But three things in particular stick out from the news reports about Gauss, especially from the detailed information published by Russian computer security company Kaspersky, which carried out a detailed technical analysis of how Gauss was constructed, all of which point to a possible new trend in cyberwarfare, and in particular how cyberweapons are now being used in the fight against terror financing.
The first is that the malware analysts have concluded that Gauss, like Stuxnet and Flame, was programmed and distributed by a state or state-sponsored hacker group rather than by an independent hacker group: this conclusion was reached on the basis of the sophistication of the programming and encryption techniques used, and because of technical similarities with the previous types of malware that are already believed to have originated in either the US or Israeli intelligence communities, or perhaps through cooperation between the two. The USA and Israel, together with the United Kingdom, Russia and China, are regarded as the countries with the highest level of state capabilities in developing and deploying offensive cyberweapons.
The second is that the vast majority of the Gauss infections so far discovered have been in the Middle East. Of about 2,500 infections in 25 countries counted by Kaspersky Labs up to 31st July 2012, 1,660 were found in Lebanon, 483 in Israel, and 261 in the Palestinian territories. Apart from a few dozen infections in the USA and Germany, most of the remaining computers infected have been in Arab countries – although of course these statistics bear the caveat that these are only infections that have been detected using Kaspersky’s virus detection software, which is not installed on all possible target computers. Since the Kaspersky report also suggests that Gauss is planted on target computers largely through USB memory sticks, this suggests that Gauss has been planted using an extensive and carefully run human intelligence operation, which again suggests state involvement.
The third and most interesting feature of Gauss is that, at least according to Kaspersky, it is designed to steal bank log-on credentials of Lebanese banks, including the Bank of Beirut, Byblos Bank and Fransabank; and the company’s report claims that this “is the first publicly known nation-state sponsored banking Trojan.”
So what does this all mean? My guess is that either the USA or Israel, or both countries working in tandem, have decided to go well beyond the traditional forms of financial intelligence gathering, using Know Your Customer and transaction data from the international banks carrying our transactions with the Lebanese banking system, which have yielded disappointing results, not least because the European Union has refused to designate Hizbollah as a terrorist organization. Instead, they designed Gauss as spyware to be planted directly on computer systems in Lebanese banks known or suspected to carry out banking operations for Hizbollah, and especially if these banking operations also involve the large sums of Iranian money that have helped to keep Hizbollah afloat. It’s equally possible that Gauss has been engineered to propagate itself from Lebanese bank computers (or bank computers in Dubai, which is also known to act as a proxy for Iranian transactions that the international banking system is supposed to block.
I would also hazard a guess as to a further, longer-term, purpose of Gauss, based on a paragraph in the Kaspersky report that refers to an encrypted payload within the Gauss programme designed to “target a certain system (or systems) which have a specific programme installed. This could either be to withdraw Hizbollah or other Iranian-related funds from the banks where they are deposited, upon receipt of an appropriate message from a command-and-control server, in order to cause embarrassment or tactical damage to the target organization at a suitable time, or simply to wipe all the data relating to these target accounts.
Whether Gauss is indeed nothing more than spyware or it also contains some more destructive payload, what seems to be clear is that cybertools have now become a more sophisticated weapon for counter-terror finance and perhaps also for economic warfare in the Middle East. How effective they will be in fighting Iran and its Lebaanese proxy Hizbollah remains to be seen; but if in some way they help to remove either the nuclear threat that Iran currently poses to the rest of the Middle East and perhaps the whole of the free world, or at least they reduce the threat of Hizbollah reprisal attacks in the event of an Israeli preemptive strike against Iran, they will be a welcome addition to the West’s arsenal, they more so since they are bloodless weapons.
Their Oil Is Thicker than Our Blood*
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
* First published in "Saudi Arabia & the Global Islamic Terrorist Network", Chapter 10, pp-123-151, PalgraveMacMillan, November 2011.
The December 12, 2011 Iran’s Intelligence Minister Haydar Moslehi met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Nayef in Riyadh. Two days later, at the OPEC meeting in Vienna, the Iranians reveled that the Saudis agreed not “to replace Iranian crude if Iran faces any sanctions."
Accommodating their supposedly biggest enemy - the radical Shiite regime in Iran - while betraying their self-proclaimed ally - the United States, is a long held Saudi strategy. Support of radical Islamic regimes and groups helped keep the House of Saud in command.
“Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) , and other terrorist groups, including Hamas,” read a cable dated December 30, 2009, from United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, This was one of the cables published by Wikileaks in late November 2010.[1]
Another leaked cable, sent from the US Embassy in Riyadh in February 2010, stated that the Saudi interior ministry “remains almost completely dependent on the CIA to provide analytic support and direction for its counterterrorism operations.”[2]
The leaked cables only stated the obvious. Yet the obvious starkly contrasts with the more optimistic story on Saudi counterterrorism efforts, as publicly told by successive American administrations.
Overview: Saudi Arabia— as an Ally in the War on Terrorist Financing
For decades US officials publicly heaped praise on Saudi counterterrorism efforts, while the Saudis continued to fund terrorism.
In a 2003 interview, then-Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said that the American government had expressed its appreciation to the Saudi government for its actions in support of the global war on terrorism.[3] In 2005, during her confirmation hearing to the position of Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice commented that the United States previously “didn’t understand, really, the structure of terrorist financing very well.
We didn’t understand the role of non-governmental organizations that sounded like they were for good purposes but were, in fact, carrying out or funding terrorist activities. Others didn’t understand that, in the Muslim world, like the Saudis. And we have made, I think, great strides in doing that.”[4]
In 2007 US President George Bush certified the Saudi cooperation “with efforts to combat international terrorism.”[5] The Obama Administration followed suit. In July 2009, on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner lauded the Saudi government for having “taken important steps to combat financing for terrorist groups” and “to deter and disrupt those who support violent extremism.”[6]
However, some dared to disagree. In September 2007, US Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey told ABC News, “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.”[7]
While Mrs. Clinton’s leaked memo did not directly accuse the Saudi government of supporting radical Muslim groups, it noted, “Riyadh has taken only limited action” to interrupt money transfers to Taliban- and LeT-affiliated groups that have been carrying out attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.[8]
Americans started targeting Saudi Arabian terrorist financing after the 9/11 attacks, when it was established that 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were Saudi9 and that Saudis had provided substantial financial support for the worst terrorist attack in American history.[9] The Kingdom was persuaded to cooperate on some counterterrorism efforts only in 2003, and a combined task force was established. After the terrorist attack in Khobar, which the Saudis attributed to a local al-Qaeda cell in May 2004, new legislation and harsh domestic anti-terrorist financing measures were put in place.[10]
Saudi Arabia criminalized money laundering and terrorist financing in 2003 and enforces it to prevent domestic terrorism. It also banned some Saudi-based charitable organizations[11] from transferring money internationally until additional regulations could ensure that the transferred funds would not be funneled to terrorist groups.[12] According to the new banking regulations, all international transaction over $15,000[13] need the approval of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) [14]- the Kingdom’s central bank. In addition, new regulations were enacted to control cash courier. As part of their US-coordinated counterterrorism strategy, the Saudi authorities also agreed to publicly condemn terrorism.[15]
Since 2005, the Saudi king, government officials, and the Saudi grand mufti have publicly condemned violence and extremism, promoted international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and extolled the virtues of moderation.[16] However, the Saudis directed their counterterrorism campaign mostly to squelch domestic opposition.
The Saudis created its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in 2003,[17] and despite its legendary lack of transparency it was welcomed into the international Egmont Group (an international informal organization of FIUs)[18] The Saudis participate in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),[19] and is the leading country of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)), which participates in MENAFATF, which is an associate member of FATAF.[20]
In 2007 Saudi Arabia became a signatory to the United Nation’s’ International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.[21] Still, a September 2007 Congressional Research (CRS) Report addressed “Saudi laxity in acting against terrorist groups”[22] and in the Act implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the 110th US Congress noted that “Saudi Arabia has an uneven record in the fight against terrorism, especially with respect to terrorist financing.”[23] According to the 2009 State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report on money laundering, Saudi Arabia “continues to be a significant jurisdictional source for terrorist financing worldwide.”[24] Indeed, as Mrs. Clinton’s leaked cable pointed out, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other jihadist groups continue to “raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan.”[25]
In April 2010 the top council of Saudi clerics issued a fatwa (Islamic religious ruling) declaring terrorist financing a violation of Islamic law, and General David H. Petraeus, then Commander of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) was quick to praise the issuing council for its “courageous decision” to issue the fatwa against terrorist-financing.[26]
While the Saudis’ new counterterrorist financing and new financial monitoring regulations looked good on paper, Mrs. Clinton’s leaked cable noted that “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”[27] Her cable also stated it an “ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”[28] Although the new cash courier regulation implementation continues to be inconsistent, the more Saudis, including terrorism financiers, seem to increase their use of hawala, a system of monetary transfers through anonymous intermediaries that leaves no paper trail.
A 2009 General Accounting Office (GAO) report on Saudi efforts to stop terror financing noted that Saudi donors are the major funders of radical Muslim organizations. The report further stated that Saudi financial institutions demonstrated a continued unwillingness to freely share information with Western authorities.[29] Clearly, when it comes to Saudi international counterterrorism measures, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Indeed, little has changed since Under Secretary Levey stated before Congress in July 2006, “On terrorist financing …there has been a real lag between what [the Saudis] say they were going to do and what they do.”[30]
As mentioned earlier, the Saudi royal family fears domestic terrorist groups, especially the Yemen-based branches of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) group. Most of AQAP members are Saudi whose aim is to topple the royal family. The March 2011 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Saudi Arabia details the Kingdom’s progress on its domestic al-Qaeda terrorists cells, [31] confirming the 2009 GAO’s finding that “U.S. and Saudi officials report progress on countering terrorism and its financing within Saudi Arabia.” However, the GAO report noted that there was hardly any efforts to prevent “funding for terrorism and violent extremism outside of Saudi Arabia” (Emphasis added).[32] Again, little has changed since Under Secretary Levey testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in 2008 that Saudi Arabia is “serious about fighting Al Qaeda in the kingdom…[but] the seriousness of purpose with respect to the money going out of the kingdom is not as high.”[33]
In 2010 the Saudis dismantled 19 AQAP cells in the Kingdom. The operation included the seizure of 2.24 million riyals (over $600K) and the detention of 149 cell members—including 25 from other Arab, African, and South Asian countries.[34] The arrests foiled at least ten attacks by AQAP on government and military targets, and officials, according to the Saudis. [35] In June 2010 after exposing a 60-person fundraising cell for AQAP, the Saudis announced that they were reviewing their terrorism strategy.[36]
With self-preservation in mind, the Saudi intelligence services tipped off the American, British, and German governments of AQAP planned terror attacks in late 2010. In October after the burqa ban was enforced in France, the Saudis warned of a possible al-Qaeda attack on the country.[37] In November the Saudis scored political points and public recognition for revealing that AQAP had planted explosives on European cargo planes bound for the United States.[38]
However, the State Department’s leaked cables confirmed the GAO’s 2009 conclusion that the Saudis showed “progress on countering terrorism and its financing within Saudi Arabia, but noted challenges, particularly in preventing alleged funding for terrorism and violent extremism outside of Saudi Arabia.”[39]
Ongoing Saudi Support for Terrorism by Direct Means
The angry form of Islamism and Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia today is the soil in which anti-Western and anti-American terrorism grows.[40]
—Former CIA director R. James Woolsey
Saudi efforts to bring Wahhabi Islam to global dominance began in earnest in 1962, with the establishment of the first international Saudi charity, the Muslim World League (MWL). Influenced by exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, then-Crown Prince Faisal bin Abdul Aziz used the growing oil revenues to fund MWL, which in turn established many other Islamic charities and nonprofits that helped create the global jihadist movement we are facing today.
According to a report submitted to the president of the UN Security Council in December 2002, “One must question the real ability and willingness of the [Saudi] Kingdom to exercise any control over the use of religious money in and outside the country.”[41] In the year 2000 alone, Saudi citizens’ contributions to various Islamist groups amounted to $500 million. Most of the money went to cover expenses such as salaries, pensions, and “terrorcare” services that included hospitals and schools—especially (religious teachers) and madrasas.
Saudi Arabia is a theocracy dominated by Wahhabi power figures that (despite Saudi protestations to the contrary) control both governmental and non-governmental sectors of the country. The government/ruling family makes or breaks the wealth of all its subjects. Moreover, successive Saudi kings have created ”charitable” organizations to fund the worldwide spread of Wahhabbism and have on occasion organized several national campaigns encouraging citizens to support Sunni terror organizations outside the country.[42] Thus it would be wrong to distinguish between contributions to radical Sunni organizations by the ruling family, the Saudi government, and wealthy Saudi subjects.
Afghanistan’s financial intelligence unit FinTraca reported in May 2010 that Saudi contributors have funneled over $1.5 billion to Afghanistan through Pakistan since 2006. Most of the money has entered Afghanistan through Pakistani tribal areas, especially through North Waziristan, which is known as “al-Qaeda’s heartland.” Mohammed Mustafa Massoudi, the director general of US-trained Afghan intelligence in Kabul, said, “We can trace it back as far as an entry point in Waziristan” the uncontrolled tribal border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then went on, “Why would anyone want to put such money into Waziristan? [for] Only one reason: terrorism.”[43] The likely destination of the money was thought to be the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Since 2006, these groups have killed at least 1,525 American soldiers in Afghanistan and maimed thousands more.[44] As former Under Secretary Levey declared in his April 2008 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, “Saudi Arabia today remains the location from which more money is going to terror groups and the Taliban—Sunni terror groups and the Taliban—than from any other place in the world.”[45]
The Saudis also support Pakistan’s Laskhar-e Taiba (LET), a terrorist group most known in the West for perpetrating the Mumbai attacks in 2008, which killed over 200 people and injured over 300 more.[46] Pakistani police reported in 2009 that the Saudi al-Haramain Foundation—a charitable organization designated as a terrorist sponsor by both the US and Saudi governments[47]—gave $15 million to jihadists, including those responsible for suicide attacks in Pakistan and the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.[48]
The Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization’s (IIRO) Philippines branch, which was run until his death in 2007 by Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law until his death in 2007, was designated a terrorist sponsor by the US Treasury in August 2006 “for facilitating fundraising for al Qaida and affiliated terrorist groups.”[49]
This apparently did not stop Saudi support for the al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf Group. A Wikileaks-released cable from the US Embassy in Riyadh described the US Government’s concerns with the IIRO’s continuing Saudi funding of al-Qaeda-affiliated group in the Philippines.[50] Dated February 24, 2007, and classified as “secret,” the cable detailed a February 6, 2007 private meeting between US assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Francis Fragos Townsend and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Townsend asked the foreign minister to stop the “involvement of the Saudi ambassador to the Philippines Muhammad Amin Waly in terrorism facilitation,” noting “his intervention to get two members of IIRO out of prison.” Prince Saud declared a belief that Waly’s actions “may have involved bad judgment rather than intentional support for terrorism” and Waly remained in his position until October 2009.[51]
Despite evidence of IIRO funding to radical Muslim groups the world over, the US Government has refrained from designating the IIRO in its entirety as a terrorist organization. As a result, the IIRO obtained membership in the United Nations’ Department of Public Information (DPI) in August 2010. This membership provides the IIRO the perfect cover from which to expand its reach.[52]
Saudi funding to the US-designated Muslim Brotherhood Palestinian branch, the terrorist organization Hamas, has never stopped.[53] In March 2007 Israel notified the US that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh transferred a $1 million contribution he received in Saudi Arabia to Hamas’ “armed wing,” the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades.[54] On December 16, 2009, while Hamas was shelling Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip, Haniyeh told Al-Jazeera that he passed $1 million in funding from a Saudi donor to Hamas’ “armed wing.”[55]
In January 20, 2009, even before Israel concluded Operation Cast Lead,[56] its defensive operations to stop terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza.[57]
As documented in my book Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—and How to Stop It, several Saudi financial institutions openly funded terrorist groups throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In September 2000, Saudi Arabia conducted two telethons for the specified purpose of raising funds for the families of Palestinian homicide bombers, including members of Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades.[58] Saudi Arabia also created the Saudi Committee for the Support of the al-Quds Uprising, based in Riyadh and run by interior minister Prince Nayef. This committee “reported the transfer of $55.7 million mostly to the families of suicide bombers and to the families of imprisoned or injured Palestinian militants.” Records found in the offices of the Tulkarm Charity Committee detail the payments to 102 Hamas terrorists who were killed in “martyr operation[s].”[59] In 2002 the Saudi Arabian International Islamic Relief Organization donated $280,000 to Palestinian organizations that the US has linked to Hamas.[60]
Non-Compliance with Counterterrorism Treaty Obligations
In 2007 Saudi Arabia ratified the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. The treaty requires that signatories cooperate “with one another in conducting inquiries,” including those on “the movement of funds relating to the commission of [terrorist financing].”[61]
Yet in January 2010, the Al Rajhi Bank, the largest Islamic bank in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the third largest commercial bank in Saudi Arabia, refused to comply with a subpoena issued in the terror financing trial of US operative of the Saudi based international al-Haramain Foundation (AHF), Dr. Peter Seda.[62] The evidence provided by the prosecution showed that a Saudi bank branch accepted $151,000 in traveler’s checks deposited in March 2000 in the name of the AFH.[63] The US Treasury Department designated the AHF in 2008 as sponsors of terrorism, stating: "Today's action targets the entirety of the AHF organization, including its headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Evidence demonstrates that the AHF organization was involved in providing financial and logistical support to the al Qaida network and other terrorist organizations designated by the United States and the United Nations.” [64]The Saudis claim they have shut it down. But in 2009 the GAO reported it as still active.[65]
After the bank converted the dollars into Saudi riyals, the money was smuggled out of Saudi Arabia, possibly to Chechen mujahedeen (Muslims engaged in jihad (holy-war) against the infields).[66]
In addition to refusing to cooperate with an ongoing criminal investigation in the United States, Al Rajhi took the unorthodox step of suing to dismiss the administrative subpoena it received from the US Attorney’s office for the District of Oregon in July 2009. The bank is insisting that the office had no authority to issue the subpoena, that providing the records would violate Saudi law, and that the information was not requested using “appropriate diplomatic channels.”[67]
The Saudis blatant violation of the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism did not stop the conviction of AHF’s US operative. However, the US Government did not openly challenge the Saudi government and no known sanctions have been taken against the bank.
Saudis Funding of and Fighting in the Iraqi Insurgency
Saudis have had a major hand in providing funds and fighters to the Iraqi insurgency. In February 2009, Abu Ahmed, one of the founders of the Iraqi insurgency who now works with American forces, revealed to Newsweek that he had been bankrolled by Saudi donations.[68] In 2006, it was reported that millions of Saudi riyals, often collected in the form of zakat (compulsory charity), were smuggled to Iraq to pay for missiles and other weapons.[69] The Associated Press revealed that in 2006, one Sunni cleric alone had received $25 million from Saudi Arabia, which he used to purchased arms.[70]
Through 2008, Saudis consistently comprised the largest proportion of foreign forces warring against Americans in Iraq. In 2005 NBC reported that 55 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq were Saudi;[71] in 2007 the New York Times revealed that at 41 percent representation, Saudis still accounted for “the largest number of fighters listed on the records by far.”[72] As of 2008, when foreign fighters started to flee Iraq, Saudis still comprised a significant chunk of anti-American forces.[73]
In November 2010, the Iraqi insurgency had reemerged in a series of attacks that killed more than 100 people and injured over 200.[74] It remains to be seen how many Saudi nationals will continue to participate in Iraqi Sunni insurgency attacks. The Wikileaks cable that singled out the Saudis as the primary backers of Sunni terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, indicates that Saudi support continues to play a vital role in the Iraqi insurgency.[75]
Saudi Terrorist Financing at the Grassroots
The foregoing facts show that Saudi counterterrorism efforts are lackluster at best. Saudi financial support continues as one of the major bloodlines of international terrorism, and Saudi nationals are active within the deadliest terrorist groups.
But Saudi support for terrorism extends much beyond direct deposits to openly radical elements. Direct financing of terrorist activities is but one of several means to further their agenda.
The Saudi aim at spreading Wahhabi Islam globally. To advance their goal they are said to have invested well over $1 trillion thus far. The money has gone toward the establishment of Saudi cultural and political influence in the West. Generous funds went to build mosques, to nonprofit Islamic organizations engaged in dawah (proselytization for Islam), to create a well-developed network of charitable organizations that provide financial aid to prisoners (including non-Muslims) in Western jails, as well as to fund academic chairs in Middle East Studies in universities around the world, and to lavishly fund student-exchange programs, to mention but a few.
In 2002 the Saudi government English weekly Ain-al-Yaqeen bragged that the royal family and the Saudi Kingdom have spent billions of dollars “to spread Islam to every corner of the earth.”[76] According to Ain-al-Yaqeen, the Islamic Center in Brussels, Belgium, received a total of more than $5 million; the Islamic Center in Geneva, Switzerland, receives annual support of close to $7 million; and the biggest Islamic Center in Europe, which the Saudis built in Madrid, Spain, received close to $8 million in total. The Saudi Kingdom’s efforts, under the leadership of King Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz, has been astronomical, amounting to many billions of Saudi Riyals.[77] “According to official Saudi information, Saudi funds have been used to build and maintain over 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, 210 Islamic Centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia.”[78]
Saudi Arabia has “fully or partially financed Islamic Centers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fresno; Chicago; New York; Washington; Tucson; Raleigh, N.C. and Toledo, Ohio as well as in Austria, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, [and] Turkey.”[79] The Saudis also continue an aggressive global campaign to promote Islamic fundamentalism by generously funding initiatives for Islamic outreach and indoctrination to Wahhabi fundamentalism in Asia, the former Soviet republics and Africa.[80] They face growing competition from Iran, which is also engaged in an effort to proselytize the locals in these same areas to the radical Shiite version of Islam.[81]
From 1973 to the end of 2002, the Saudi Kingdom’s spending to promote Wahhabism worldwide (lately particularly in the West and especially in the US) was estimated by Reza F. Safa, the author of Inside Islam, at $87 billion.[82] As we shall see, Saudi investments continue at full throttle.
