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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Virginia Muslim leaders scratch their heads, wonder how five “goofy, laughing kids” could have become jihadists

Dec 12, 2009 8:16 am By Robert Spencer


Mahdi Bray, supporter of Hamas and Hizballah, is baffled

Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society just can’t figure out how these young Muslims turned to jihad violence. The Muslim American Society is the Muslim Brotherhood:

“In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” — Chicago Tribune, 2004.

The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

The Islamic Circle of North America is also a Brotherhood organization.

Are you starting to get an idea as to how these young men became “radicalized”? So am I.

“At Virginia mosque, a struggle to understand why young men may have held terrorist ambitions,” by Bob Drogin and Sebastian Rotella for the Los Angeles Times, December 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The bungalow-turned-mosque has no sign out front. It sits behind a Firestone tire store and across from a busy Dunkin’ Donuts in a working-class neighborhood of modest homes in suburban Virginia.

Members of the unmarked mosque struggled on Friday to understand how and why five well-liked members of an Islamic youth group embarked on a dangerous odyssey from Alexandria to their arrest this week in Pakistan on suspicion of seeking to fight alongside militant groups.

“Those are our children,” Essam Tellawi, the imam, said in an emotional sermon to about 30 men and women who attended noontime prayers at the ICNA Center, which is affiliated with the Islamic Circle of North America. He added: “I could never describe the difficulties and hardships that our five families have been afflicted with.”

None of the worshippers who gathered on a bitterly cold Friday had an explanation for how the five were radicalized. The young men belonged to a Muslim youth group of 12 to 15 young men that went camping, played basketball and performed community service projects.

“Our group never talked about politics” or waging war, said Mustafa Maryam, the youth group leader, who has known the five since 2006.

He called them “fun loving, career-focused children” who “appeared to have a bright future.” He also called them “very goofy” and “laughing kids.”…

The mosque plans an internal inquiry to see if the young men were secretly recruited by outsiders, or if they followed firebrand sheiks or extremist videos on websites.

“We want to know: What did we miss?” said Mahdi Bray, head of the Muslim American Society, an Islamic advocacy group based in nearby Falls Church, Va. “We saw these kids every day. In hindsight, what could we have done?”…

Well, Mahdi, for starters, you could institute programs in mosques and Islamic schools teaching against the jihad and Islamic supremacism. Once you’ve done that, get back to me — there is more!

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Filed Under: Islamic Circle of North America, Jihad in the U.S., Muslim American Society, Pakistan Tagged With: Mahdi Bray


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