:
A former Edmonton-area cinema owner has been charged in the United States with raising cash and recruiting Muslim extremists in North America throughout the 1990s to help wage a worldwide Islamic jihad.
Kassem Daher, linked by CSIS to al-Qaeda, is a Lebanese native who came to Canada in the 1980s as a business immigrant. Daher, who once ran movie theatres in Leduc and Ponoka, left Canada in 1998.
In 2000, he was arrested in Lebanon after a shootout between police and alleged terrorists. After his arrest, Daher’s relatives denied he was ever involved in terrorism and urged the Canadian government to intervene on his behalf. He was never formally charged with a crime in Lebanon or Canada and has been free on bail for the past year, Barbara Campion, a spokeswoman for CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) told CanWest News Service on Tuesday.
But a criminal complaint unsealed this week in Florida named Daher — along with three other men, including a former Detroit public school administrator — as co-conspirators in a network aimed at supporting
terrorist activities around the globe.The alleged network came to light on Monday following the arrest of Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a former assistant superintendent in Detroit’s school system. Authorities told the Detroit Free Press that Jayyousi was arrested around 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the Detroit airport after arriving from Qatar via Amsterdam.
U.S. customs agents detained Jayyousi after a computer check showed he was wanted on a federal terrorism warrant issued in Miami, along with two other men: Adham Amin Hassoun and Daher.
Jayyousi and Daher are charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources for terrorism and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure people or damage property in a foreign country….
Earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami released a 14-page affidavit sworn out by FBI agent John T. Kavanaugh detailing what he described as the “Jayyousi-Daher-Hassoun North American Support Network” for Islamic terror.
“The investigation of Jayyousi, Daher (and) Hassoun began in late 1993 and revealed that they had formed a network across North America to fundraise for and recruit mujahedeen to train and fight in various jihad areas including but not limited to Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and Somalia,” the affidavit states….
In one February 1995 conversation, Jayyousi, Daher and Zaky allegedly discussed how the network was moving jihadist soldiers between Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, and Eritrea. Daher said “we are in charge of it in Canada,” according to the affidavit, and added that “we have brothers in Lebanon who are ready to go to Chechnya but there’s no money.”…