Mosques
Saudi spending on religious and educational institutions in the United States and Europe went into high gear after the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Europe, the cradle of Western civilization, is home to more than 6,000 mosques,[83] many of which propagate radical Sunni views. For instance, a 2007 Times investigation revealed that the Deoband Islamic movement controlled almost half of the United Kingdom’s mosques and 17 of its 26 Islamic seminaries at the time.[84] Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), an offshoot of the radical Sunni Pakistan-based Deoband Islamic movement, has chapters in 120 countries.[85] The Saudis are major funders of this group.[86]
Ostensibly a peaceful missionary movement, Tablighi Jamaat is connected to the London Underground Bombings, an attempted bombing in Spain, and several attacks in the United States.[87] It serves as a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups[88] and also as a funder of terrorist groups such as the Pakistan-based Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM, a.k.a. Jamiat ul-Ansur),[89] which was designated by the US as a terrorist organization in 1999 and had ties to the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in January–February 2002.[90] It also funds Harakut ul-Jihad-I Islami (HUJI), which operates in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and India and was designated a terrorist organization in August 2010 by the US Department of State.[91]
By the end of 2008, the Saudis had poured over $700 billion into the Balkans. Conscious of the radicalizing influences of mosques and Islamic cultural centers, some European countries have taken a stand against Saudi-financed Islamic projects.[92] The IIRO has been identified as one of the most active organizations in the Saudi Balkan effort.[93]
In March 2010 the Sunday Times reported that the Saudis are transferring hundreds of millions of dollars to the Balkans to spread Wahhabism by funding a series of mosques, community centers, and charities.[94] Some are currently under investigation for terrorist ties. Also in 2010, the Norwegian government blocked the construction of a Saudi-financed mosque in Oslo and halted the construction of the planned mosque in Tromsoe in the Arctic Circle after a Saudi businessman pledged approximately 2.5 million Euros to the project.[95] In 2007 Tablighi Jamaat’s plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque near the site of the 2012 Olympics in London stalled after a public outcry[96]—an online petition against the construction drew over 255,000 signatures from the United Kingdom.[97] The plans to build the 12,000-person complex were finally aborted in January 2010 after the UK branch of the Pakistani Tablighi Jamaat failed to submit the required paperwork.[98]
The United States, where freedom of religion is protected by the Constitution, self-preservation instincts have been slow to develop. In his 2003 testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Stephen Schwartz, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, estimated that approximately 80 percent of the 1,200 American mosques at that time received Saudi funding and were under Wahhabi control.[99] In August 2010 the Washington Post estimated that the US had more than 2,000 mosques, but it did not provide information on Saudi direct and indirect funding.[100]
In New York City, news of the prospective construction of a mosque a few hundred yards from Ground Zero, has stoked months of tension and dispute.[101] One of the leading figures promoting the controversial Islamic Cultural Center is Imam Abdul Faisal Rauf, a self proclaimed moderate Muslim, who has a number of suspicious connections to Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the United States, Malaysia, the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia.[102] Rauf heads the American Society for Muslim Advancement and is a board member of the Malaysia-based Cordoba Initiative.[103]
One of Rauf’s partners in the Cordoba Initiative, Jamal Barzinji, was among the founding members of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT),[104] the Muslim Brotherhood’s forefront think-tank in the US, which “had been demonstrated by the Justice Department to be an unindicted coconspirator” in the Hamas front, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror financing trial.[105] Barzinji, who leads IIIT, is considered “closely associated” with terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[106] He is also a trustee of the Saudi-funded North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was named an unindicted coconspirator in the HLF terror financing case as well.[107] NAIT holds the deed to the terror-linked Dar al-Hijra Mosque,[108] whose development Barzinji authorized.[109]
Rauf has drawn Saudi support in the past. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Foundation who owns many shares in American businesses, lavishly funds Muslim Brotherhood offshoots in the US,[110] such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA),[111] also donated $300,000 to Rauf’s American Society for Muslim Advancement.[112] Ironically, Talal has gone on record as opposing the construction of Cordoba House so close to Ground Zero. Nevertheless, Rauf has insisted that the project proceed and,[113] in an effort to smooth public sensibilities, Cordoba House is now being referred to instead as the Park51 Islamic Center.[114]
The Ground Zero mosque controversy is hardly the only debate raging on mosque construction in the United States. Many other mosques are planned for the United States, and some already exist.[115]
The state of Tennessee may soon hold three large Islamic complexes in the cities of Murfeesboro,[116] Antioch,[117] and Memphis. While Staten Island, in New York, recently scrapped unpopular plans for a mosque,[118] Brooklyn, New York, will soon be home to an Islamic Cultural Center.[119] Atlanta, Georgia, opened a $10 million mosque complex—the largest mosque in the state—in 2008.[120]
The Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, in Massachusetts, welcomed a $22 million, 60,000-foot Islamic Cultural Center with known radical ties in 2009.[121] Saudi financing is confirmed in the case of the Roxbury mosque,[122] which is run by the Muslim American Society,[123] another important Saudi-financed Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States.[124]
Other multimillion - dollar structures are constructed in or slated for construction in Sheboygan, Wisconsin;[125] Temecula Valley, California;[126] and Florence, Kentucky.[127] The sources of funding for these mosques are not known. But given the Saudis’ active role in Islamic promotion worldwide, and their special interest in influencing the US, it is likely that Saudi money is playing a major role in most of these mosque constructions.
Schools
Saudi money heavily influences academic institutions in the United States. Saudi donations to American universities have been going on for decades. Lately, however, the Saudis have signed agreements, worth at least $25 million each, with several major universities to help with the development of academic curriculums for the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in the Kingdom.[128] Such agreements were signed in 2008 with the University of Texas at Austin; the University of California, Berkeley; and Stanford University.[129] In September 2010 the Kingdom’s General Investment Authority (Sagia) signed the Georgia Institute of Technology to build a center to provide applied science degrees to students in Saudi Arabia.[130]
In the meantime, the Saudi government sponsors foreign study programs for approximately 60,000 Saudi nationals worldwide.[131] Since 9/11, the number of Saudis studying in the United States has spiked markedly, from 3,000 to over 30,000.[132] Of all Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia sponsors the highest number of students in the United States.
In addition to fostering institutional partnerships, Saudis have donated millions of dollars to American schools, buying sway over the way Islam and Middle Eastern Studies are taught in the US. Saudi tentacles are even more deeply sunk into British universities. A 2008 report by Britain’s Centre for Social Cohesion shows that Saudi Arabian and Muslim organizations have poured over $460 million into British universities including Oxford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.[133] Oxford alone received over $39 million from the late Saudi King Fahd for its Centre for Islamic Studies.[134]
Billions of dollars worth of investments in Western campuses have reaped the Saudis’ massive dividends, rewriting the Middle East narrative in curricula of universities around the world and intimidating critical assessment of Islam and Muslims. Britain’s University and College Union has repeatedly tried to launch an academic boycott of Israel while Middle East studies–related activities at premier universities in the UK and the US are often fiercely anti-Israel.[135]
The radicalization of the young, wealthy and lonely Nigerian student Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab happened in the Islamic Society at University College London, which he attended, and in the London mosque he frequented, which was funded by the Saudi MWL. Abdulmutallab, better known as the 2009 failed Christmas underwear bomber, travelled to Yemen and was later recruited to al-Qaeda.[136] Further investigation by Britain’s counter-extremism think tank Quilliam Foundation revealed that members of the Islamic Society at London’s City University, a Wahhabi hotbed, are urging violence and preaching fundamentalist Islam.[137] Another UK survey showed that 60 percent of active members in Britain’s universities’ Islamic societies agree that killing in the name of religion can be justified, and that nearly the same number supports the imposition of a global caliphate.[138]
Recommendations
As with other contagious diseases, to successfully fight the spread of virulent Islamic radicalism, one must identify the origins of the outbreak (Saudi Arabia), as well as the contributing factors to its spread (Saudi oil revenues).
While Western cultures place a premium on coexistence, negotiation, compromise, and multiculturalism, Islam does not. Sharia—law—requires the subjugation or destruction of all non-Muslims. Its adherents value only the sharia, and join the jihad for its global domination, to create the ummah (Islamic nation). Exposing sharia and its radical proponents, be they states, organizations, or individuals, is crucial to our ability to protect ourselves and to take the necessary measures to curtail the spread of radical Islam.
Successive US Administrations have demonstrated willful blindness and recklessness vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia’s cultivation of Islamic radicalism and terrorism financing activities. The United States still trusts the Saudis to self-report on the progress of their counterterrorist financing efforts. When it comes to Saudi investments or contributions in the United States, the American government does not disclose information, making it difficult to discover the true extent of the Saudi financial, political, educational and social influence in America.
CAIR, ISNA, and other Saudi and Muslim Brotherhood organs enjoy ties to the American political establishment and are often portrayed in the media as religiously moderate and socially positive advocacy organizations. Legitimizing radicals as if they are moderates fosters the spread of terrorism throughout the world, including the new phenomenon of “homegrown” terrorism in the United States.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Virginia-born psychiatrist, massacred 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009.[139] Eyebrows were raised when Pennsylvania native and Muslim convert Colleen LaRose, a.k.a. “Jihad Jane,” pled guilty in 2011 for plotting to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks because he had lampooned the prophet Muhammad in one of his cartoons.[140] In upstate New York, the “Lackawanna Six” were local Yemeni-Americans who had attended al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Kandahar prior to September 2001; they pled guilty to supporting terrorism in Buffalo two years later in a case that received little public attention.[141]
FoxNews reported in March 2011 that data compiled by the Department of Justice indicated “there has been a class-one terrorism case with a direct link between U.S. citizens … and foreign terrorist groups on average every two weeks since January 2009.”[142]
The mosques, Islamist NGOs and advancing homegrown terror starkly symbolize the depth of Saudi penetration into American civic life. Yet, because the US is so dependent on Saudi oil, little has been done to stop this penetration, and it is unlikely to be addressed anytime in the foreseeable future. The media, public and Congress should demand full transparency from the government and full disclosure of Saudi investments in and contributions to the US.
I. The US must impede the growth of the Saudis’ radicalizing influence on American education, business and politics. An important step towards achieving this most difficult task should be the ban of contributions to American educational institutions, nonprofits – including religious and charitable organizations from countries that prohibit religious freedom.
The 2010 annual report of the US Department of State on International Religious Freedom,[143] and the 2011 annual report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom,[144] designated countries that have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom” as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs).[145] The list includes Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Pakistan, Egypt, Eritrea, Afghanistan, China, to name a few.[146] There is an additional Watch List of countries where the government engages in serious violations of or that tolerate violations of religious freedom.
While Saudi Arabia is the only country on the CPC list that enjoys “indefinite waiver of Presidential actions under section 407(a)(2) of IRFA,” it is also the largest contributor to US educational institutions, charities and non-governmental institutions (NGOs).[147] Direct and indirect large contributions are also sent by the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Kuwait.
The influence of Saudi and Gulf largesse on the radicalization of their American recipients has been widely documented, but no attempts have been made to stem the flow of the money that advances the agendas of regimes, which openly oppose the fundamental democratic freedoms provided by the US Constitution. Moreover, such contributions fund the development of subversive elements that use our First Amendment rights to undermine those rights.
The US would not be the first to ban such contributions. In November 2010, when the Norwegian government halted construction of that Arctic Circle mosque due to the Saudi pledge, the foreign ministry spokeswoman explained, “It would be paradoxical and unnatural to approve financing coming from a country where religious freedom does not exist.”[148]
Following in Norway's footsteps, the US Congress should pass a bill that would require the disclosure of all contributions in cash and in kind to US charities, NGOs, educational and religious institutions from countries listed by the State Department as prohibiting religious freedoms or severely discriminating against religions other than the official religion. To deter Americans from receiving and/or soliciting such contributions, the US Justice Department should impose large fines and publish the violators’ names. This would be an important step towards curbing Islamic radicalization and influence.
II. The proposed Justice Against Terrorism Act (JASTA), an important bill to deter terrorism and provide justice for victims, was first introduced in December 2009 by Senators Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY). The bill proposed removing the existing prohibition against suing foreign states or foreign officials civilly for damages related to acts of terrorism. JASTA would “expand the liability of foreign states for tortuous acts committed against U.S. citizens during a terrorist act and allow civil actions against a foreign state” and its officials, as well as “impose liability on any person who aids and abets an act of international terrorism, provides material support or resources to terrorist organizations, or conspires with terrorists.”[149]. Increasing the courts’ jurisdictional reach would allow plaintiffs to sue for appropriate damages and help deter individual or corporate entities from transacting with terrorist groups.[150] This critical bill never became a law, and, as of this writing, has yet to be reintroduced in Congress.
III. Saudi and Gulf terror financiers use libel laws and suits, mostly, but not only, in the UK, to silence investigations into their funding of radical Muslim organizations. After the 9/11 attacks, this tactic of lawfare known as libel tourism successfully chilled freedom of speech in the US and the world over.[151] By pressing frivolous and extortionate libel suits in British courts, one Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, alone managed to muzzle over 45 major media outlets and authors, including many Americans.[152]
The threat of libel tourism to American authors and publishers ended in the summer of 2010. This was accomplished under costly and difficult personal efforts. The unwavering support from the Board of Directors of the American Center for Democracy, which I head—in particular, R. James Woolsey, Michael Mukasey, and Nicholas Rostow—and my brilliant, patient and generous attorney, Daniel Kornstein, made my struggle more tolerable. And the perceptive Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee with their dedicated staff, and many other supporters, made the passage of the SPEECH Act possible.
Rather than caving in after being threatened with a libel suit in London in 2005, I sued in New York, to block the enforcement of the English default judgment in the United States and then engaged in a multiyear campaign to pass remedial legislation at both the state and federal levels. New York, Illinois, Florida, California, Utah, Tennessee, Maryland and Louisiana all passed laws to protect against the enforcement of libel tourist suits. These, along with the federal SPEECH Act which became law in August 2010, provide protection to all American authors and publishers in print and on the Internet from frivolous libel suits abroad.[153] No longer intimidated by the threat of foreign libel judgments, American investigative researchers are now free to take advantage of the uniquely strong protections for freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
IV. To curtail the frivolous libel suits in the US, by Saudi-linked organizations such as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) file against their critics, Federal Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) legislation is under consideration in Congress.[154] Together with the SPEECH Act, the anti-SLAPP legislation will deter frivolous libel suits within and outside the US and help secure the free speech rights Americans need to protect their freedom of expression.
V. But the battle does not stop there. In addition to following the Saudi money trail, Americans should be encouraged to openly criticize and pressure their own government’s obfuscation of Saudi Arabia’s role as the world’s primary sponsor of radical Islam and Islamic terrorism. As the Wikileaks cable on Saudi Arabia shows, this cover-up rises to the highest levels of government—American presidents, their Cabinet members, government officials, and diplomats continue to publicly praise Saudi Arabia while fully aware of its role as the primary global terrorism funder.[155]
VI. Cutting off the money lifeline to terrorists requires effective and evenhanded enforcement of counterterrorism and finance regulations. Instead, the US Government uses a selective process that allows activities of known terrorism fronts to continue. While authorities have arrested several members or affiliates of the primary Islamist organizations, the organizations remain open.
The terror ties of CAIR—a documented Muslim Brotherhood front—have long been laid bare in numerous court cases, the most recent of which is the aforementioned 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case.[156] That case exposed HLF as a Hamas fundraising front, declared ISNA “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes in the United States,”[157] and implicated both ISNA and CAIR as unindicted co-conspirators of HLF.[158] At least 15 CAIR officials have been identified in terror investigations, including CAIR founder, Ghassan Elashi.[159]
As the primary endorser of chaplains of the Muslim faith assigned to federal prisons, ISNA hand-picked imams to preach to inmates until the Bureau of Prisons discovered ISNA’s true agenda during the course of an investigation into the spread of radical Islam in American prisons and suspended the organization.[160] CAIR and ISNA should be shut down.
The US Treasury should freeze the assets of such groups and similar seemingly nonprofit organizations that are, in actuality, tools for spreading fundamentalist Islam through cultural influence and the sponsorship of terrorism. Such organizations include a host of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated entities, such as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the Muslim World League (MWL), and the Muslim Student Association (MSA). [161]
Congress should also demand an explanation of why the government allowed the reopening of an office of a terrorism front—the Florida office of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), designated as a terrorist organization by the US Department of the Treasury. Another disturbing example was described in the September 2010 testimony of attorney Eric Lewis before the House Committee on Financial Services regarding the possible laundering of up to $1 trillion(!) through the United States by “the Money Exchange,” a Saudi-based remittance company.[162]
Spearheaded by Maan al-Sanea, the chair of Saad Group and a major stakeholder in HSBC Bank, the Money Exchange operated internationally through a series of shell companies and correspondent banks, funneling billions of dollars annually through American bank accounts. The nature of the business and its transactional volume should have triggered close monitoring by US banks. Yet Lewis’s testimony reveals an utter lack of due diligence on the part of US financial institutions and the resulting silence on the part of the press and the American government.[163]
Such silences, if unchallenged, will jeopardize the national security of the US and lead to the suppression the freedom and democracy that are unique to America. Saudi and other radical-Islam promoting regimes’ direct and indirect involvement in and support of terrorism must be fully exposed and addressed if we are to maintain our security protect our liberty.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is the Director of the New York–based American Center for Democracy (ACD)[164] and the Economic Warfare Institute(EWI)[165] She has authored hundreds of articles and several books on terrorist financing and political corruption.
NOTES
[1] Paul Handley, “US Cables: Saudi ‘Critical’ Finance Base for Qaeda, Taliban,” Middle East Online, December 5, 2010. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42881 See original at Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, “Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance” (Secret State Department Cable 131801), December 30, 2009, http://wikileaks.ch.nyud.net/cable/2009/12/09STATE131801.html.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Excerpt From An Interview With Secretary of State Colin Powell, July 30, 2003,” in “Congressional 9/11 Report Missing Pages: Saudis Ask for Full Disclosure,” The SUSRIS Project – Saudi-US Relations Information Service, July 31, 2003, http://www.susris.com/2003/07/31/congressional-911-report-missing-pages-saudis-ask-for-full-disclosure/.
[4]“Transcript – Confirmation Hearing of Condoleeza Rice,” New York Times, January 18, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/politics/18TEXT-RICE.html?pagewanted=print.
[5] Agence France Presse, “Bush certifies Saudi Arabia as 'war on terror' ally,” The Daily Star, October 20, 2007, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=86104.
[6] United States Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's Speech at Jeddah Chamber of Commerce: The State of the Global Economy and the Relationship between the United States and the Gulf Region,” press release, July 14, 2009, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg211.aspx.
[7] Brian Ross, “U.S.: Saudis Still Filling Al Qaeda's Coffers,” ABC News: The Blotter, September 11, 2007, http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/us-saudis-still.html.
[8] Handley, “US Cables: Saudi ‘Critical’ Finance Base for Qaeda, Taliban.” http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42881.
[9] Associated Press, “Official: 15 of 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi,” USA Today, February 6, 2002, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saudi.htm.
[10] CNN, “Saudis blame al Qaeda for attack,” May 30, 2004, http://articles.cnn.com/2004-05-30/world/saudi.shooting_1_apicorp-saudi-officials-qaeda?_s=PM:WORLD
[11] David G. Savage, “Saudi Arabia-based charities still funding terrorists, GAO says,” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/30/nation/na-terror-funding30.
[12] Congressional Research Service, Saudi Arabia: Terrorist Financing Issues (RL32499, September 14, 2007), by Christopher M. Blanchard and Alfred B. Prados, CRS-23, http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL32499_20070914.pdf.
[13] Abeer Allam,. “Terrorism funding remains a concern,.” Financial Times,. April 19, 2010,. <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c0ed36a-4bca-11df-a217-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=f39ffd26-4bb2-11da-997b-0000779e2340,s01=2.html#axzz1Sa2n8lpS>http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c0ed36a-4bca-11df-a217-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss.
[14] Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, http://www.sama.gov.sa/sites/samaen/AboutSAMA/Pages/SAMAFunction.aspx
[15] United States General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism – U.S. Agencies Report Progress Countering Terrorism and Its Financing in Saudi Arabia, but Continued Focus on Counter Terrorism Financing Efforts Needed (GAO-09-883, September 24, 2009), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09883.pdf.
[16] Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Public Statements by Senior Saudi Officials and Religious Scholars Condemning Extremism and Promoting Moderation, May 2008. http://www.saudiembassy.net/files/PDF/Reports/2008Reports/Extremism_Report_May08.pdf.http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBsQFjAB&url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.saudiembassy.net%252Ffiles%252FPDF%252FReports%252F2008Reports%252FExtremism_Report_May08.pdf&rct=j&q=saudi%20king%20condemn%20terrorism%202008&ei=hzXtTPiKA4KC8gbFoMCjAQ&usg=AFQjCNGa7e5JiyDInub6Tx7Pmr8g_-urhw&sig2=22lkFeXxmhSQ0zUhiWIWXw&cad=rja.
[17] “Saudi Arabia,” IBA Anti-Money Laundering Forum, last updated February 17, 2009, http://www.anti-moneylaundering.org/middleeast/Saudi_Arabia.aspx.
[18] “List of Members,” The Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, http://www.egmontgroup.org/about/list-of-members.
[19] “Mutual Evaluation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Financial Action Task Force (FATF), June 25, 2010, http://www.fatf-gafi.org/document/62/0,3343,en_32250379_32236963_45537790_1_1_1_1,00.html.http://www.fatf-gafi.org/document/62/0,3343,en_32250379_32236963_45537790_1_1_1_1,00.html.
[20] FATAT Watch, “MENAFATF members,” http://www.fatfwatch.com/categories/MENAFATF-members
[21] United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 54/109, “International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism,” December 9, 1999, http://www.un.org/law/cod/finterr.htm.
[22] Saudi Arabia: Terrorist Financing Issues, September 2007 CRS Report.
[23] “Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007,” Public Law 110–53, 121 Stat. 266, August 3, 2007, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ053.110.
[24] United States Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, “2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report,” February 27, 2009, http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2009/vol2/116545.htm.
[25] Handley, “US Cables: Saudi ‘Critical’ Finance Base for Qaeda, Taliban.”
[26] Donna Miles, “Petraeus Lauds Saudi Fatwa Condemning Terrorism Financing,” United States Department of Defense, May 22, 2010, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=59298.
[27] Clinton, Secret State Department Cable 131801.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report.
[30] The Terror Finance Tracking Program: Hearing Before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (H.R. HTG, 109–105), 109th Congress (July 11, 2006), http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/109-105.pdf
[31] Congressional Research Service, Saudi Arabia:Background and U.S. Relations (RL33533, March 10, 2011), by Christopher M. Blanchard, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33533.pdf.
[32] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report.
[33] Anti-Terrorism Financing: Progress Made And Challenges Ahead: Hearing Before the Senate Finance Committee (S. HRG. 110–1034), 110th Congress (April 1, 2008) (statement of Hon. Stuart A. Levey, Under Secretary, Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department of the Treasury), http://finance.senate.gov/library/hearings/download/?id=8bec1f8c-3611-40f1-a9fa-f92abc282439.
[34] “Saudis trumpet al-Qaeda arrests,” BBC News, November 26, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11848806.
[35] Massoud A. Derhally and Zainab Fattah, “Saudi Arabia Says Al-Qaeda Arrests Prevented Attacks,”Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 26, 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-26/saudi-arabia-says-al-qaeda-arrests-prevented-attacks.html.
[36] Richard Spencer, “Saudi Arabian mother becomes the First Lady of al-Qaeda,” Daily Telegraph, June 25, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/7854994/Saudi-Arabian-mother-becomes-the-First-Lady-of-al-Qaeda.html.
[37] “France: Saudis warn of new al-Qaeda threat,” BBC News, October 17, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11562598 and Associated Press, “France's burka ban ruled constitutional,” CBC News, October 7, 2010, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/10/07/france-burka-ban007.html.
[38] Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane, “Saudis Warned U.S. of Attack Before Parcel Bomb Plot,” New York Times, November 5, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/world/middleeast/06terror.html.
[39] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report (emphasis added).
[40]R. James Woolsey, “World War IV,” speech, National War College, November 16, 2002, http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/woolsey.html.
[41] Rachel Ehrenfeld, “The Saudi Connection,” National Review Online, June 1, 2004, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/210867/saudi-connection/rachel-ehrenfeld.
[42] Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Dollars For Terror,” FrontPageMagazine.com, August 12, 2004, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11833.
[43] Anthony Loyd, “Terror link alleged as Saudi millions flow into Afghanistan war zone,” Times (London), May 31, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7140745.ece.
[44] iCasualties – Operation Enduring Freedom website, http://icasualties.org/oef.
[45] Testimony of Under Secretary Levey at the Hearing Before the Senate Finance Committee.
[46] Jayshree Bajoria, “Backgrounder: Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) (aka Lashkar e-Tayyiba, Lashkar e-Toiba; Lashkar-i-Taiba),” Council on Foreign Relations, last updated January 14, 2010, http://www.cfr.org/publication/17882/lashkaretaiba_army_of_the_pure_aka_lashkar_etayyiba_lashkar_etoiba_lashkaritaiba.html.
[47] United States Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Al Haramain Islamic Foundation,” press release, June 19, 2008, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/hp1043.aspx.
[48] James M. Dorsey, “Saudis fail to halt terrorism funding despite minor gains,” ed. Rob Mudge, Deutsche Welle, December 20, 2009, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5019025,00.html.
[49] United States Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Takes Additional Measures to Combat Iranian WMD Proliferation Iranian Nuclear & Missile Firms Targeted,” press release, August 3, 2006, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/hp45.aspx.
[50] Joyce Pangco Pañares, “Saudi envoy in Manila linked to terror group,” Manila Standard Today, December 7, 2010, http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2010/december/7/news2.isx&d=2010/december/7.
[51] “APHSCT Townsend February 6 Meeting with Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal” (Secret Embassy Riyadh Cable 367), February 24, 2007, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/02/07RIYADH367.html.
[52] Muhammad Ibrahim, “IIRO-Saudi Arabia gains membership in UN body,” Arab News, August 1, 2010, http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article93533.ece.
[53] “Terrorist Organizations,” Osen LLC, http://www.osen.us/index.php?id=57.
[54] Adam Entous, “Haniyeh gave Saudi cash to Hamas armed wing: Israel,” Reuters, April 1, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0144310420070401.
[55] Ismail Haniyeh, interview by Zeina Awad, Talk to Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, December 16, 2009, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/talktojazeera/2009/12/2009121715913988277.html.
[56] “Operation Cast Lead,” Global Security.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/operation-cast-lead.htm.
[57] Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, “Saudis Pledge to Cover Over Half of PA War Costs,” Arutz Sheva, January 20, 2009, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129526.
[58] Rachel Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—and How to Stop It (Chicago: Bonus Books, 2005), 108-109, http://books.google.com/books?id=jc2VW8GUqAwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
[59] “Israeli Report Details Saudi Funding for Palestinian Militants,” WorldTribune.com, July 4, 2002, http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2002/me_saudis_07_04.html.
[60] Attachment to Letter from Mustapha Dib to Yasser Arafat, January 9, 2001, Captured Document E5, translated in “Arafat: Where Did the Saudi Aid Money Go? (Transferred to the Hamas...),” Appendix E of Large Sums of Money Transferred by Saudi Arabia to the Palestinians are Used for Financing Terror Organizations (particularly the Hamas) and Terrorist Activities (including Suicide Attacks inside Israel), (Israel Defense Forces Document TR2-350-02), May 6, 2002, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/bu/saudi/sa_mappe.htm.
[61] UN General Assembly, “International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.”
[62] “Saudi Bank Refuses to Cooperate in U.S. Investigation into Terrorist Financiers,” For The Record—The IPT Blog, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, January 26, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/01/saudi-bank-refuses-to-cooperate-in-us.
[63] Stephen I. Landman, “Day Four in United States v. Seda,” For The Record—The IPT Blog, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, September 3, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/09/day-four-in-united-states-v-seda.
[64] On Agust 1, 2011, Treasury’s website stated: “the page you are looking for may have been removed.” see
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/hp1043.htm
[65] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report.
[66] Landman, “Day Four in United States v. Seda.”
[67] Jordan Weissmann, “Saudi Bank Asks Court to Stop Patriot Act Subpoena,” The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes, January 20, 2010, http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/01/saudi-bank-asks-court-to-stop-patriot-act-subpoena-.html.
[68] Scott Johnson, “Portrait of a Shadow,” Newsweek, February 14, 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/2009/02/13/portrait-of-a-shadow.html.
[69] Associated Press, “Saudi Citizens Funding Iraq Insurgents,” CBS News, February 11, 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/08/world/main2240138.shtml.
[70] Salah Nasrawi, “Saudis Reportedly Funding Iraqi Sunnis,” Washington Post, December 8, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120701070_pf.html.
[71] Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit, “Who are the foreign fighters in Iraq?,” NBC News Investigates on NBC Nightly News, June 20, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8293410/ns/nightly_news-nbc_news_investigates.
[72] Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Foreign Fighters in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of U.S.,” New York Times, November 22, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/world/middleeast/22fighters.html.
[73] Jim Michaels, “Foreign fighters leaving Iraq, military says,” USA Today, March 21, 2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-20-fighters_N.htm.
[74] Babak Dehghanpisheh, “Iraq Bombings Could Herald New Deadly Phase,” Newsweek, November 3, 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/02/iraqi-insurgents-making-deadly-comeback.html.
[75] Clinton, Secret State Department Cable 131801.
[76] “The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz Directs the Distribution of Hundreds of Thousands Quran to the Pilgrims. Huge Saudi Efforts in the Field of Establishing Islamic Centers, Mosques and Academies All Over the World. Tunisian, Arab and Muslim Newspapers Lauds the Kingdom's Services to the Pilgrims.,” Ain-Al-Yaqeen, March 1, 2002, http://www.ainalyaqeen.com/issues/20020301/feat3en.htm.
[77] Ibid.
[78] Mark Silverberg, “The Wahhabi Invasion of America,” February 27, 2003, http://www.marksilverberg.com/article/WahhabisminAmerica/68/1/print/.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Stephen Schwartz, “Defeating Wahabbism,” Islam Daily, August 4, 2004, http://www.islamdaily.org/en/wahabism/1637.defeating-wahabbism.htm.
[81] Congressional Research Service, Islam in Africa (RS22873, May 9, 2008), by Hussein D. Hassan, CRS-4-5, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22873.pdf.
[82] Paul Sperry, “U.S.-Saudi oil imports fund American mosques,” WorldNetDaily, April 22, 2002, http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=13621.
[83] Soeren Kern, “Europe's Mosque Wars,” Pundicity.com, August 18, 2010, http://kern.pundicity.com/7847/europe-mosque-wars.
[84] Andrew Norfolk, “Hardline takeover of British mosques,” Times (London), September 7, 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2402973.ece.
[85] Dr. Joseph Lumbard and Dr. Aref Ali Nayed, eds., The 500 Most Influential Muslims 2010 (The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, 2010), 58, http://www.rissc.jo/docs/new/Muslim500-2010-Third-Edition-001.pdf.
[86] Alex Alexiev, “Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions,” Middle East Quarterly 12, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 3-11, http://www.meforum.org/686/tablighi-jamaat-jihads-stealthy-legions.
[87] Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, “Tablighi Jamaat: An Indirect Line to Terrorism,” STRATFOR, January 23, 2008, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/tablighi_jamaat_indirect_line_terrorism.
[88] Susan Sachs, “A Muslim Missionary Group Draws New Scrutiny in U.S.,” New York Times, July 14, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/us/a-muslim-missionary-group-draws-new-scrutiny-in-us.html.
[89]. Alexiev, “Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions” and “Listing of terrorist organizations: Jamiat ul-Ansar,” Australian National Security, last modified November 29, 2010, http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/nationalsecurity.nsf/Page/What_Governments_are_doing_Listing_of_Terrorism_Organisations_Jamiat_ul-Ansar.
[90] “Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM),” Global Security.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hua.htm.
[91] United States Department of State, “Designations of Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) and its Leader Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri,” press release, August 6, 2010, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/08/145779.htm.
[92] Sean O’Neill, “Lessons in hate found at leading mosques,” Times (London), October 30, 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2767252.ece.
[93] Dan Bilefsky, “Islamic Revival Tests Bosnia’s Secular Cast,” New York Times, December 26, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27islam.html?_r=2&hp.
[94] Bojan Pancevski, “Saudis fund Balkan Muslims spreading hate of the West,” Sunday Times (London), March 28, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7140745.ece.
[95] Agence France Presse, “Arctic mosque plan on ice over Saudi funding,” Khaleej Times, November 8, 2010, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/international/2010/November/international_November431.xml§ion=international&col=.
[96] Fiona Hamilton and Ruth Gledhill, “Islamic sect’s plan to build mega-mosque next to Olympics site collapses,” Times (London), January 18, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6991808.ece.
[97] “No 10 site in mosque petition row,” BBC News, July 17, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6902367.stm.
[98] Agence France Presse, “London mosque near Olympics site aborted,” Al Arabiya News, January 18, 2010, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/01/18/97716.html.
[99] Stephen Schwartz, “Wahhabism & Islam in The U.S.,” National Review, June 30, 2003, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207366/wahhabism-islam-u-s/stephen-schwartz.
[100] Edward E. Curtis IV, “Five myths about mosques in America,” Washington Post, August 29, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605510.html.
[101] Dave Evans, “Frustration, anger grows over proposed mosque,” WABC-TV: Eyewitness News, August 18, 2010, http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7615993; “Protesters rally against, for planned Islamic center in New York,” CNN, August 22, 2010, http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-22/us/new.york.mosque.protests_1_ground-zero-islamic-center-protesters-rally?_s=PM:US.
[102] Alyssa A. Lappen, “The Ground Zero Mosque Developer: Muslim Brotherhood Roots, Radical Dreams,” Pajamas Media, May 14, 2010, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-ground-zero-mosque-developer-muslim-brotherhood-roots-radical-dreams and “GZM Imam's Malaysia Connections,” IPT News—The Investigative Project on Terrorism, September 24, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2198/gzm-imams-malaysia-connections.
[103] “American Society for Muslim Advancement: Financial Statements For the year ended June 30, 2009,” http://www.asmasociety.org/about/asma_audit_2009.pdf.
[104] “Ground Zero mosque modeled after notorious 9/11 mosque?,” WorldNetDaily, August 22, 2010, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=194617.
[105] http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/US_v_HLF_Unindicted_Coconspirators.pdf.
[106] Andrew C. McCarthy, “International Institute of Islamic Thought and the Muslim Brotherhood,” National Review, July 24, 2010, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/233574/international-institute-islamic-thought-and-muslim-brotherhood-andy-mccarthy.
[107] Paul Sperry, “Sami’s Guardian Angel,” FrontPageMagazine.com, December 9, 2005, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=6315.
[108] “Dar al-Hijrah Mosque,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/417.
[109] Sperry, “Sami’s Guardian Angel.”
[110] “Mosque's Saudi Patron,” Investors Business Daily—IBD Editorials, August 26, 2010, http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/545180/201008261900/Mosques-Saudi-Patron.aspx.
[111] “ISNA Uses Saudi Money For Fellowship Program,” The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, September 27, 2009, http://globalmbreport.com/?p=1631.
[112] John Cook, “News Corp’s number-two shareholder funded ‘terror mosque’ planner,” The Upshot (blog), Yahoo! News, August 20, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100820/bs_yblog_upshot/news-corps-number-two-shareholder-funded-terror-mosque-planner.
[113]. David B. Caruso, “Imam unmoved by Saudi criticism of NYC mosque,” Boston Globe, October 29, 2010, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/10/29/imam_unmoved_by_saudi_criticism_of_nyc_mosque/.
[114] Dan Amira, “Ground Zero Mosque Gets Less Muslim-Invasion-Sounding Name,” New York Magazine, July 14, 2010, http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/07/ground_zero_mosque_gets_lets_m.html.
[115] Erick Stakelbeck, “Mega Mosque Plans Target America's Heartland,” CBN News, August 22, 2010, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2010/August/Mega-Mosque-Plans-Target-Americas-Heartland/?WT.mc_id=EmbedNewsPlayer.
[116] Lucas L. Johnson II, “Order to halt Murfreesboro mosque denied,” Knoxville News Sentinel, November 18, 2010, http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/nov/18/order-to-halt-murfreesboro-mosque-denied.
[117] Diane Macedo, “Plans to Build Massive Islamic Centers Raise Concerns in Tennessee,” FoxNews.com, August 9, 2010, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/09/plans-build-tennessee-islamic-centers.
[118] Paul Vitello, “Heated Opposition to a Proposed Mosque,” New York Times, June 10, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/nyregion/11mosque.html.
[119] Ned Berke, “Sheepshead Bay Mosque Receives Permits To Build,” Sheepshead Bites (blog), August 20, 2010, http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/2010/11/sheepshead-bay-mosque-receives-permits-to-build.
[120] “Atlanta's Largest Mosque Opens,” CBN News, August 19, 2008, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2008/August/Atlantas-Largest-Mosque-Opens-.
[121] “Boston Mosque: the Rise of Radical Islam,” CBN News, November 16, 2004, http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/041116a.aspx, posted by “missyme,” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1281227/posts.
[122] Jeff Jacoby, “The Boston mosque's Saudi connection,” Boston Globe, January 10, 2007, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/01/10/the_boston_mosques_saudi_connection/.
[123] Michael Paulson, “Formal opening of Roxbury mosque, two days of events set for this month,” Boston Globe, June 14, 2009, http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/14/roxbury_mosque_to_open_formally_this_month/.
[124] “The Massachusetts Mega Mosque: A Success for the Muslim Brotherhood, Failure from Media & Government,” PJTV.com video, 14:00, June 8, 2010, http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=111&load=3725.
[125] Jake Miller, “Rural Sheboygan County residents shook up by possibility of Muslim mosque in their community,” WITI-TV FOX6 News, March 8, 2010, http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-100308-mosque-controversy,0,3267768.story.
[126] Phil Willon, “Planned Temecula Valley mosque draws opposition,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/18/local/la-me-mosque-20100718.
[127] Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.). Organization, “Kentucky: Mosque Protest Efforts in Florence,” REALCourage.org, August 16, 2010, http://www.realcourage.org/2010/08/kentucky-mosque-protests-efforts-in-florence.
[128] Andrew England, “Saudi Arabia’s billion-dollar education boost,” Financial Times, September 22, 2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a452fa42-a794-11de-b0ee-00144feabdc0.html.
[129] Tamar Lewin, “U.S. Universities Join Saudis in Partnerships,” New York Times, March 6, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/education/06partner.html.
[130] Abeer Allam, “Saudi Arabia takes westward academic turn,” Financial Times, September 27, 2010, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9cc61d76-ca44-11df-87b8-00144feab49a.html#axzz16nhJCvim.
[131] Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC, “Saudi Students in U.S. Graduate from Scholarship Program,” press release, July 7, 2009, http://www.saudiembassy.net/press-releases/press07070901.aspx.
[132] James B. Smith, “US-Saudi Educational Partnerships Flourish,” Saudi Gazette, November 29, 2010, http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?m=opinions&id=544906&lim=&lang=en&tblpost=2010_11&PHPSESSID=8.
[133] Robin Simcox for the Centre for Social Cohesion, A Degree of Influence: the funding of strategically important subjects in UK universities, (Wallington: SS Media Limited, March 2009), http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1238334646_1.pdf and Rachel Rogosnitzky, “News And Views From Europe,” The Jewish Press, April 30, 2008, http://www.thejewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=31497.
[134] Duncan Robinson, “The shame of Britain’s universities,” The Staggers (blog), New Statesman, March 9, 2011, http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/university-saudi-british.
[135] Danna Harman, “Israeli diplomat flees British anti-Israel demonstrators,” Haaretz, April 29, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-diplomat-flees-british-anti-israel-demonstrators-1.287423 and Cinnamon Stillwell, “Target Israel,” FrontPageMagazine.com, June 15, 2010, http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/15/target-israel-2.
[136] Mark Hosenball, “The Radicalization of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,” Newsweek, January 1, 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/01/the-radicalization-of-umar-farouk-abdulmutallab.html.
[137] “Quilliam Launches Training and Consultancy Services in North America,” Quilliam Foundation, http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/index.php/component/content/article/711.
[138] John Thorne and Hannah Stuart for the Centre for Social Cohesion, Islam on Campus: A survey of UK student opinions (Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, July 2008), http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1231525079_1.pdf.
[139] Peter Slevin, “Rampage kills 12, wounds 31,” Washington Post, November 6, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110503467.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR.
[140] Ed Pilkington, “'Jihad Jane' pleads guilty to murder attempt on Swedish cartoonist,” Guardian, February 2, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/jihad-jane-pleads-guilty-cartoonist-murder.
[141] Roya Aziz and Monica Lam, “Profiles: The Lackawanna Cell,” Frontline, October 16, 2003, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sleeper/inside/profiles.html.
[142] “Special Report's Contrasting Previews Of The King And Durbin Hearings On American Muslims,” Media Matters for America, March 29, 2011, http://mediamatters.org/iphone/research/201103290039.
[143] United States Department of State, “2010 Report on International Religious Freedom,” November 17, 2010, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010/index.htm.
[144] United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “Annual Report 2011,” May 2011,
http://www.uscirf.gov/images/book%20with%20cover%20for%20web.pdf.
[145] “Frequently Asked Questions: IRF Report and Countries of Particular Concern,” United States Department of State, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/irf/c13003.htm.
[146] United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “USCIRF Identifies World's Worst Religious Freedom Violators: Egypt Cited for First Time,” news release, April 28, 2011, http://www.uscirf.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3595.
[147] USCIRF Annual Report 2011.
[148] AFP, “Arctic mosque plan on ice over Saudi funding.”
[149] Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, S. 2930, 111th Congress (2009-2010), http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-2930&tab=summary
[150] Evaluating The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, S. 2930: Hearing Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, 111th Congress (July 14, 2010) (Testimony of Lee S. Wolosky, Partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP), http://judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/07-14-10%20Wolosky%20Testimony.pdf.
[151] Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Free Speech In A Non-Free World,” Big Peace, April 5, 2001, http://bigpeace.com/rehrenfeld/2011/04/05/free-speech-in-a-non-free-world-2 and United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 2200A (XXI), “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” December 16, 1966, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm.
[152] Bin Mahfouz Information, http://www.binmahfouz.info/en_index.html.
[153] Copies of the state and federal legislation referred to herein may be found at “Legislation,” American Center for Democracy, http://acdemocracy.org/legislation-free-speech.cfm.
[154] “The Anti-SLAPP Resource Center,” First Amendment Project, http://www.thefirstamendment.org/antislappresourcecenter.html.
[155] Clinton, Secret State Department Cable 131801.
[156] “Backgrounder: The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development,” Anti-Defamation League, May 28, 2009, http://www.adl.org/main_Terrorism/backgrounder_holyland.htm.
[157] Aaron Klein, “Obama religion adviser linked to unindicted co-conspirator,” WorldNetDaily, July 26, 2010, http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=184189.
[158] “DOJ: CAIR's Unindicted Co-Conspirator Status Legit,” IPT News—The Investigative Project on Terrorism, March 12, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/1854/doj-cairs-unindicted-co-conspirator-status-legit and McCarthy, “International Institute of Islamic Thought and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
[159] “Why does Fox News promote terror-tied, FBI-shunned group?,” WorldNetDaily, January 11, 2010, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121694 and Art Moore, “CAIR leader convicted on terror charges,” WorldNetDaily, April 14, 2005,http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=29850.
[160] United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, “A Review of the Bureau of Prisons' Selection of Muslim Religious Services Providers,” April 2004, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0404/index.htm#34.
[161] Islamic Extremism in Europe: Hearing Before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Emerging Threats (H.R. HRG. 109–34), 109th Congress (April 27, 2005), http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa20917.000/hfa20917_0.HTM and “The Muslim Students Association and the Jihad Network,” FrontPageMagazine.com, May 08, 2008, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30339.
[162] A Review of Current and Evolving Trends in Terrorism Financing: Hearing Before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (H.R. HRG. 111–161), 111th Congress (September 28, 2010) (testimony of Eric L. Lewis, Esq.), http://financialservices.house.gov/Media/file/hearings/111/Printed%20Hearings/111-161.pdf.
[163] Ibid.
[164] American Center for Democracy, http://ACDemocracy.org.
[165] Economic Warfare Institute, http://ACDemocracy.org/Economic-Warfare-Institute.cfm.
* First published in "Saudi Arabia & the Global Islamic Terrorist Network", Chapter 10, pp-123-151, PalgraveMacMillan, November 2011.
The December 12, 2011 Iran’s Intelligence Minister Haydar Moslehi met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Nayef in Riyadh. Two days later, at the OPEC meeting in Vienna, the Iranians reveled that the Saudis agreed not “to replace Iranian crude if Iran faces any sanctions."
Accommodating their supposedly biggest enemy - the radical Shiite regime in Iran - while betraying their self-proclaimed ally - the United States, is a long held Saudi strategy. Support of radical Islamic regimes and groups helped keep the House of Saud in command.
“Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) , and other terrorist groups, including Hamas,” read a cable dated December 30, 2009, from United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, This was one of the cables published by Wikileaks in late November 2010.[1]
Another leaked cable, sent from the US Embassy in Riyadh in February 2010, stated that the Saudi interior ministry “remains almost completely dependent on the CIA to provide analytic support and direction for its counterterrorism operations.”[2]
The leaked cables only stated the obvious. Yet the obvious starkly contrasts with the more optimistic story on Saudi counterterrorism efforts, as publicly told by successive American administrations.
Overview: Saudi Arabia— as an Ally in the War on Terrorist Financing
For decades US officials publicly heaped praise on Saudi counterterrorism efforts, while the Saudis continued to fund terrorism.
In a 2003 interview, then-Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said that the American government had expressed its appreciation to the Saudi government for its actions in support of the global war on terrorism.[3] In 2005, during her confirmation hearing to the position of Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice commented that the United States previously “didn’t understand, really, the structure of terrorist financing very well.
We didn’t understand the role of non-governmental organizations that sounded like they were for good purposes but were, in fact, carrying out or funding terrorist activities. Others didn’t understand that, in the Muslim world, like the Saudis. And we have made, I think, great strides in doing that.”[4]
In 2007 US President George Bush certified the Saudi cooperation “with efforts to combat international terrorism.”[5] The Obama Administration followed suit. In July 2009, on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner lauded the Saudi government for having “taken important steps to combat financing for terrorist groups” and “to deter and disrupt those who support violent extremism.”[6]
However, some dared to disagree. In September 2007, US Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey told ABC News, “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.”[7]
While Mrs. Clinton’s leaked memo did not directly accuse the Saudi government of supporting radical Muslim groups, it noted, “Riyadh has taken only limited action” to interrupt money transfers to Taliban- and LeT-affiliated groups that have been carrying out attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.[8]
Americans started targeting Saudi Arabian terrorist financing after the 9/11 attacks, when it was established that 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were Saudi9 and that Saudis had provided substantial financial support for the worst terrorist attack in American history.[9] The Kingdom was persuaded to cooperate on some counterterrorism efforts only in 2003, and a combined task force was established. After the terrorist attack in Khobar, which the Saudis attributed to a local al-Qaeda cell in May 2004, new legislation and harsh domestic anti-terrorist financing measures were put in place.[10]
Saudi Arabia criminalized money laundering and terrorist financing in 2003 and enforces it to prevent domestic terrorism. It also banned some Saudi-based charitable organizations[11] from transferring money internationally until additional regulations could ensure that the transferred funds would not be funneled to terrorist groups.[12] According to the new banking regulations, all international transaction over $15,000[13] need the approval of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) [14]- the Kingdom’s central bank. In addition, new regulations were enacted to control cash courier. As part of their US-coordinated counterterrorism strategy, the Saudi authorities also agreed to publicly condemn terrorism.[15]
Since 2005, the Saudi king, government officials, and the Saudi grand mufti have publicly condemned violence and extremism, promoted international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and extolled the virtues of moderation.[16] However, the Saudis directed their counterterrorism campaign mostly to squelch domestic opposition.
The Saudis created its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in 2003,[17] and despite its legendary lack of transparency it was welcomed into the international Egmont Group (an international informal organization of FIUs)[18] The Saudis participate in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),[19] and is the leading country of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)), which participates in MENAFATF, which is an associate member of FATAF.[20]
In 2007 Saudi Arabia became a signatory to the United Nation’s’ International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.[21] Still, a September 2007 Congressional Research (CRS) Report addressed “Saudi laxity in acting against terrorist groups”[22] and in the Act implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the 110th US Congress noted that “Saudi Arabia has an uneven record in the fight against terrorism, especially with respect to terrorist financing.”[23] According to the 2009 State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report on money laundering, Saudi Arabia “continues to be a significant jurisdictional source for terrorist financing worldwide.”[24] Indeed, as Mrs. Clinton’s leaked cable pointed out, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other jihadist groups continue to “raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan.”[25]
In April 2010 the top council of Saudi clerics issued a fatwa (Islamic religious ruling) declaring terrorist financing a violation of Islamic law, and General David H. Petraeus, then Commander of the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) was quick to praise the issuing council for its “courageous decision” to issue the fatwa against terrorist-financing.[26]
While the Saudis’ new counterterrorist financing and new financial monitoring regulations looked good on paper, Mrs. Clinton’s leaked cable noted that “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”[27] Her cable also stated it an “ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”[28] Although the new cash courier regulation implementation continues to be inconsistent, the more Saudis, including terrorism financiers, seem to increase their use of hawala, a system of monetary transfers through anonymous intermediaries that leaves no paper trail.
A 2009 General Accounting Office (GAO) report on Saudi efforts to stop terror financing noted that Saudi donors are the major funders of radical Muslim organizations. The report further stated that Saudi financial institutions demonstrated a continued unwillingness to freely share information with Western authorities.[29] Clearly, when it comes to Saudi international counterterrorism measures, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Indeed, little has changed since Under Secretary Levey stated before Congress in July 2006, “On terrorist financing …there has been a real lag between what [the Saudis] say they were going to do and what they do.”[30]
As mentioned earlier, the Saudi royal family fears domestic terrorist groups, especially the Yemen-based branches of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) group. Most of AQAP members are Saudi whose aim is to topple the royal family. The March 2011 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Saudi Arabia details the Kingdom’s progress on its domestic al-Qaeda terrorists cells, [31] confirming the 2009 GAO’s finding that “U.S. and Saudi officials report progress on countering terrorism and its financing within Saudi Arabia.” However, the GAO report noted that there was hardly any efforts to prevent “funding for terrorism and violent extremism outside of Saudi Arabia” (Emphasis added).[32] Again, little has changed since Under Secretary Levey testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in 2008 that Saudi Arabia is “serious about fighting Al Qaeda in the kingdom…[but] the seriousness of purpose with respect to the money going out of the kingdom is not as high.”[33]
In 2010 the Saudis dismantled 19 AQAP cells in the Kingdom. The operation included the seizure of 2.24 million riyals (over $600K) and the detention of 149 cell members—including 25 from other Arab, African, and South Asian countries.[34] The arrests foiled at least ten attacks by AQAP on government and military targets, and officials, according to the Saudis. [35] In June 2010 after exposing a 60-person fundraising cell for AQAP, the Saudis announced that they were reviewing their terrorism strategy.[36]
With self-preservation in mind, the Saudi intelligence services tipped off the American, British, and German governments of AQAP planned terror attacks in late 2010. In October after the burqa ban was enforced in France, the Saudis warned of a possible al-Qaeda attack on the country.[37] In November the Saudis scored political points and public recognition for revealing that AQAP had planted explosives on European cargo planes bound for the United States.[38]
However, the State Department’s leaked cables confirmed the GAO’s 2009 conclusion that the Saudis showed “progress on countering terrorism and its financing within Saudi Arabia, but noted challenges, particularly in preventing alleged funding for terrorism and violent extremism outside of Saudi Arabia.”[39]
Ongoing Saudi Support for Terrorism by Direct Means
The angry form of Islamism and Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia today is the soil in which anti-Western and anti-American terrorism grows.[40]
—Former CIA director R. James Woolsey
Saudi efforts to bring Wahhabi Islam to global dominance began in earnest in 1962, with the establishment of the first international Saudi charity, the Muslim World League (MWL). Influenced by exiled Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, then-Crown Prince Faisal bin Abdul Aziz used the growing oil revenues to fund MWL, which in turn established many other Islamic charities and nonprofits that helped create the global jihadist movement we are facing today.
According to a report submitted to the president of the UN Security Council in December 2002, “One must question the real ability and willingness of the [Saudi] Kingdom to exercise any control over the use of religious money in and outside the country.”[41] In the year 2000 alone, Saudi citizens’ contributions to various Islamist groups amounted to $500 million. Most of the money went to cover expenses such as salaries, pensions, and “terrorcare” services that included hospitals and schools—especially (religious teachers) and madrasas.
Saudi Arabia is a theocracy dominated by Wahhabi power figures that (despite Saudi protestations to the contrary) control both governmental and non-governmental sectors of the country. The government/ruling family makes or breaks the wealth of all its subjects. Moreover, successive Saudi kings have created ”charitable” organizations to fund the worldwide spread of Wahhabbism and have on occasion organized several national campaigns encouraging citizens to support Sunni terror organizations outside the country.[42] Thus it would be wrong to distinguish between contributions to radical Sunni organizations by the ruling family, the Saudi government, and wealthy Saudi subjects.
Afghanistan’s financial intelligence unit FinTraca reported in May 2010 that Saudi contributors have funneled over $1.5 billion to Afghanistan through Pakistan since 2006. Most of the money has entered Afghanistan through Pakistani tribal areas, especially through North Waziristan, which is known as “al-Qaeda’s heartland.” Mohammed Mustafa Massoudi, the director general of US-trained Afghan intelligence in Kabul, said, “We can trace it back as far as an entry point in Waziristan” the uncontrolled tribal border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then went on, “Why would anyone want to put such money into Waziristan? [for] Only one reason: terrorism.”[43] The likely destination of the money was thought to be the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Since 2006, these groups have killed at least 1,525 American soldiers in Afghanistan and maimed thousands more.[44] As former Under Secretary Levey declared in his April 2008 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, “Saudi Arabia today remains the location from which more money is going to terror groups and the Taliban—Sunni terror groups and the Taliban—than from any other place in the world.”[45]
The Saudis also support Pakistan’s Laskhar-e Taiba (LET), a terrorist group most known in the West for perpetrating the Mumbai attacks in 2008, which killed over 200 people and injured over 300 more.[46] Pakistani police reported in 2009 that the Saudi al-Haramain Foundation—a charitable organization designated as a terrorist sponsor by both the US and Saudi governments[47]—gave $15 million to jihadists, including those responsible for suicide attacks in Pakistan and the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.[48]
The Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization’s (IIRO) Philippines branch, which was run until his death in 2007 by Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law until his death in 2007, was designated a terrorist sponsor by the US Treasury in August 2006 “for facilitating fundraising for al Qaida and affiliated terrorist groups.”[49]
This apparently did not stop Saudi support for the al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf Group. A Wikileaks-released cable from the US Embassy in Riyadh described the US Government’s concerns with the IIRO’s continuing Saudi funding of al-Qaeda-affiliated group in the Philippines.[50] Dated February 24, 2007, and classified as “secret,” the cable detailed a February 6, 2007 private meeting between US assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Francis Fragos Townsend and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Townsend asked the foreign minister to stop the “involvement of the Saudi ambassador to the Philippines Muhammad Amin Waly in terrorism facilitation,” noting “his intervention to get two members of IIRO out of prison.” Prince Saud declared a belief that Waly’s actions “may have involved bad judgment rather than intentional support for terrorism” and Waly remained in his position until October 2009.[51]
Despite evidence of IIRO funding to radical Muslim groups the world over, the US Government has refrained from designating the IIRO in its entirety as a terrorist organization. As a result, the IIRO obtained membership in the United Nations’ Department of Public Information (DPI) in August 2010. This membership provides the IIRO the perfect cover from which to expand its reach.[52]
Saudi funding to the US-designated Muslim Brotherhood Palestinian branch, the terrorist organization Hamas, has never stopped.[53] In March 2007 Israel notified the US that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh transferred a $1 million contribution he received in Saudi Arabia to Hamas’ “armed wing,” the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades.[54] On December 16, 2009, while Hamas was shelling Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip, Haniyeh told Al-Jazeera that he passed $1 million in funding from a Saudi donor to Hamas’ “armed wing.”[55]
In January 20, 2009, even before Israel concluded Operation Cast Lead,[56] its defensive operations to stop terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza.[57]
As documented in my book Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—and How to Stop It, several Saudi financial institutions openly funded terrorist groups throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In September 2000, Saudi Arabia conducted two telethons for the specified purpose of raising funds for the families of Palestinian homicide bombers, including members of Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades.[58] Saudi Arabia also created the Saudi Committee for the Support of the al-Quds Uprising, based in Riyadh and run by interior minister Prince Nayef. This committee “reported the transfer of $55.7 million mostly to the families of suicide bombers and to the families of imprisoned or injured Palestinian militants.” Records found in the offices of the Tulkarm Charity Committee detail the payments to 102 Hamas terrorists who were killed in “martyr operation[s].”[59] In 2002 the Saudi Arabian International Islamic Relief Organization donated $280,000 to Palestinian organizations that the US has linked to Hamas.[60]
Non-Compliance with Counterterrorism Treaty Obligations
In 2007 Saudi Arabia ratified the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. The treaty requires that signatories cooperate “with one another in conducting inquiries,” including those on “the movement of funds relating to the commission of [terrorist financing].”[61]
Yet in January 2010, the Al Rajhi Bank, the largest Islamic bank in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the third largest commercial bank in Saudi Arabia, refused to comply with a subpoena issued in the terror financing trial of US operative of the Saudi based international al-Haramain Foundation (AHF), Dr. Peter Seda.[62] The evidence provided by the prosecution showed that a Saudi bank branch accepted $151,000 in traveler’s checks deposited in March 2000 in the name of the AFH.[63] The US Treasury Department designated the AHF in 2008 as sponsors of terrorism, stating: "Today's action targets the entirety of the AHF organization, including its headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Evidence demonstrates that the AHF organization was involved in providing financial and logistical support to the al Qaida network and other terrorist organizations designated by the United States and the United Nations.” [64]The Saudis claim they have shut it down. But in 2009 the GAO reported it as still active.[65]
After the bank converted the dollars into Saudi riyals, the money was smuggled out of Saudi Arabia, possibly to Chechen mujahedeen (Muslims engaged in jihad (holy-war) against the infields).[66]
In addition to refusing to cooperate with an ongoing criminal investigation in the United States, Al Rajhi took the unorthodox step of suing to dismiss the administrative subpoena it received from the US Attorney’s office for the District of Oregon in July 2009. The bank is insisting that the office had no authority to issue the subpoena, that providing the records would violate Saudi law, and that the information was not requested using “appropriate diplomatic channels.”[67]
The Saudis blatant violation of the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism did not stop the conviction of AHF’s US operative. However, the US Government did not openly challenge the Saudi government and no known sanctions have been taken against the bank.
Saudis Funding of and Fighting in the Iraqi Insurgency
Saudis have had a major hand in providing funds and fighters to the Iraqi insurgency. In February 2009, Abu Ahmed, one of the founders of the Iraqi insurgency who now works with American forces, revealed to Newsweek that he had been bankrolled by Saudi donations.[68] In 2006, it was reported that millions of Saudi riyals, often collected in the form of zakat (compulsory charity), were smuggled to Iraq to pay for missiles and other weapons.[69] The Associated Press revealed that in 2006, one Sunni cleric alone had received $25 million from Saudi Arabia, which he used to purchased arms.[70]
Through 2008, Saudis consistently comprised the largest proportion of foreign forces warring against Americans in Iraq. In 2005 NBC reported that 55 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq were Saudi;[71] in 2007 the New York Times revealed that at 41 percent representation, Saudis still accounted for “the largest number of fighters listed on the records by far.”[72] As of 2008, when foreign fighters started to flee Iraq, Saudis still comprised a significant chunk of anti-American forces.[73]
In November 2010, the Iraqi insurgency had reemerged in a series of attacks that killed more than 100 people and injured over 200.[74] It remains to be seen how many Saudi nationals will continue to participate in Iraqi Sunni insurgency attacks. The Wikileaks cable that singled out the Saudis as the primary backers of Sunni terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, indicates that Saudi support continues to play a vital role in the Iraqi insurgency.[75]
Saudi Terrorist Financing at the Grassroots
The foregoing facts show that Saudi counterterrorism efforts are lackluster at best. Saudi financial support continues as one of the major bloodlines of international terrorism, and Saudi nationals are active within the deadliest terrorist groups.
But Saudi support for terrorism extends much beyond direct deposits to openly radical elements. Direct financing of terrorist activities is but one of several means to further their agenda.
The Saudi aim at spreading Wahhabi Islam globally. To advance their goal they are said to have invested well over $1 trillion thus far. The money has gone toward the establishment of Saudi cultural and political influence in the West. Generous funds went to build mosques, to nonprofit Islamic organizations engaged in dawah (proselytization for Islam), to create a well-developed network of charitable organizations that provide financial aid to prisoners (including non-Muslims) in Western jails, as well as to fund academic chairs in Middle East Studies in universities around the world, and to lavishly fund student-exchange programs, to mention but a few.
In 2002 the Saudi government English weekly Ain-al-Yaqeen bragged that the royal family and the Saudi Kingdom have spent billions of dollars “to spread Islam to every corner of the earth.”[76] According to Ain-al-Yaqeen, the Islamic Center in Brussels, Belgium, received a total of more than $5 million; the Islamic Center in Geneva, Switzerland, receives annual support of close to $7 million; and the biggest Islamic Center in Europe, which the Saudis built in Madrid, Spain, received close to $8 million in total. The Saudi Kingdom’s efforts, under the leadership of King Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz, has been astronomical, amounting to many billions of Saudi Riyals.[77] “According to official Saudi information, Saudi funds have been used to build and maintain over 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, 210 Islamic Centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia.”[78]
Saudi Arabia has “fully or partially financed Islamic Centers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fresno; Chicago; New York; Washington; Tucson; Raleigh, N.C. and Toledo, Ohio as well as in Austria, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, [and] Turkey.”[79] The Saudis also continue an aggressive global campaign to promote Islamic fundamentalism by generously funding initiatives for Islamic outreach and indoctrination to Wahhabi fundamentalism in Asia, the former Soviet republics and Africa.[80] They face growing competition from Iran, which is also engaged in an effort to proselytize the locals in these same areas to the radical Shiite version of Islam.[81]
From 1973 to the end of 2002, the Saudi Kingdom’s spending to promote Wahhabism worldwide (lately particularly in the West and especially in the US) was estimated by Reza F. Safa, the author of Inside Islam, at $87 billion.[82] As we shall see, Saudi investments continue at full throttle.
Mosques
Saudi spending on religious and educational institutions in the United States and Europe went into high gear after the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Europe, the cradle of Western civilization, is home to more than 6,000 mosques,[83] many of which propagate radical Sunni views. For instance, a 2007 Times investigation revealed that the Deoband Islamic movement controlled almost half of the United Kingdom’s mosques and 17 of its 26 Islamic seminaries at the time.[84] Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), an offshoot of the radical Sunni Pakistan-based Deoband Islamic movement, has chapters in 120 countries.[85] The Saudis are major funders of this group.[86]
Ostensibly a peaceful missionary movement, Tablighi Jamaat is connected to the London Underground Bombings, an attempted bombing in Spain, and several attacks in the United States.[87] It serves as a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups[88] and also as a funder of terrorist groups such as the Pakistan-based Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM, a.k.a. Jamiat ul-Ansur),[89] which was designated by the US as a terrorist organization in 1999 and had ties to the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in January–February 2002.[90] It also funds Harakut ul-Jihad-I Islami (HUJI), which operates in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and India and was designated a terrorist organization in August 2010 by the US Department of State.[91]
By the end of 2008, the Saudis had poured over $700 billion into the Balkans. Conscious of the radicalizing influences of mosques and Islamic cultural centers, some European countries have taken a stand against Saudi-financed Islamic projects.[92] The IIRO has been identified as one of the most active organizations in the Saudi Balkan effort.[93]
In March 2010 the Sunday Times reported that the Saudis are transferring hundreds of millions of dollars to the Balkans to spread Wahhabism by funding a series of mosques, community centers, and charities.[94] Some are currently under investigation for terrorist ties. Also in 2010, the Norwegian government blocked the construction of a Saudi-financed mosque in Oslo and halted the construction of the planned mosque in Tromsoe in the Arctic Circle after a Saudi businessman pledged approximately 2.5 million Euros to the project.[95] In 2007 Tablighi Jamaat’s plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque near the site of the 2012 Olympics in London stalled after a public outcry[96]—an online petition against the construction drew over 255,000 signatures from the United Kingdom.[97] The plans to build the 12,000-person complex were finally aborted in January 2010 after the UK branch of the Pakistani Tablighi Jamaat failed to submit the required paperwork.[98]
The United States, where freedom of religion is protected by the Constitution, self-preservation instincts have been slow to develop. In his 2003 testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Stephen Schwartz, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, estimated that approximately 80 percent of the 1,200 American mosques at that time received Saudi funding and were under Wahhabi control.[99] In August 2010 the Washington Post estimated that the US had more than 2,000 mosques, but it did not provide information on Saudi direct and indirect funding.[100]
In New York City, news of the prospective construction of a mosque a few hundred yards from Ground Zero, has stoked months of tension and dispute.[101] One of the leading figures promoting the controversial Islamic Cultural Center is Imam Abdul Faisal Rauf, a self proclaimed moderate Muslim, who has a number of suspicious connections to Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the United States, Malaysia, the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia.[102] Rauf heads the American Society for Muslim Advancement and is a board member of the Malaysia-based Cordoba Initiative.[103]
One of Rauf’s partners in the Cordoba Initiative, Jamal Barzinji, was among the founding members of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT),[104] the Muslim Brotherhood’s forefront think-tank in the US, which “had been demonstrated by the Justice Department to be an unindicted coconspirator” in the Hamas front, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror financing trial.[105] Barzinji, who leads IIIT, is considered “closely associated” with terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[106] He is also a trustee of the Saudi-funded North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was named an unindicted coconspirator in the HLF terror financing case as well.[107] NAIT holds the deed to the terror-linked Dar al-Hijra Mosque,[108] whose development Barzinji authorized.[109]
Rauf has drawn Saudi support in the past. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Foundation who owns many shares in American businesses, lavishly funds Muslim Brotherhood offshoots in the US,[110] such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA),[111] also donated $300,000 to Rauf’s American Society for Muslim Advancement.[112] Ironically, Talal has gone on record as opposing the construction of Cordoba House so close to Ground Zero. Nevertheless, Rauf has insisted that the project proceed and,[113] in an effort to smooth public sensibilities, Cordoba House is now being referred to instead as the Park51 Islamic Center.[114]
The Ground Zero mosque controversy is hardly the only debate raging on mosque construction in the United States. Many other mosques are planned for the United States, and some already exist.[115]
The state of Tennessee may soon hold three large Islamic complexes in the cities of Murfeesboro,[116] Antioch,[117] and Memphis. While Staten Island, in New York, recently scrapped unpopular plans for a mosque,[118] Brooklyn, New York, will soon be home to an Islamic Cultural Center.[119] Atlanta, Georgia, opened a $10 million mosque complex—the largest mosque in the state—in 2008.[120]
The Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, in Massachusetts, welcomed a $22 million, 60,000-foot Islamic Cultural Center with known radical ties in 2009.[121] Saudi financing is confirmed in the case of the Roxbury mosque,[122] which is run by the Muslim American Society,[123] another important Saudi-financed Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States.[124]
Other multimillion - dollar structures are constructed in or slated for construction in Sheboygan, Wisconsin;[125] Temecula Valley, California;[126] and Florence, Kentucky.[127] The sources of funding for these mosques are not known. But given the Saudis’ active role in Islamic promotion worldwide, and their special interest in influencing the US, it is likely that Saudi money is playing a major role in most of these mosque constructions.
Schools
Saudi money heavily influences academic institutions in the United States. Saudi donations to American universities have been going on for decades. Lately, however, the Saudis have signed agreements, worth at least $25 million each, with several major universities to help with the development of academic curriculums for the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in the Kingdom.[128] Such agreements were signed in 2008 with the University of Texas at Austin; the University of California, Berkeley; and Stanford University.[129] In September 2010 the Kingdom’s General Investment Authority (Sagia) signed the Georgia Institute of Technology to build a center to provide applied science degrees to students in Saudi Arabia.[130]
In the meantime, the Saudi government sponsors foreign study programs for approximately 60,000 Saudi nationals worldwide.[131] Since 9/11, the number of Saudis studying in the United States has spiked markedly, from 3,000 to over 30,000.[132] Of all Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia sponsors the highest number of students in the United States.
In addition to fostering institutional partnerships, Saudis have donated millions of dollars to American schools, buying sway over the way Islam and Middle Eastern Studies are taught in the US. Saudi tentacles are even more deeply sunk into British universities. A 2008 report by Britain’s Centre for Social Cohesion shows that Saudi Arabian and Muslim organizations have poured over $460 million into British universities including Oxford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.[133] Oxford alone received over $39 million from the late Saudi King Fahd for its Centre for Islamic Studies.[134]
Billions of dollars worth of investments in Western campuses have reaped the Saudis’ massive dividends, rewriting the Middle East narrative in curricula of universities around the world and intimidating critical assessment of Islam and Muslims. Britain’s University and College Union has repeatedly tried to launch an academic boycott of Israel while Middle East studies–related activities at premier universities in the UK and the US are often fiercely anti-Israel.[135]
The radicalization of the young, wealthy and lonely Nigerian student Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab happened in the Islamic Society at University College London, which he attended, and in the London mosque he frequented, which was funded by the Saudi MWL. Abdulmutallab, better known as the 2009 failed Christmas underwear bomber, travelled to Yemen and was later recruited to al-Qaeda.[136] Further investigation by Britain’s counter-extremism think tank Quilliam Foundation revealed that members of the Islamic Society at London’s City University, a Wahhabi hotbed, are urging violence and preaching fundamentalist Islam.[137] Another UK survey showed that 60 percent of active members in Britain’s universities’ Islamic societies agree that killing in the name of religion can be justified, and that nearly the same number supports the imposition of a global caliphate.[138]
Recommendations
As with other contagious diseases, to successfully fight the spread of virulent Islamic radicalism, one must identify the origins of the outbreak (Saudi Arabia), as well as the contributing factors to its spread (Saudi oil revenues).
While Western cultures place a premium on coexistence, negotiation, compromise, and multiculturalism, Islam does not. Sharia—law—requires the subjugation or destruction of all non-Muslims. Its adherents value only the sharia, and join the jihad for its global domination, to create the ummah (Islamic nation). Exposing sharia and its radical proponents, be they states, organizations, or individuals, is crucial to our ability to protect ourselves and to take the necessary measures to curtail the spread of radical Islam.
Successive US Administrations have demonstrated willful blindness and recklessness vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia’s cultivation of Islamic radicalism and terrorism financing activities. The United States still trusts the Saudis to self-report on the progress of their counterterrorist financing efforts. When it comes to Saudi investments or contributions in the United States, the American government does not disclose information, making it difficult to discover the true extent of the Saudi financial, political, educational and social influence in America.
CAIR, ISNA, and other Saudi and Muslim Brotherhood organs enjoy ties to the American political establishment and are often portrayed in the media as religiously moderate and socially positive advocacy organizations. Legitimizing radicals as if they are moderates fosters the spread of terrorism throughout the world, including the new phenomenon of “homegrown” terrorism in the United States.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Virginia-born psychiatrist, massacred 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009.[139] Eyebrows were raised when Pennsylvania native and Muslim convert Colleen LaRose, a.k.a. “Jihad Jane,” pled guilty in 2011 for plotting to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks because he had lampooned the prophet Muhammad in one of his cartoons.[140] In upstate New York, the “Lackawanna Six” were local Yemeni-Americans who had attended al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Kandahar prior to September 2001; they pled guilty to supporting terrorism in Buffalo two years later in a case that received little public attention.[141]
FoxNews reported in March 2011 that data compiled by the Department of Justice indicated “there has been a class-one terrorism case with a direct link between U.S. citizens … and foreign terrorist groups on average every two weeks since January 2009.”[142]
The mosques, Islamist NGOs and advancing homegrown terror starkly symbolize the depth of Saudi penetration into American civic life. Yet, because the US is so dependent on Saudi oil, little has been done to stop this penetration, and it is unlikely to be addressed anytime in the foreseeable future. The media, public and Congress should demand full transparency from the government and full disclosure of Saudi investments in and contributions to the US.
I. The US must impede the growth of the Saudis’ radicalizing influence on American education, business and politics. An important step towards achieving this most difficult task should be the ban of contributions to American educational institutions, nonprofits – including religious and charitable organizations from countries that prohibit religious freedom.
The 2010 annual report of the US Department of State on International Religious Freedom,[143] and the 2011 annual report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom,[144] designated countries that have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom” as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs).[145] The list includes Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Pakistan, Egypt, Eritrea, Afghanistan, China, to name a few.[146] There is an additional Watch List of countries where the government engages in serious violations of or that tolerate violations of religious freedom.
While Saudi Arabia is the only country on the CPC list that enjoys “indefinite waiver of Presidential actions under section 407(a)(2) of IRFA,” it is also the largest contributor to US educational institutions, charities and non-governmental institutions (NGOs).[147] Direct and indirect large contributions are also sent by the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Kuwait.
The influence of Saudi and Gulf largesse on the radicalization of their American recipients has been widely documented, but no attempts have been made to stem the flow of the money that advances the agendas of regimes, which openly oppose the fundamental democratic freedoms provided by the US Constitution. Moreover, such contributions fund the development of subversive elements that use our First Amendment rights to undermine those rights.
The US would not be the first to ban such contributions. In November 2010, when the Norwegian government halted construction of that Arctic Circle mosque due to the Saudi pledge, the foreign ministry spokeswoman explained, “It would be paradoxical and unnatural to approve financing coming from a country where religious freedom does not exist.”[148]
Following in Norway's footsteps, the US Congress should pass a bill that would require the disclosure of all contributions in cash and in kind to US charities, NGOs, educational and religious institutions from countries listed by the State Department as prohibiting religious freedoms or severely discriminating against religions other than the official religion. To deter Americans from receiving and/or soliciting such contributions, the US Justice Department should impose large fines and publish the violators’ names. This would be an important step towards curbing Islamic radicalization and influence.
II. The proposed Justice Against Terrorism Act (JASTA), an important bill to deter terrorism and provide justice for victims, was first introduced in December 2009 by Senators Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY). The bill proposed removing the existing prohibition against suing foreign states or foreign officials civilly for damages related to acts of terrorism. JASTA would “expand the liability of foreign states for tortuous acts committed against U.S. citizens during a terrorist act and allow civil actions against a foreign state” and its officials, as well as “impose liability on any person who aids and abets an act of international terrorism, provides material support or resources to terrorist organizations, or conspires with terrorists.”[149]. Increasing the courts’ jurisdictional reach would allow plaintiffs to sue for appropriate damages and help deter individual or corporate entities from transacting with terrorist groups.[150] This critical bill never became a law, and, as of this writing, has yet to be reintroduced in Congress.
III. Saudi and Gulf terror financiers use libel laws and suits, mostly, but not only, in the UK, to silence investigations into their funding of radical Muslim organizations. After the 9/11 attacks, this tactic of lawfare known as libel tourism successfully chilled freedom of speech in the US and the world over.[151] By pressing frivolous and extortionate libel suits in British courts, one Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, alone managed to muzzle over 45 major media outlets and authors, including many Americans.[152]
The threat of libel tourism to American authors and publishers ended in the summer of 2010. This was accomplished under costly and difficult personal efforts. The unwavering support from the Board of Directors of the American Center for Democracy, which I head—in particular, R. James Woolsey, Michael Mukasey, and Nicholas Rostow—and my brilliant, patient and generous attorney, Daniel Kornstein, made my struggle more tolerable. And the perceptive Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee with their dedicated staff, and many other supporters, made the passage of the SPEECH Act possible.
Rather than caving in after being threatened with a libel suit in London in 2005, I sued in New York, to block the enforcement of the English default judgment in the United States and then engaged in a multiyear campaign to pass remedial legislation at both the state and federal levels. New York, Illinois, Florida, California, Utah, Tennessee, Maryland and Louisiana all passed laws to protect against the enforcement of libel tourist suits. These, along with the federal SPEECH Act which became law in August 2010, provide protection to all American authors and publishers in print and on the Internet from frivolous libel suits abroad.[153] No longer intimidated by the threat of foreign libel judgments, American investigative researchers are now free to take advantage of the uniquely strong protections for freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
IV. To curtail the frivolous libel suits in the US, by Saudi-linked organizations such as Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) file against their critics, Federal Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) legislation is under consideration in Congress.[154] Together with the SPEECH Act, the anti-SLAPP legislation will deter frivolous libel suits within and outside the US and help secure the free speech rights Americans need to protect their freedom of expression.
V. But the battle does not stop there. In addition to following the Saudi money trail, Americans should be encouraged to openly criticize and pressure their own government’s obfuscation of Saudi Arabia’s role as the world’s primary sponsor of radical Islam and Islamic terrorism. As the Wikileaks cable on Saudi Arabia shows, this cover-up rises to the highest levels of government—American presidents, their Cabinet members, government officials, and diplomats continue to publicly praise Saudi Arabia while fully aware of its role as the primary global terrorism funder.[155]
VI. Cutting off the money lifeline to terrorists requires effective and evenhanded enforcement of counterterrorism and finance regulations. Instead, the US Government uses a selective process that allows activities of known terrorism fronts to continue. While authorities have arrested several members or affiliates of the primary Islamist organizations, the organizations remain open.
The terror ties of CAIR—a documented Muslim Brotherhood front—have long been laid bare in numerous court cases, the most recent of which is the aforementioned 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case.[156] That case exposed HLF as a Hamas fundraising front, declared ISNA “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes in the United States,”[157] and implicated both ISNA and CAIR as unindicted co-conspirators of HLF.[158] At least 15 CAIR officials have been identified in terror investigations, including CAIR founder, Ghassan Elashi.[159]
As the primary endorser of chaplains of the Muslim faith assigned to federal prisons, ISNA hand-picked imams to preach to inmates until the Bureau of Prisons discovered ISNA’s true agenda during the course of an investigation into the spread of radical Islam in American prisons and suspended the organization.[160] CAIR and ISNA should be shut down.
The US Treasury should freeze the assets of such groups and similar seemingly nonprofit organizations that are, in actuality, tools for spreading fundamentalist Islam through cultural influence and the sponsorship of terrorism. Such organizations include a host of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated entities, such as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), the Muslim World League (MWL), and the Muslim Student Association (MSA). [161]
Congress should also demand an explanation of why the government allowed the reopening of an office of a terrorism front—the Florida office of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), designated as a terrorist organization by the US Department of the Treasury. Another disturbing example was described in the September 2010 testimony of attorney Eric Lewis before the House Committee on Financial Services regarding the possible laundering of up to $1 trillion(!) through the United States by “the Money Exchange,” a Saudi-based remittance company.[162]
Spearheaded by Maan al-Sanea, the chair of Saad Group and a major stakeholder in HSBC Bank, the Money Exchange operated internationally through a series of shell companies and correspondent banks, funneling billions of dollars annually through American bank accounts. The nature of the business and its transactional volume should have triggered close monitoring by US banks. Yet Lewis’s testimony reveals an utter lack of due diligence on the part of US financial institutions and the resulting silence on the part of the press and the American government.[163]
Such silences, if unchallenged, will jeopardize the national security of the US and lead to the suppression the freedom and democracy that are unique to America. Saudi and other radical-Islam promoting regimes’ direct and indirect involvement in and support of terrorism must be fully exposed and addressed if we are to maintain our security protect our liberty.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is the Director of the New York–based American Center for Democracy (ACD)[164] and the Economic Warfare Institute(EWI)[165] She has authored hundreds of articles and several books on terrorist financing and political corruption.
NOTES
[1] Paul Handley, “US Cables: Saudi ‘Critical’ Finance Base for Qaeda, Taliban,” Middle East Online, December 5, 2010. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42881 See original at Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, “Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance” (Secret State Department Cable 131801), December 30, 2009, http://wikileaks.ch.nyud.net/cable/2009/12/09STATE131801.html.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Excerpt From An Interview With Secretary of State Colin Powell, July 30, 2003,” in “Congressional 9/11 Report Missing Pages: Saudis Ask for Full Disclosure,” The SUSRIS Project – Saudi-US Relations Information Service, July 31, 2003, http://www.susris.com/2003/07/31/congressional-911-report-missing-pages-saudis-ask-for-full-disclosure/.
[4]“Transcript – Confirmation Hearing of Condoleeza Rice,” New York Times, January 18, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/politics/18TEXT-RICE.html?pagewanted=print.
[5] Agence France Presse, “Bush certifies Saudi Arabia as 'war on terror' ally,” The Daily Star, October 20, 2007, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=86104.
[6] United States Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's Speech at Jeddah Chamber of Commerce: The State of the Global Economy and the Relationship between the United States and the Gulf Region,” press release, July 14, 2009, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg211.aspx.
[7] Brian Ross, “U.S.: Saudis Still Filling Al Qaeda's Coffers,” ABC News: The Blotter, September 11, 2007, http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/us-saudis-still.html.
[8] Handley, “US Cables: Saudi ‘Critical’ Finance Base for Qaeda, Taliban.” http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42881.
[9] Associated Press, “Official: 15 of 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi,” USA Today, February 6, 2002, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saudi.htm.
[10] CNN, “Saudis blame al Qaeda for attack,” May 30, 2004, http://articles.cnn.com/2004-05-30/world/saudi.shooting_1_apicorp-saudi-officials-qaeda?_s=PM:WORLD
[11] David G. Savage, “Saudi Arabia-based charities still funding terrorists, GAO says,” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/30/nation/na-terror-funding30.
[12] Congressional Research Service, Saudi Arabia: Terrorist Financing Issues (RL32499, September 14, 2007), by Christopher M. Blanchard and Alfred B. Prados, CRS-23, http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL32499_20070914.pdf.
[13] Abeer Allam,. “Terrorism funding remains a concern,.” Financial Times,. April 19, 2010,. <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1c0ed36a-4bca-11df-a217-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=f39ffd26-4bb2-11da-997b-0000779e2340,s01=2.html#axzz1Sa2n8lpS>http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c0ed36a-4bca-11df-a217-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss.
[14] Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, http://www.sama.gov.sa/sites/samaen/AboutSAMA/Pages/SAMAFunction.aspx
[15] United States General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism – U.S. Agencies Report Progress Countering Terrorism and Its Financing in Saudi Arabia, but Continued Focus on Counter Terrorism Financing Efforts Needed (GAO-09-883, September 24, 2009), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09883.pdf.
[16] Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Public Statements by Senior Saudi Officials and Religious Scholars Condemning Extremism and Promoting Moderation, May 2008. http://www.saudiembassy.net/files/PDF/Reports/2008Reports/Extremism_Report_May08.pdf.http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBsQFjAB&url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.saudiembassy.net%252Ffiles%252FPDF%252FReports%252F2008Reports%252FExtremism_Report_May08.pdf&rct=j&q=saudi%20king%20condemn%20terrorism%202008&ei=hzXtTPiKA4KC8gbFoMCjAQ&usg=AFQjCNGa7e5JiyDInub6Tx7Pmr8g_-urhw&sig2=22lkFeXxmhSQ0zUhiWIWXw&cad=rja.
[17] “Saudi Arabia,” IBA Anti-Money Laundering Forum, last updated February 17, 2009, http://www.anti-moneylaundering.org/middleeast/Saudi_Arabia.aspx.
[18] “List of Members,” The Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, http://www.egmontgroup.org/about/list-of-members.
[19] “Mutual Evaluation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Financial Action Task Force (FATF), June 25, 2010, http://www.fatf-gafi.org/document/62/0,3343,en_32250379_32236963_45537790_1_1_1_1,00.html.http://www.fatf-gafi.org/document/62/0,3343,en_32250379_32236963_45537790_1_1_1_1,00.html.
[20] FATAT Watch, “MENAFATF members,” http://www.fatfwatch.com/categories/MENAFATF-members
[21] United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 54/109, “International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism,” December 9, 1999, http://www.un.org/law/cod/finterr.htm.
[22] Saudi Arabia: Terrorist Financing Issues, September 2007 CRS Report.
[23] “Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007,” Public Law 110–53, 121 Stat. 266, August 3, 2007, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ053.110.
[24] United States Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, “2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report,” February 27, 2009, http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2009/vol2/116545.htm.
[25] Handley, “US Cables: Saudi ‘Critical’ Finance Base for Qaeda, Taliban.”
[26] Donna Miles, “Petraeus Lauds Saudi Fatwa Condemning Terrorism Financing,” United States Department of Defense, May 22, 2010, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=59298.
[27] Clinton, Secret State Department Cable 131801.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report.
[30] The Terror Finance Tracking Program: Hearing Before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (H.R. HTG, 109–105), 109th Congress (July 11, 2006), http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/109-105.pdf
[31] Congressional Research Service, Saudi Arabia:Background and U.S. Relations (RL33533, March 10, 2011), by Christopher M. Blanchard, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33533.pdf.
[32] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report.
[33] Anti-Terrorism Financing: Progress Made And Challenges Ahead: Hearing Before the Senate Finance Committee (S. HRG. 110–1034), 110th Congress (April 1, 2008) (statement of Hon. Stuart A. Levey, Under Secretary, Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department of the Treasury), http://finance.senate.gov/library/hearings/download/?id=8bec1f8c-3611-40f1-a9fa-f92abc282439.
[34] “Saudis trumpet al-Qaeda arrests,” BBC News, November 26, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11848806.
[35] Massoud A. Derhally and Zainab Fattah, “Saudi Arabia Says Al-Qaeda Arrests Prevented Attacks,”Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 26, 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-26/saudi-arabia-says-al-qaeda-arrests-prevented-attacks.html.
[36] Richard Spencer, “Saudi Arabian mother becomes the First Lady of al-Qaeda,” Daily Telegraph, June 25, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/7854994/Saudi-Arabian-mother-becomes-the-First-Lady-of-al-Qaeda.html.
[37] “France: Saudis warn of new al-Qaeda threat,” BBC News, October 17, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11562598 and Associated Press, “France's burka ban ruled constitutional,” CBC News, October 7, 2010, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/10/07/france-burka-ban007.html.
[38] Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane, “Saudis Warned U.S. of Attack Before Parcel Bomb Plot,” New York Times, November 5, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/world/middleeast/06terror.html.
[39] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report (emphasis added).
[40]R. James Woolsey, “World War IV,” speech, National War College, November 16, 2002, http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/woolsey.html.
[41] Rachel Ehrenfeld, “The Saudi Connection,” National Review Online, June 1, 2004, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/210867/saudi-connection/rachel-ehrenfeld.
[42] Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Dollars For Terror,” FrontPageMagazine.com, August 12, 2004, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11833.
[43] Anthony Loyd, “Terror link alleged as Saudi millions flow into Afghanistan war zone,” Times (London), May 31, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7140745.ece.
[44] iCasualties – Operation Enduring Freedom website, http://icasualties.org/oef.
[45] Testimony of Under Secretary Levey at the Hearing Before the Senate Finance Committee.
[46] Jayshree Bajoria, “Backgrounder: Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) (aka Lashkar e-Tayyiba, Lashkar e-Toiba; Lashkar-i-Taiba),” Council on Foreign Relations, last updated January 14, 2010, http://www.cfr.org/publication/17882/lashkaretaiba_army_of_the_pure_aka_lashkar_etayyiba_lashkar_etoiba_lashkaritaiba.html.
[47] United States Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Al Haramain Islamic Foundation,” press release, June 19, 2008, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/hp1043.aspx.
[48] James M. Dorsey, “Saudis fail to halt terrorism funding despite minor gains,” ed. Rob Mudge, Deutsche Welle, December 20, 2009, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5019025,00.html.
[49] United States Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Takes Additional Measures to Combat Iranian WMD Proliferation Iranian Nuclear & Missile Firms Targeted,” press release, August 3, 2006, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/hp45.aspx.
[50] Joyce Pangco Pañares, “Saudi envoy in Manila linked to terror group,” Manila Standard Today, December 7, 2010, http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2010/december/7/news2.isx&d=2010/december/7.
[51] “APHSCT Townsend February 6 Meeting with Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal” (Secret Embassy Riyadh Cable 367), February 24, 2007, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/02/07RIYADH367.html.
[52] Muhammad Ibrahim, “IIRO-Saudi Arabia gains membership in UN body,” Arab News, August 1, 2010, http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article93533.ece.
[53] “Terrorist Organizations,” Osen LLC, http://www.osen.us/index.php?id=57.
[54] Adam Entous, “Haniyeh gave Saudi cash to Hamas armed wing: Israel,” Reuters, April 1, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0144310420070401.
[55] Ismail Haniyeh, interview by Zeina Awad, Talk to Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, December 16, 2009, http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/talktojazeera/2009/12/2009121715913988277.html.
[56] “Operation Cast Lead,” Global Security.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/operation-cast-lead.htm.
[57] Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, “Saudis Pledge to Cover Over Half of PA War Costs,” Arutz Sheva, January 20, 2009, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129526.
[58] Rachel Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—and How to Stop It (Chicago: Bonus Books, 2005), 108-109, http://books.google.com/books?id=jc2VW8GUqAwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
[59] “Israeli Report Details Saudi Funding for Palestinian Militants,” WorldTribune.com, July 4, 2002, http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2002/me_saudis_07_04.html.
[60] Attachment to Letter from Mustapha Dib to Yasser Arafat, January 9, 2001, Captured Document E5, translated in “Arafat: Where Did the Saudi Aid Money Go? (Transferred to the Hamas...),” Appendix E of Large Sums of Money Transferred by Saudi Arabia to the Palestinians are Used for Financing Terror Organizations (particularly the Hamas) and Terrorist Activities (including Suicide Attacks inside Israel), (Israel Defense Forces Document TR2-350-02), May 6, 2002, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/bu/saudi/sa_mappe.htm.
[61] UN General Assembly, “International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.”
[62] “Saudi Bank Refuses to Cooperate in U.S. Investigation into Terrorist Financiers,” For The Record—The IPT Blog, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, January 26, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/01/saudi-bank-refuses-to-cooperate-in-us.
[63] Stephen I. Landman, “Day Four in United States v. Seda,” For The Record—The IPT Blog, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, September 3, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/09/day-four-in-united-states-v-seda.
[64] On Agust 1, 2011, Treasury’s website stated: “the page you are looking for may have been removed.” see
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/hp1043.htm
[65] Combating Terrorism, September 2009 GAO Report.
[66] Landman, “Day Four in United States v. Seda.”
[67] Jordan Weissmann, “Saudi Bank Asks Court to Stop Patriot Act Subpoena,” The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes, January 20, 2010, http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/01/saudi-bank-asks-court-to-stop-patriot-act-subpoena-.html.
[68] Scott Johnson, “Portrait of a Shadow,” Newsweek, February 14, 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/2009/02/13/portrait-of-a-shadow.html.
[69] Associated Press, “Saudi Citizens Funding Iraq Insurgents,” CBS News, February 11, 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/08/world/main2240138.shtml.
[70] Salah Nasrawi, “Saudis Reportedly Funding Iraqi Sunnis,” Washington Post, December 8, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120701070_pf.html.
[71] Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit, “Who are the foreign fighters in Iraq?,” NBC News Investigates on NBC Nightly News, June 20, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8293410/ns/nightly_news-nbc_news_investigates.
[72] Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Foreign Fighters in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of U.S.,” New York Times, November 22, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/world/middleeast/22fighters.html.
[73] Jim Michaels, “Foreign fighters leaving Iraq, military says,” USA Today, March 21, 2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-20-fighters_N.htm.
[74] Babak Dehghanpisheh, “Iraq Bombings Could Herald New Deadly Phase,” Newsweek, November 3, 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/02/iraqi-insurgents-making-deadly-comeback.html.
[75] Clinton, Secret State Department Cable 131801.
[76] “The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz Directs the Distribution of Hundreds of Thousands Quran to the Pilgrims. Huge Saudi Efforts in the Field of Establishing Islamic Centers, Mosques and Academies All Over the World. Tunisian, Arab and Muslim Newspapers Lauds the Kingdom's Services to the Pilgrims.,” Ain-Al-Yaqeen, March 1, 2002, http://www.ainalyaqeen.com/issues/20020301/feat3en.htm.
[77] Ibid.
[78] Mark Silverberg, “The Wahhabi Invasion of America,” February 27, 2003, http://www.marksilverberg.com/article/WahhabisminAmerica/68/1/print/.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Stephen Schwartz, “Defeating Wahabbism,” Islam Daily, August 4, 2004, http://www.islamdaily.org/en/wahabism/1637.defeating-wahabbism.htm.
[81] Congressional Research Service, Islam in Africa (RS22873, May 9, 2008), by Hussein D. Hassan, CRS-4-5, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22873.pdf.
[82] Paul Sperry, “U.S.-Saudi oil imports fund American mosques,” WorldNetDaily, April 22, 2002, http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=13621.
[83] Soeren Kern, “Europe's Mosque Wars,” Pundicity.com, August 18, 2010, http://kern.pundicity.com/7847/europe-mosque-wars.
[84] Andrew Norfolk, “Hardline takeover of British mosques,” Times (London), September 7, 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2402973.ece.
[85] Dr. Joseph Lumbard and Dr. Aref Ali Nayed, eds., The 500 Most Influential Muslims 2010 (The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, 2010), 58, http://www.rissc.jo/docs/new/Muslim500-2010-Third-Edition-001.pdf.
[86] Alex Alexiev, “Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions,” Middle East Quarterly 12, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 3-11, http://www.meforum.org/686/tablighi-jamaat-jihads-stealthy-legions.
[87] Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, “Tablighi Jamaat: An Indirect Line to Terrorism,” STRATFOR, January 23, 2008, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/tablighi_jamaat_indirect_line_terrorism.
[88] Susan Sachs, “A Muslim Missionary Group Draws New Scrutiny in U.S.,” New York Times, July 14, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/us/a-muslim-missionary-group-draws-new-scrutiny-in-us.html.
[89]. Alexiev, “Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions” and “Listing of terrorist organizations: Jamiat ul-Ansar,” Australian National Security, last modified November 29, 2010, http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/nationalsecurity.nsf/Page/What_Governments_are_doing_Listing_of_Terrorism_Organisations_Jamiat_ul-Ansar.
[90] “Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM),” Global Security.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hua.htm.
[91] United States Department of State, “Designations of Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) and its Leader Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri,” press release, August 6, 2010, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/08/145779.htm.
[92] Sean O’Neill, “Lessons in hate found at leading mosques,” Times (London), October 30, 2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2767252.ece.
[93] Dan Bilefsky, “Islamic Revival Tests Bosnia’s Secular Cast,” New York Times, December 26, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27islam.html?_r=2&hp.
[94] Bojan Pancevski, “Saudis fund Balkan Muslims spreading hate of the West,” Sunday Times (London), March 28, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7140745.ece.
[95] Agence France Presse, “Arctic mosque plan on ice over Saudi funding,” Khaleej Times, November 8, 2010, http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/international/2010/November/international_November431.xml§ion=international&col=.
[96] Fiona Hamilton and Ruth Gledhill, “Islamic sect’s plan to build mega-mosque next to Olympics site collapses,” Times (London), January 18, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6991808.ece.
[97] “No 10 site in mosque petition row,” BBC News, July 17, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6902367.stm.
[98] Agence France Presse, “London mosque near Olympics site aborted,” Al Arabiya News, January 18, 2010, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/01/18/97716.html.
[99] Stephen Schwartz, “Wahhabism & Islam in The U.S.,” National Review, June 30, 2003, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207366/wahhabism-islam-u-s/stephen-schwartz.
[100] Edward E. Curtis IV, “Five myths about mosques in America,” Washington Post, August 29, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605510.html.
[101] Dave Evans, “Frustration, anger grows over proposed mosque,” WABC-TV: Eyewitness News, August 18, 2010, http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7615993; “Protesters rally against, for planned Islamic center in New York,” CNN, August 22, 2010, http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-22/us/new.york.mosque.protests_1_ground-zero-islamic-center-protesters-rally?_s=PM:US.
[102] Alyssa A. Lappen, “The Ground Zero Mosque Developer: Muslim Brotherhood Roots, Radical Dreams,” Pajamas Media, May 14, 2010, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-ground-zero-mosque-developer-muslim-brotherhood-roots-radical-dreams and “GZM Imam's Malaysia Connections,” IPT News—The Investigative Project on Terrorism, September 24, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2198/gzm-imams-malaysia-connections.
[103] “American Society for Muslim Advancement: Financial Statements For the year ended June 30, 2009,” http://www.asmasociety.org/about/asma_audit_2009.pdf.
[104] “Ground Zero mosque modeled after notorious 9/11 mosque?,” WorldNetDaily, August 22, 2010, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=194617.
[105] http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/US_v_HLF_Unindicted_Coconspirators.pdf.
[106] Andrew C. McCarthy, “International Institute of Islamic Thought and the Muslim Brotherhood,” National Review, July 24, 2010, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/233574/international-institute-islamic-thought-and-muslim-brotherhood-andy-mccarthy.
[107] Paul Sperry, “Sami’s Guardian Angel,” FrontPageMagazine.com, December 9, 2005, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=6315.
[108] “Dar al-Hijrah Mosque,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/417.
[109] Sperry, “Sami’s Guardian Angel.”
[110] “Mosque's Saudi Patron,” Investors Business Daily—IBD Editorials, August 26, 2010, http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/545180/201008261900/Mosques-Saudi-Patron.aspx.
[111] “ISNA Uses Saudi Money For Fellowship Program,” The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, September 27, 2009, http://globalmbreport.com/?p=1631.
[112] John Cook, “News Corp’s number-two shareholder funded ‘terror mosque’ planner,” The Upshot (blog), Yahoo! News, August 20, 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100820/bs_yblog_upshot/news-corps-number-two-shareholder-funded-terror-mosque-planner.
[113]. David B. Caruso, “Imam unmoved by Saudi criticism of NYC mosque,” Boston Globe, October 29, 2010, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/10/29/imam_unmoved_by_saudi_criticism_of_nyc_mosque/.
[114] Dan Amira, “Ground Zero Mosque Gets Less Muslim-Invasion-Sounding Name,” New York Magazine, July 14, 2010, http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/07/ground_zero_mosque_gets_lets_m.html.
[115] Erick Stakelbeck, “Mega Mosque Plans Target America's Heartland,” CBN News, August 22, 2010, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2010/August/Mega-Mosque-Plans-Target-Americas-Heartland/?WT.mc_id=EmbedNewsPlayer.
[116] Lucas L. Johnson II, “Order to halt Murfreesboro mosque denied,” Knoxville News Sentinel, November 18, 2010, http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/nov/18/order-to-halt-murfreesboro-mosque-denied.
[117] Diane Macedo, “Plans to Build Massive Islamic Centers Raise Concerns in Tennessee,” FoxNews.com, August 9, 2010, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/09/plans-build-tennessee-islamic-centers.
[118] Paul Vitello, “Heated Opposition to a Proposed Mosque,” New York Times, June 10, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/nyregion/11mosque.html.
[119] Ned Berke, “Sheepshead Bay Mosque Receives Permits To Build,” Sheepshead Bites (blog), August 20, 2010, http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/2010/11/sheepshead-bay-mosque-receives-permits-to-build.
[120] “Atlanta's Largest Mosque Opens,” CBN News, August 19, 2008, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2008/August/Atlantas-Largest-Mosque-Opens-.
[121] “Boston Mosque: the Rise of Radical Islam,” CBN News, November 16, 2004, http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/041116a.aspx, posted by “missyme,” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1281227/posts.
[122] Jeff Jacoby, “The Boston mosque's Saudi connection,” Boston Globe, January 10, 2007, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/01/10/the_boston_mosques_saudi_connection/.
[123] Michael Paulson, “Formal opening of Roxbury mosque, two days of events set for this month,” Boston Globe, June 14, 2009, http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/14/roxbury_mosque_to_open_formally_this_month/.
[124] “The Massachusetts Mega Mosque: A Success for the Muslim Brotherhood, Failure from Media & Government,” PJTV.com video, 14:00, June 8, 2010, http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=111&load=3725.
[125] Jake Miller, “Rural Sheboygan County residents shook up by possibility of Muslim mosque in their community,” WITI-TV FOX6 News, March 8, 2010, http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-100308-mosque-controversy,0,3267768.story.
[126] Phil Willon, “Planned Temecula Valley mosque draws opposition,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/18/local/la-me-mosque-20100718.
[127] Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.). Organization, “Kentucky: Mosque Protest Efforts in Florence,” REALCourage.org, August 16, 2010, http://www.realcourage.org/2010/08/kentucky-mosque-protests-efforts-in-florence.
[128] Andrew England, “Saudi Arabia’s billion-dollar education boost,” Financial Times, September 22, 2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a452fa42-a794-11de-b0ee-00144feabdc0.html.
[129] Tamar Lewin, “U.S. Universities Join Saudis in Partnerships,” New York Times, March 6, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/education/06partner.html.
[130] Abeer Allam, “Saudi Arabia takes westward academic turn,” Financial Times, September 27, 2010, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9cc61d76-ca44-11df-87b8-00144feab49a.html#axzz16nhJCvim.
[131] Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC, “Saudi Students in U.S. Graduate from Scholarship Program,” press release, July 7, 2009, http://www.saudiembassy.net/press-releases/press07070901.aspx.
[132] James B. Smith, “US-Saudi Educational Partnerships Flourish,” Saudi Gazette, November 29, 2010, http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?m=opinions&id=544906&lim=&lang=en&tblpost=2010_11&PHPSESSID=8.
[133] Robin Simcox for the Centre for Social Cohesion, A Degree of Influence: the funding of strategically important subjects in UK universities, (Wallington: SS Media Limited, March 2009), http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1238334646_1.pdf and Rachel Rogosnitzky, “News And Views From Europe,” The Jewish Press, April 30, 2008, http://www.thejewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=31497.
[134] Duncan Robinson, “The shame of Britain’s universities,” The Staggers (blog), New Statesman, March 9, 2011, http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/university-saudi-british.
[135] Danna Harman, “Israeli diplomat flees British anti-Israel demonstrators,” Haaretz, April 29, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-diplomat-flees-british-anti-israel-demonstrators-1.287423 and Cinnamon Stillwell, “Target Israel,” FrontPageMagazine.com, June 15, 2010, http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/15/target-israel-2.
[136] Mark Hosenball, “The Radicalization of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,” Newsweek, January 1, 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/01/the-radicalization-of-umar-farouk-abdulmutallab.html.
[137] “Quilliam Launches Training and Consultancy Services in North America,” Quilliam Foundation, http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/index.php/component/content/article/711.
[138] John Thorne and Hannah Stuart for the Centre for Social Cohesion, Islam on Campus: A survey of UK student opinions (Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, July 2008), http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1231525079_1.pdf.
[139] Peter Slevin, “Rampage kills 12, wounds 31,” Washington Post, November 6, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110503467.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR.
[140] Ed Pilkington, “'Jihad Jane' pleads guilty to murder attempt on Swedish cartoonist,” Guardian, February 2, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/jihad-jane-pleads-guilty-cartoonist-murder.
[141] Roya Aziz and Monica Lam, “Profiles: The Lackawanna Cell,” Frontline, October 16, 2003, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sleeper/inside/profiles.html.
[142] “Special Report's Contrasting Previews Of The King And Durbin Hearings On American Muslims,” Media Matters for America, March 29, 2011, http://mediamatters.org/iphone/research/201103290039.
[143] United States Department of State, “2010 Report on International Religious Freedom,” November 17, 2010, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010/index.htm.
[144] United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “Annual Report 2011,” May 2011,
http://www.uscirf.gov/images/book%20with%20cover%20for%20web.pdf.
[145] “Frequently Asked Questions: IRF Report and Countries of Particular Concern,” United States Department of State, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/irf/c13003.htm.
[146] United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, “USCIRF Identifies World's Worst Religious Freedom Violators: Egypt Cited for First Time,” news release, April 28, 2011, http://www.uscirf.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3595.
[147] USCIRF Annual Report 2011.
[148] AFP, “Arctic mosque plan on ice over Saudi funding.”
[149] Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, S. 2930, 111th Congress (2009-2010), http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-2930&tab=summary
[150] Evaluating The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, S. 2930: Hearing Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, 111th Congress (July 14, 2010) (Testimony of Lee S. Wolosky, Partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP), http://judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/07-14-10%20Wolosky%20Testimony.pdf.
[151] Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Free Speech In A Non-Free World,” Big Peace, April 5, 2001, http://bigpeace.com/rehrenfeld/2011/04/05/free-speech-in-a-non-free-world-2 and United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 2200A (XXI), “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” December 16, 1966, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm.
[152] Bin Mahfouz Information, http://www.binmahfouz.info/en_index.html.
[153] Copies of the state and federal legislation referred to herein may be found at “Legislation,” American Center for Democracy, http://acdemocracy.org/legislation-free-speech.cfm.
[154] “The Anti-SLAPP Resource Center,” First Amendment Project, http://www.thefirstamendment.org/antislappresourcecenter.html.
[155] Clinton, Secret State Department Cable 131801.
[156] “Backgrounder: The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development,” Anti-Defamation League, May 28, 2009, http://www.adl.org/main_Terrorism/backgrounder_holyland.htm.
[157] Aaron Klein, “Obama religion adviser linked to unindicted co-conspirator,” WorldNetDaily, July 26, 2010, http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=184189.
[158] “DOJ: CAIR's Unindicted Co-Conspirator Status Legit,” IPT News—The Investigative Project on Terrorism, March 12, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/1854/doj-cairs-unindicted-co-conspirator-status-legit and McCarthy, “International Institute of Islamic Thought and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
[159] “Why does Fox News promote terror-tied, FBI-shunned group?,” WorldNetDaily, January 11, 2010, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121694 and Art Moore, “CAIR leader convicted on terror charges,” WorldNetDaily, April 14, 2005,http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=29850.
[160] United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, “A Review of the Bureau of Prisons' Selection of Muslim Religious Services Providers,” April 2004, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0404/index.htm#34.
[161] Islamic Extremism in Europe: Hearing Before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Emerging Threats (H.R. HRG. 109–34), 109th Congress (April 27, 2005), http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa20917.000/hfa20917_0.HTM and “The Muslim Students Association and the Jihad Network,” FrontPageMagazine.com, May 08, 2008, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30339.
[162] A Review of Current and Evolving Trends in Terrorism Financing: Hearing Before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (H.R. HRG. 111–161), 111th Congress (September 28, 2010) (testimony of Eric L. Lewis, Esq.), http://financialservices.house.gov/Media/file/hearings/111/Printed%20Hearings/111-161.pdf.
[163] Ibid.
[164] American Center for Democracy, http://ACDemocracy.org.
[165] Economic Warfare Institute, http://ACDemocracy.org/Economic-Warfare-Institute.cfm.
Posted by Rachel Ehrenfeld on December 14, 2011 at 16:16 | Permalink
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OBAMA - Failing to Deal, Dealing to Fail
By Rachel Ehrenfeld* & K.D.M. Jensen**
The past few days have seen yet another round in the "last straw" dithering about Iran. This time the huffing seems heavier. The IAEA has suddenly woken up and finds that Stuxnet wasn't much of a setback to the Iranian nuclear program, and it is finally prepared to recognize Ahmadinejad’s weaponization effort.
This IAEA report followed on the heels of a highly detailed U.S. account of a Quds Force plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Lo and behold, has Obama found the last bit of his inner Bush, denouncing Iran and putting the military option back on the table. Hillary Clinton's turned neocon and called for regime change (not exactly right away, but the next time the Iranian people give us a chance).
What do we have here? All wind and no rain. This Administration seems content to do nothing but threaten--no action, despite the inability to deny Iranian nuclear intentions any longer and the enormity of the assassination provocation. A recent pledge of a coming and forceful U.S.-led effort to take sanctions against the Iranian Central bank, the principal conduit for Iranian oil sales, was soon withdrawn for the flimsy excuse that "oil prices will go up if we do that.” Duh. So, why threaten it in the first place?
Meanwhile, the pundits do what they usually do on the Iran issue: "bomb," "bomb a little now to avoid a lot later," "too late to bomb," "too early to bomb," "too dangerous, too costly, too much uncertainty to bomb," "let Israel do it, "don't let Israel do it." Also, there's "maybe we can finally get the Russians and Chinese to stop supporting the Iranian regime" (this despite the fact that the Russians said right away that they doubt the accuracy of the IAEA report, plus the implausibility of China giving up Iranian oil). Most scandalously, there's "the assassination plot means nothing: it was amateurish and isn't how the Iranians would do things like that.”
The inflation of the Administration’s rhetoric at the expense of action has not deterred Iran in the slightest in the past. The U.S. lack of leadership seems to have been welcomed by our ostensible allies, who appear quite happy to be only secondary targets of the Islamic Republic. The failure to respond appropriately to the Quds Force assassination plot bears serious consequences. When a DEA agent foils a plot on American soil and the link to the Quds Force is clear, policymakers can no longer backtrack and wax dubious about the extent of Iranian terrorism on at least three continents. They can no longer ignore it.
Iran's Venezuela connections were startlingly revealed in Washington more than two years ago by Manhattan’s legendary District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. In addition to serving as a conduit for military equipment from Belarus, Syria, and other countries to Iran, Venezuela seems to have built missile emplacements at its main air force base on Margarita Island. Eyewitness accounts and Google Earth images have confirmed the presence of ballistic installations there. If true, the Venezuelan-Iranian friendship missiles could easily threaten the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico and--with a Shahab-3 missile--Miami!
Recent events confirm that we have allowed the Iranian regime to move beyond brazen. If Ahmadinejad, the mullahs, and the Revolutionary Guards feel free to do as they wish anywhere, anytime, it's not because they're mad or under the spell of the Twelfth Imam. It’s because we allow them.
And, by the way, providing the small United Arab Emirates Air Force (UAEAF) with 4,900 bunker-buster bombs will not contribute to the stability of the region. The UAE has a long history as the gateway to Iran.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of NY based American Center for Democracy and its Economic Warfare Institute. She's author of the 2011 updated “Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It.”
K.D. M. Jensen is Associate Director of ACD's Economic Warfare Institute.
The past few days have seen yet another round in the "last straw" dithering about Iran. This time the huffing seems heavier. The IAEA has suddenly woken up and finds that Stuxnet wasn't much of a setback to the Iranian nuclear program, and it is finally prepared to recognize Ahmadinejad’s weaponization effort.
This IAEA report followed on the heels of a highly detailed U.S. account of a Quds Force plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Lo and behold, has Obama found the last bit of his inner Bush, denouncing Iran and putting the military option back on the table. Hillary Clinton's turned neocon and called for regime change (not exactly right away, but the next time the Iranian people give us a chance).
What do we have here? All wind and no rain. This Administration seems content to do nothing but threaten--no action, despite the inability to deny Iranian nuclear intentions any longer and the enormity of the assassination provocation. A recent pledge of a coming and forceful U.S.-led effort to take sanctions against the Iranian Central bank, the principal conduit for Iranian oil sales, was soon withdrawn for the flimsy excuse that "oil prices will go up if we do that.” Duh. So, why threaten it in the first place?
Meanwhile, the pundits do what they usually do on the Iran issue: "bomb," "bomb a little now to avoid a lot later," "too late to bomb," "too early to bomb," "too dangerous, too costly, too much uncertainty to bomb," "let Israel do it, "don't let Israel do it." Also, there's "maybe we can finally get the Russians and Chinese to stop supporting the Iranian regime" (this despite the fact that the Russians said right away that they doubt the accuracy of the IAEA report, plus the implausibility of China giving up Iranian oil). Most scandalously, there's "the assassination plot means nothing: it was amateurish and isn't how the Iranians would do things like that.”
The inflation of the Administration’s rhetoric at the expense of action has not deterred Iran in the slightest in the past. The U.S. lack of leadership seems to have been welcomed by our ostensible allies, who appear quite happy to be only secondary targets of the Islamic Republic. The failure to respond appropriately to the Quds Force assassination plot bears serious consequences. When a DEA agent foils a plot on American soil and the link to the Quds Force is clear, policymakers can no longer backtrack and wax dubious about the extent of Iranian terrorism on at least three continents. They can no longer ignore it.
Iran's Venezuela connections were startlingly revealed in Washington more than two years ago by Manhattan’s legendary District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. In addition to serving as a conduit for military equipment from Belarus, Syria, and other countries to Iran, Venezuela seems to have built missile emplacements at its main air force base on Margarita Island. Eyewitness accounts and Google Earth images have confirmed the presence of ballistic installations there. If true, the Venezuelan-Iranian friendship missiles could easily threaten the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico and--with a Shahab-3 missile--Miami!
Recent events confirm that we have allowed the Iranian regime to move beyond brazen. If Ahmadinejad, the mullahs, and the Revolutionary Guards feel free to do as they wish anywhere, anytime, it's not because they're mad or under the spell of the Twelfth Imam. It’s because we allow them.
And, by the way, providing the small United Arab Emirates Air Force (UAEAF) with 4,900 bunker-buster bombs will not contribute to the stability of the region. The UAE has a long history as the gateway to Iran.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of NY based American Center for Democracy and its Economic Warfare Institute. She's author of the 2011 updated “Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It.”
K.D. M. Jensen is Associate Director of ACD's Economic Warfare Institute.
Don't reward the Palestinians' 'lawfare' & Disinformation campaign with statehood
The United Nations' potential blessing of a Palestinian state in an end run around direct negotiations with Israel will
add a dangerous new dimension to the Palestinians' decades-long
campaign of conventional and unconventional war against the Jewish state
- the commencement of a full-blown "lawfare" campaign against Israel
and its allies.
UN-sanctioned lawfare against Israel is nothing new. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICC), at the instigation of the UN General Assembly, declared that the security fence Israel erected to block Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating from the West Bank - a fence which helped dramatically reduce the number of suicide bombers penetrating Israel - is illegal, even though many countries, including the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, have erected fences on their border. Did we mention that Israel is the only UN member state barred from serving on the International Court?
In 2010, the European Court of Justice aided the economic warfare campaign against Israel by ruling that products made by a Jewish-owned company based in the Jewish community of Mishor Adumim in the West Bank didn't qualify for the same customs duties exemption allowed to Palestinian companies in the West Bank and all companies within Israel's 1967 borders.
Turkey, determined not to be left behind, responded to last month's UN report vindicating Israel in the infamous flotilla incident with the usual downgrading of diplomatic and military ties and threats of economic sanctions, but Turkey's foreign minister also announced what he called "Plan B" - a strategy to sue Israel directly and to assist others in suing Israeli soldiers and leaders in jurisdictions across the world.
Here in the United States, we are already combating a variety of lawfare stratagems. In New York, for instance, those who "see something" and "say something" are now protected from frivolous lawsuits by the "Freedom to Report Terrorism Act," and journalists and authors who report on terrorism are protected from baseless, expensive and intimidating overseas libel lawsuits by the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act" (inspired by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, one of the authors of this article, who was sued for libel in London after exposing a Saudi businessman as a financier of terrorism). Congress followed suit, passing the SPEECH Act.
But granting Palestinian statehood (even if via "observer status") would turn existing lawfare tactics into the equivalent of nuclear-armed smart bombs aimed at both Israel and the U.S., and grant Palestinian institutions a nearly impenetrable bunker against being held accountable to terror victims.
For example, once the Palestinians obtain the authority to bring a case directly against Israel in the ICC, it is a foregone conclusion that the court will declare Israel's maritime "fence" around Gaza - instituted to prevent Hamas from acquiring materiel to launch rockets into Israeli cities - illegal.
Perhaps nowhere will the privileges of statehood more likely be abused than in the International Criminal Court. Israel, like the United States, withdrew from that court to protect its citizens from political prosecutions. Understanding that the key to the courthouse door is rooted in statehood, the Palestinian Authority in 2009 purported to accept the ICC's jurisdiction - a right granted only to states - over "the territory of Palestine," and in turn have the same powers of court member states.
This dubious maneuver has so far failed, but a UN declaration of statehood will instantly give the Palestinians full membership in the ICC, and the power to refer for ICC prosecution every Israeli soldier in the West Bank and Gaza operating to thwart missile attacks and suicide bombings, and every Israeli civilian (and many Americans, as well) living outside the outdated 1967 borders. Individual Israelis will become global fugitives, and the ICC will become yet another hostile international forum in which Israel's very legitimacy - its right to be free from attack and to affirmatively act in self-defense - must constantly be defended.
UN statehood will also block American victims of Palestinian terror from obtaining justice in American courts, by giving Palestinian institutions involved in terrorism a blanket of sovereign immunity reserved only for states.
Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and their partners in the international movement to delegitimize Israel are already waging a sustained military, economic, diplomatic, political and jurisprudential war against Israel and, where they can, the United States. The UN shouldn't add more firepower to their lawfare campaign.
Lancman is an assemblyman from Queens and an advisory board member of the Lawfare Project. Ehrenfeld is the director of the American Center for Democracy
UN-sanctioned lawfare against Israel is nothing new. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICC), at the instigation of the UN General Assembly, declared that the security fence Israel erected to block Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating from the West Bank - a fence which helped dramatically reduce the number of suicide bombers penetrating Israel - is illegal, even though many countries, including the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, have erected fences on their border. Did we mention that Israel is the only UN member state barred from serving on the International Court?
In 2010, the European Court of Justice aided the economic warfare campaign against Israel by ruling that products made by a Jewish-owned company based in the Jewish community of Mishor Adumim in the West Bank didn't qualify for the same customs duties exemption allowed to Palestinian companies in the West Bank and all companies within Israel's 1967 borders.
Turkey, determined not to be left behind, responded to last month's UN report vindicating Israel in the infamous flotilla incident with the usual downgrading of diplomatic and military ties and threats of economic sanctions, but Turkey's foreign minister also announced what he called "Plan B" - a strategy to sue Israel directly and to assist others in suing Israeli soldiers and leaders in jurisdictions across the world.
Here in the United States, we are already combating a variety of lawfare stratagems. In New York, for instance, those who "see something" and "say something" are now protected from frivolous lawsuits by the "Freedom to Report Terrorism Act," and journalists and authors who report on terrorism are protected from baseless, expensive and intimidating overseas libel lawsuits by the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act" (inspired by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, one of the authors of this article, who was sued for libel in London after exposing a Saudi businessman as a financier of terrorism). Congress followed suit, passing the SPEECH Act.
But granting Palestinian statehood (even if via "observer status") would turn existing lawfare tactics into the equivalent of nuclear-armed smart bombs aimed at both Israel and the U.S., and grant Palestinian institutions a nearly impenetrable bunker against being held accountable to terror victims.
For example, once the Palestinians obtain the authority to bring a case directly against Israel in the ICC, it is a foregone conclusion that the court will declare Israel's maritime "fence" around Gaza - instituted to prevent Hamas from acquiring materiel to launch rockets into Israeli cities - illegal.
Perhaps nowhere will the privileges of statehood more likely be abused than in the International Criminal Court. Israel, like the United States, withdrew from that court to protect its citizens from political prosecutions. Understanding that the key to the courthouse door is rooted in statehood, the Palestinian Authority in 2009 purported to accept the ICC's jurisdiction - a right granted only to states - over "the territory of Palestine," and in turn have the same powers of court member states.
This dubious maneuver has so far failed, but a UN declaration of statehood will instantly give the Palestinians full membership in the ICC, and the power to refer for ICC prosecution every Israeli soldier in the West Bank and Gaza operating to thwart missile attacks and suicide bombings, and every Israeli civilian (and many Americans, as well) living outside the outdated 1967 borders. Individual Israelis will become global fugitives, and the ICC will become yet another hostile international forum in which Israel's very legitimacy - its right to be free from attack and to affirmatively act in self-defense - must constantly be defended.
UN statehood will also block American victims of Palestinian terror from obtaining justice in American courts, by giving Palestinian institutions involved in terrorism a blanket of sovereign immunity reserved only for states.
Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and their partners in the international movement to delegitimize Israel are already waging a sustained military, economic, diplomatic, political and jurisprudential war against Israel and, where they can, the United States. The UN shouldn't add more firepower to their lawfare campaign.
Lancman is an assemblyman from Queens and an advisory board member of the Lawfare Project. Ehrenfeld is the director of the American Center for Democracy
Posted by Rachel Ehrenfeld on September 24, 2011 at 08:01 | Permalink
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Obama's UN Pitch
by Rachel Ehrenfeld Sep 22nd 2011
Gone are the days when American presidents addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly as the leaders of the free world. President Obama used the international stage to reinforce his foreign policy doctrine, officially relinquishing America’s role as the arbiter of global peace and security.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Obama showered praises on the UN’s role in “the pursuit of peace in an imperfect world.” Instead of demanding that this corrupt international organization institutes reform, he credited the anti-American, anti-Israeli body for advancing human rights and prosperity in the world.
Obama’s speech further weakened the last minute feeble US attempt to stop the status upgrade of the PLO at the UN. Moreover, he demonstrated his bias by equally blaming Israel and the Palestinians for the lack of progress in negotiating peace.
While stating that peace cannot be dictated from outside and only Israel and the Palestinians can “reach an agreement on the issues that divide them,” he pointed out that the basis for those negotiations is the plan he proposed last May. However, Obama’s plan called to stop all Israeli development in the West Bank, thus reinforcing the Palestinians’ refusal to and the Arab/Muslim world denial of Israeli and Jewish presence there, and in Jerusalem – which was established as the capital of Israel by King David (1010 and 970 BCE).
Obama’s address sounded like a campaign speech for the position of the Secretary General. Facing rapidly sinking approval rating at home, this Nobel Peace Prize Laureate seems the natural candidate for the job.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of NY based American Center for Democracy and its Economic Warfare Institute. She is the author of “Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It.”
Posted by Rachel Ehrenfeld on September 24, 2011 at 07:34 | Permalink
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Anarchy in Egypt: Whose Embassy is Next?
September 12, 2011
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
The leading role played by the Muslim Brotherhood in the street and
in the Egyptian political system can no longer be denied. The mass
demonstrations that continued after the fall of Mubarak’s regime
weakened of the military leadership’s power, and led to attacks on the
Israeli Embassy in Cairo, and escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, a fellow at the American Center for
Democracy, and a former advisor for policy planning at the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saw the writing on the wall in
August when Muslim Brotherhood-led anti-Israeli demonstrations -- fueled
by Hamas attacks on Israel from Gaza -- went uninterrupted by the
regime.
The ground was ripe in Egypt. The Brotherhood, Hamas’ parent
organization, defined the Egyptian revolution as a necessary first step
towards the” liberation” of all of Palestine. The Brotherhood
successfully seized the opportunity to use the revolution, especially
Mubarak’s overthrow and prosecution to motivate the masses, sending them
to the streets. Indeed, the Brotherhood’s organizational capability
exceeds that of all the other political parties in Egypt combined.
On August 19 and 20, the Brotherhood directed hundreds of thousands
to protest in many cities in Egypt, including outside the Israeli
Embassy in Cairo and the Israeli Consulate in Alexandria. The protesters
tried to force their way into the embassy, and some were able to lower
the flag of Israel.
The preaching during the month of Ramadan combined with Hamas
attacks on Israel in August which led to the IDF retaliation which
eliminated the terrorists cell, also killing an Egyptian officer and
four members of the Egyptian security forces, were used by the
Brotherhood to further incited the masses to daily demonstrations,
demanding to cancel the Camp David accords, close the embassies in Cairo
and Tel Aviv, and take military action against Israel.
This strategy helps the Brotherhood to strengthen their political
power and to pressure the military to promote “democratization” in line
with the organization’s agenda, to advance Shari’a law, avoid
significant constitutional changes, hold the general and presidential
elections as soon as possible, and to alter the relations with Israel.
Back in August, Halevi warned that an “escalation in the protests
could lead to more attempts to break into the embassy in Cairo and the
consulate in Alexandria, even a takeover,” as happened with the United
States Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Halevi further explained: “Israel’s Foreign Ministry faces a
complex dilemma on this issue. Evacuating the Israeli diplomats out of
fear for their safety would be a great victory for the Egyptian
opposition and would signal the end of the peace with Egypt… Preserving
the last thread in the diplomatic relations with Egypt would compromise
the safety of the embassy staff and the Consulate General of Israel in
Egypt. Recent events and the assessment of the risks require the Foreign
Ministry’s to be prepared for the possibility of an emergency and
immediate evacuation of Israeli diplomats until the internal situation
in Egypt is stabilized and the regime is able to effectively control the
country.”
While the military leadership declared it will take all necessary
steps to enforce security, they are clearly reluctant to use force and
risking casualties to protect the Israelis. The Egyptian daily
al-Ahram reported that
official sources in Cairo urged days before the mob stormed the Israeli
Embassy, that Jerusalem returns the Israeli Ambassador for "a long
leave of absence," and requested that the diplomatic staff keep a "lower
profile." Indeed, the uninterrupted mob attacks on the Israeli Embassy
in Cairo, which culminated last weekend with the ransacking of the
embassy and the emergency evacuation of most Israeli diplomatic staff
and their families, should worry all foreign missions.
These events demonstrated the failure of Egypt’s ruling army
council to enforce order and guarantee the protection of all foreign all
missions. Thus violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
(1961).
This is not the first time that foreign missions came under attack
in the Arab/Muslim world. The mass anti-Western demonstrations and
attacks on foreign embassies following the publication of the Muhammad
cartoons were sanctioned by the Arab/Muslim governments. However, the
so-called Arab Spring that was hijacked by the Brotherhood and its
affiliates destabilized Arab regimes and created anarchy.
Following protests from Israel and the US, Egypt’s ruling military
council issued a statement saying this was an ''attack on Egypt's
image,” deployed security forces around the Israeli Embassy in Cairo,
and recognized Egypt's ''total commitment to respecting
international conventions, including the protection of all (diplomatic)
missions''.
Still, the unabated incitement against Israel, America and the West
begs a genuine concern about the military’s ability and willingness to
control the masses.
----
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is Director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy and its Economic Warfare Institute, and author of "Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It." This article was first published in Family Security Matters
Posted by Rachel Ehrenfeld on September 12, 2011 at 06:28 | Permalink
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Bin Laden And al Qaeda’s Secrets
by Rachel Ehrenfeld May 14th 2011
Talking on the CBS
show “60 Minutes,” President Obama noted: “It’s going to take some time
for us to exploit the intelligence that we were able to gather on site”
during the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed. This information,
according to Mr. Obama, gives the U.S. a chance “to…really deliver a
fatal blow [to Al Qaeda], if we follow through aggressively in the
months to come.”
The United States intelligence agencies reliance on labor-intensive, time-consuming and inefficient methods to decipher the captured electronic devices and paper documents. The delay has allowed al Qaeda operatives and many of its budding affiliates to relocate, change their identity and communication methods, diminishing the U.S. ability to act upon the intelligence contain in the trove, The window of opportunity to destroy the organization and its global metastasizes, has significantly shrunk.
This event demonstrates the need for a more efficient process to mine the tens of millions of documents – electronic and print – which are seized or intercepted annually in different languages by U.S. intelligence, military, and law enforcement agencies. There is an urgent need to extract information of high intelligence value contained in such documents rapidly and efficiently, and to pass the intelligence on for operational exploitation.
The current Document Exploitation (DOCEX) method, including automated translation and categorization technologies, suffers from several major deficiencies: focus on an inefficient key word spotting techniques, long processing times, and a high rate of false negatives and positives. Moreover, the automated translation tools are still unsuitable for the sophisticated language of neo-classical Arabic used by Islamist terrorists such as al-Qaeda. Similarly, categorization technologies do not meet the challenge of analyzing sophisticated, culturally sensitive nuances. Poorly translated and categorized documents of course cause the loss of crucial actionable and preventative intelligence.
To address such problems, IntuView, an Israeli company, has developed revolutionary software that can process large volumes of digital documents related to Islamic terrorism very quickly. The software instantly assesses any digital document in a supported language (Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, etc.), determines its relevance and risk rating, and provides an intelligence analysis report based, for example, on the content of the document, including classification, date of writing, type of document, author, region, ideological, ethnical and religious affiliation, and a summary of the content, based on a sophisticated “artificial intuition” program. The summary integrates the implicit meaning of religious concepts, verses from religious and ideological texts, and historical allusions. The software integrates the information about entities (individuals, organizations, etc.) mentioned in the documents to create a virtual “identity card” of the person behind that name: possible affiliations, name variants, ethnic origin, gender, family/tribal links, etc., aggregating and matching information found in multiple entries and identifying links (family, tribe) between the entities.
This software implements linguistic programs that look for entities in the texts that could be “ideas”, “actions”, “persons” “groups,” etc. An idea may be composed of statements in different parts of the document, which are revealed only when combined. This “idea” is tagged with a unique meaning (as opposed to words which may have different meanings in different contexts). The user then receives an executive summary in English detailing what the document is about, who wrote it, when it was written, who it is for, who it is directed against, etc.
Allusions from cultural or religiously oriented quotes, such verses from the Qur’an which “mean” in al-Qaeda documents permission for attacks, are extracted. And a sophisticated program aggregates information on individuals mentioned in the documents matching them with the database of the user. If categorization, translation and analysis of 1000 documents take over 200 man-days using normal methods, the same process takes less than 2 hours with this system. Some U.S. military, border control and law enforcement agencies are already using this software, but that process has yet to be fully utilized. The sooner this software can be made available and widely applied, the better for our national security.
A variant dedicated to terrorist financing by legal and illegal entities in now being developed in cooperation with the New York based American Center for Democracy (ACD). The financial intelligence software will help expose and prevent the use of legal and laundered money to penetrate and undermine the U.S. economy, and enhance the intelligence capabilities of the military, law enforcement and business communities.
Bio: Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is the director of the ACD. She is the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It.
The United States intelligence agencies reliance on labor-intensive, time-consuming and inefficient methods to decipher the captured electronic devices and paper documents. The delay has allowed al Qaeda operatives and many of its budding affiliates to relocate, change their identity and communication methods, diminishing the U.S. ability to act upon the intelligence contain in the trove, The window of opportunity to destroy the organization and its global metastasizes, has significantly shrunk.
This event demonstrates the need for a more efficient process to mine the tens of millions of documents – electronic and print – which are seized or intercepted annually in different languages by U.S. intelligence, military, and law enforcement agencies. There is an urgent need to extract information of high intelligence value contained in such documents rapidly and efficiently, and to pass the intelligence on for operational exploitation.
The current Document Exploitation (DOCEX) method, including automated translation and categorization technologies, suffers from several major deficiencies: focus on an inefficient key word spotting techniques, long processing times, and a high rate of false negatives and positives. Moreover, the automated translation tools are still unsuitable for the sophisticated language of neo-classical Arabic used by Islamist terrorists such as al-Qaeda. Similarly, categorization technologies do not meet the challenge of analyzing sophisticated, culturally sensitive nuances. Poorly translated and categorized documents of course cause the loss of crucial actionable and preventative intelligence.
To address such problems, IntuView, an Israeli company, has developed revolutionary software that can process large volumes of digital documents related to Islamic terrorism very quickly. The software instantly assesses any digital document in a supported language (Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, etc.), determines its relevance and risk rating, and provides an intelligence analysis report based, for example, on the content of the document, including classification, date of writing, type of document, author, region, ideological, ethnical and religious affiliation, and a summary of the content, based on a sophisticated “artificial intuition” program. The summary integrates the implicit meaning of religious concepts, verses from religious and ideological texts, and historical allusions. The software integrates the information about entities (individuals, organizations, etc.) mentioned in the documents to create a virtual “identity card” of the person behind that name: possible affiliations, name variants, ethnic origin, gender, family/tribal links, etc., aggregating and matching information found in multiple entries and identifying links (family, tribe) between the entities.
This software implements linguistic programs that look for entities in the texts that could be “ideas”, “actions”, “persons” “groups,” etc. An idea may be composed of statements in different parts of the document, which are revealed only when combined. This “idea” is tagged with a unique meaning (as opposed to words which may have different meanings in different contexts). The user then receives an executive summary in English detailing what the document is about, who wrote it, when it was written, who it is for, who it is directed against, etc.
Allusions from cultural or religiously oriented quotes, such verses from the Qur’an which “mean” in al-Qaeda documents permission for attacks, are extracted. And a sophisticated program aggregates information on individuals mentioned in the documents matching them with the database of the user. If categorization, translation and analysis of 1000 documents take over 200 man-days using normal methods, the same process takes less than 2 hours with this system. Some U.S. military, border control and law enforcement agencies are already using this software, but that process has yet to be fully utilized. The sooner this software can be made available and widely applied, the better for our national security.
A variant dedicated to terrorist financing by legal and illegal entities in now being developed in cooperation with the New York based American Center for Democracy (ACD). The financial intelligence software will help expose and prevent the use of legal and laundered money to penetrate and undermine the U.S. economy, and enhance the intelligence capabilities of the military, law enforcement and business communities.
Bio: Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is the director of the ACD. She is the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It.
Yusuf Qaradawi’s U.S. minions
The real aim of the Fiqh Council of North America
By Alyssa A. Lappen
Act for America special report | Feb. 25, 2011
Those who believe Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi doesn’t threaten Egypt — or the U.S. — should reconsider. The U.S. banned Qaradawi as a terror-sympathizer in late 1999, 1 yet his MB emissaries continue working to implement his brand of sharia in North America.
Since its 1963 inception within the Muslim Students of America religious committee 2 the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), it has been key to MB plans for the U.S. Indeed, the MB so designated FCNA (by an earlier moniker) in an internal 1991 strategic memo. 3 FCNA focuses on implementing sharia: individually and collectively, FCNA advises and educates “members and officials on matters related to the application of sharia,” here.4
For at least a decade, FCNA has also espoused an unique version of classical Islamic law. 5 Drawn largely from Qaradawi’s frequently odious rulings, this temporary “fiqh al aqalliyyat” 6 covers Muslim minorities in the West, according to sharia finance adviser and FCNA secretary Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, 7 a Dow Jones Islamic Indexes adviser to date. 8
Like classic sharia, fiqh al aqalliyyat is highly illiberal. Unlike classic law, it is only interim: It encourages Muslims to temporarily accept non-Muslim rule but heavily populate the West.ix The thesis posits that Dar al-Islam exists wherever Muslims live. It prefers to call the Muslim world “dar-al ijaba,” land of response, and non-Muslim nations, “dar ad-dawah,” i.e., where Islam “has to be spread.” Traditional fatwas banning citizenship in the West block Muslims from fulfilling dawa requirements and calling non-Muslims “kufir” doesn’t persuade converts. Whether by conversion or war, the MB goal remains conquest of the West. 10
Sharia criminal law, for example, demands and routinely applies capital punishment for apostates from Islam, 11 directly contradicting U.S. constitutional rights to freedom of faith. In late Sept. 2009, Former Muslims United sent polite, respectful requests to several dozen U.S. Muslim leaders, that they sign its Freedom Pledge to protect lives, property and rights to freedom of faith for all former Muslims. Pledge recipients included FCNA chairman Muzammil Siddiqi, 12 vice chair Muhammad Nur Abdullah, executive director Zulfiqar Ali Shah, executive council members Mohamad A. El Sheikh, FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi, Abdur Rahman Khan and Zainab Alwani and member Ishan Bagby. 13 All falsely attest to moderation. None replied. None signed.
Apart from unindicted terror-financing co-conspirator Badawi, a onetime trustee of the U.S. arm of the global Muslim Brotherhood itself — and a decades-long trustee on ISNA’s 18-member board 14 — the FCNA executives and members include many figures whose troubling associations, rulings and deeds are equally difficult to digest:
Since his circa 1976 arrival in the U.S. to head religious affairs
at the United Nations office of the terror-linked Muslim World League (MWL), 15 Siddiqi has maintained close ties to Islamic radicals both in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Siddiqi thus serves both the Supreme Islamic Council of Egypt and Mecca’s Supreme Council of Mosques, 16
plus the fatwa board at Islam Online, a website of Qatar-based MB
spiritual mouthpiece Yusuf Qaradawi — who returned to Egypt on Feb. 17,
2011 after a 30-year exile to pray for Jerusalem’s conquest. 17 (Siddiqi’s class was first to graduate from the MB’s 1961-founded Islamic University
of Medina, after King Saud bin Abdel Aziz welcomed a second wave of
Egyptian exiles and funded their spread of orthodox Islam and jihad
doctrine, particularly to foreign students.)18
FCNA co-founder, former chairman and president Taha Jabir Alalwani —
an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of admitted terror-financier
Sami al-Arian 19 — on Oct. 13, 2007 signed “A Common
Word,” a declaration of commonality purporting to tie Christians and
Muslims more closely. Nevertheless, he supports Islamic law — including
the death penalty for apostates. Very few website visitors pierce the
facade 20 or recognize the MB goal — buying time to complete their North American conquest. That’s all it is.
In April 2006, Abdullah and Badawi co-authored a fatwa encouraging
Muslim proselytizing to Christians and Jews, but finding gross sin in
Muslim conversions outside Islam.21
When scholars distinguish apostasy “not punishable by death,” from
“apostasy… accompanied by … high treason,” Badawi wrote, the death
penalty is still administered — for high treason. The distinction would
not comfort the murder victims, in either sort of fiqh ruling.
Alwalani also serves SAFA Group and its suspected terror-aiding and
funding network. In 2003, the U.S. Customs and Treasury departments
raided FCNA’s Virginia offices within their Operation Greenquest dragnet
for terrorist ties and financing. 22 Homeland security’s senior special Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent David Kane, in Oct. 2003 reported strong evidence
of al-Arian’s conspiracy with SAFA Group executives to fund and support
HAMAS and PIJ. In a late 1988 (or so) fatwa also discovered, Alwalani
invoked jihad, invested by Allah’s power in Muslims, as “the only way
to liberate Palestine,” where “no person or authority” could give Jews
any rights at all, much less let Jews settle or live.23
On Mar. 24, 2003 at Islam Online, Abdullah, Badawi and Siddiqi
condoned “Seeking Martyrdom by Attacking US Military Bases in the Gulf,”
a ruling of anonymous “muftis” mandating maiming and murder of U.S.
troops in the Middle East. “[A]ttacking American soldiers who came to
launch war against Muslims is an obligation and Jihad, as they are true
invaders,” the fatwa commands. Such obligatory jihad, moreover, would
deliver “the highest degree of martyrdom” to Muslims “killed” so doing: 24 Eternity with 72 virgins.
In 2008, a federal jury unanimously convicted five Holy Land Foundation officers of 108 counts of funding Hamas, money laundering and tax fraud. 25 Prosecutors also pronounced FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi and FCNA member, trustee and former Islamic Association of Palestine (IOP) director Muhammad al-Hanooti 26 unindicted co-conspirators (with many MB organizations). A circa 1978 immigrant 27 — and unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trace Center attack — Hanooti remains in Washington D.C. 28 A preponderance of publicly accessible evidence prompted the New Orleans 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Oct. 2010 to leave all HLF unindicted co-conspirator designations unsealed and in tact. 29 Badawi, Hanooti et all remain highly suspect.
—————————————————————
Alysssa A. Lappen, an ACT for America contributing editor and investigative journalist, is a former senior fellow at American Center for Democracy (2005-2008); former senior editor of Institutional Investor (1993-1999), Working Woman (1991-1993) and Corporate Finance (1991), and writes for many print and internet publications. ACT for America commissioned this work.
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NOTES:
1 Steven Salinsky, “Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi and Qatar’s Education City – Hosting American University Students from Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell & Others,” Middle East Media Research Institute, Feb. 19, 2010, http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3984.htm and http://www.memri.org/image/IA_Qaradawi.pdf (viewed 2/5/2011).
2 “History of the Fiqh Council,” FCNA, 11/22/2010, http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/6 (viewed 2/5/2011).
3 Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991,” www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pd f (first viewed 9/18/2007).
4 “Fiqh Council of North America responds to the question: What is the Islamic opinion on the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001,” reprinted at Islamopedia, undated, http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/fiqh-councilnorth-
america-responds-question-what-islamic-opinion-terrorist-attacks-unite d-sta (viewed 2/3/2011).
5 Taha Jabir Alwalani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International
Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Abu Amal Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
6 Ralph Ghadban, “Tariq Ramadan’s Islamism: a lecturer of unfree thinking,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sept. 9, 2009,
http://www.faz.net/s/RubC3FFBF288EDC421F93E22EFA74003C4D/Doc~E8D907A22 43D44E1BB6F26A34B25FD7
9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html (viewed 2/3/2011); Alwalani, “Prolegominato (sic, intended “prolegomenon”) the
Fiqh of the minorities: Some basic reflections,” undated, Islam Online,
http://web.archive.org/web/20071212175822/www.fiqhcouncil.org/Default. aspx?tabid=60 (viewed 2/5/2011); Alwalani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
7 Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, “Fiqh and the Fiqh Council of North America,” Islamicity, undated, http://www.islamicity.com/politics/shariah.htm (viewed 2/5/2011).
8 Jeffrey Imm, “Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and Islamist Financing,” Counterterrorismblog.org, Nov. 14, 2007,
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/11/wsj_and_islamist_financing.php (last viewed 2/21/2011); see also Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes rulebook, Dec. 2009,
http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/downloads/rulebooks/Dow_Jones_Islamic_ Market_Indexes_Rulebook.pdf (viewed
2/21/2011); http://www.djindexes.com/islamicmarket/?go=supervisory-board (viewed 2/21/2011); “Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, Chief Shariah Officer and Board Member,” Managing Team / Shariah Supervisory Board, Sharia Capital, undated, http://www.shariahcap.com/about-mt-delorenzo.php (viewed 2/21/2011).
9 Ralph Ghadban, “Tariq Ramadan’s Islamism: a lecturer of unfree thinking,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sept. 9, 2009, http://www.faz.net/s/RubC3FFBF288EDC421F93E22EFA74003C4D/Doc~E8D907A22 43D44E1BB6F26A34B25FD7
9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html (viewed 2/3/2011); Taha Alwalani, “Prolegominato (sic, intended “prolegomenon”) the Fiqh of the minorities: Some basic reflections,” undated, Islam Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20071212175822/www.fiqhcouncil.org/Default. aspx?tabid=60 (viewed 2/5/2011), a preface; and Alwalani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Abu Amal Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
10 Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53; see also abridged article, available at http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/waseem/fatwa.htm (last viewed 2/20/2011).
11 Yusuf Qaradawi, European Council for Fatwa and Research, “Fatwa on apostasy: apostasy major and minor,” 2006, http://www.islamonline.net/English/contemporary/2006/04/article01c.sht ml (dead link) see Apostasy fatwa and “The Lawful and prohibited in Islam, 1960, reprinted 2006, http://www.amazon.com/Prohibited-translators-ElHelbawy-Moinuddin-al-
Qardawi/dp/8171513735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253238796&sr=8-1 ; Abul ala Mawdudi, “Punishment of the apostate according to Islamic law,” 1963, translated from Urdu 1994,http://answeringislam.
org/Hahn/Mawdudi/#whya; Badawi, “Apostasy from Islam: any change in the contemporary context?” Islam Online, 2006, http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=Gz 9HCK; Sano Koutoub Moustapha, “Lina Joy’s case and religious freedom,” International Islamic University, Malaysia, undated,
http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=yu ha10 (link dead on 2/15/2011); Ahmad Shafaat, “Punishment of Apostasy in Islam, parts I and II,” Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, 2006 and 2007, http://www.islamicperspectives.com/Apostasy1.htm and http://islamicperspectives.com/PunishmentOfApostasy_Part2.html; “A Shiite opinion on apostasy, Kayhan International, March 1986, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from -islam/a-shiiteopinion-on-apostasy/; “A Sunni Muslim pronouncement on apostasy from Lebanon,” http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from -islam/pledge-fatwa-mufti-of-lebanon/; al-Azhr, the Egyptian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, “Fatwa on apostasy,” originally from German Wikipedia, as cited at http://www.atlasshrugs.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rechtsgutachten_betr_Apostasie_im_Is lam.jpg
as cited at http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from -islam/al-azhar-fatwa/ (all fatwas first viewed 9/24/2009) as cited by and with thanks to Nonie Darwish, co-founder, Former Muslims United, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/.
12 “Muzammil Siddiqi, past president,” ISNA, http://www.isna.net/ISNAHQ/pages/Muzammil-Siddiqi.aspx; “About us,” NAIT, http://www.nait.net/NAIT_about_ us.htm (all viewed 5/25/2010).
13 Former Muslims United cover letter and Freedom Pledge, Sept. 22, 2009, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/the-pledge/co ver-letter-pledge/ (first viewed 9/22/2009).
14 “Dr. Jamal Badawi,” Fiqh Council of North America, undated,
http://fiqhcouncil.org/AboutUs/tabid/175/ctl/Detail/mid/601/xmid/38/xm fid/4/Default.aspx (viewed 6/2/2010); “ISNA
board of directors, http://www.isna.net/ISNAHQ/pages/Board-of-Directors.aspx (viewed 6/10/2010).
15 “Muzammil H. Siddiqi,” Islam Online, undated
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503614805&pagenam e=IslamOnline-English-
Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaCounselorE%2FFatwaCounselorE (dead link) see Muzammil Siddiqi profile; Muslim World League, Saudi Arabia Market Information Resource, http://www.saudinf.com/main/k312.htm (viewed 5/20/2010); Lappen, “A secular market nightmare,” ibid.; “Muslim World League,” History Commons, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=muslim_world_league (viewed 5/2/2010). Siddiqi remained U.S. MWL director until at least 2005. The FBI and Homeland Security raided MWL’s offices for possible terrorist ties in 2002 and again in July 2005, according to the investigative Pipeline News service. “Terror friendly organizations issue fatuous fatwa against terror,” Pipeline News, Jul. 28, 2005, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:L_0IwlWft2wJ:www. pipelinenews.org/2007/Terror-Friendly-
Organizations-Issue-Fatuous-Fatwa-Against.html (viewed 6/1/2010).
Siddiqi simultaneously headed the Muslim Student Association religious affairs department, and one recent report suggests that he may still. “Muzammil Siddiqi,” ProCon.org,
http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=004996 (viewed 6/1/2010).
16 “Muzammil Siddiqi,” Islam Online, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503614805&pagenam e=IslamOnline-English-
Ask_Scholar/FatwaCounselorE/FatwaCounselorE, (viewed 5/25/2010).
17 “Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Friday sermon at Cairo’s Tahrir Square: pray for conquest of al-Aqsa,” Feb. 18, 2011, http://www.memritv.org/report/en/5020.htm, as cited, Bostom, “For the De-Nile-ists—Qaradawi-Khomeini in Cairo,” Feb. 18, 2011, http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/02/18/for-the-de-nile-ists%E2%80 %94qaradawi-khomeini-incairo/ (both viewed 2/18/2011).
18 Alyssa A. Lappen, “A secular market nightmare,” Front Page Magazine, May 9, 2008, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C64342C1-C28F-4BED -8658-B69E78684D38 (viewed 4/12/2010)/
19 “Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA),” Investigative Project, undated, http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html (viewed 2/5/2011). Al-Arian funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated foreign terrorist organization. To avoid a new trial after a jury deadlocked on 9 of his 17 terrorfunding charges in Dec. 2005, al-Arian accepted a 57-month prison sentence, to be followed by immediate subsequent deportation. However, in Oct. 2006, al-Arian defied a subpoena to testify before a U.S. grand jury. He served an added year for contempt and was released on bail, and under house arrest, in Apr. 2008. Meanwhile in Jan. 2008, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Apr. 2006 plea agreement contents did “not establish that the plea agreement immunized al-Arian from future grand jury subpoenas.” Despite that ruling, endless further court wrangling ensued over the terms of al-Arian’s Apr. 2006 plea deal. To date, al-Arian apparently remains under house arrest. “U.S. to deport Palestinian it failed to convict,” New York Times, Apr. 15, 2006, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE5D9163FF936A25757C 0A9609C8B63 (first viewed 4/15/2006); “Judge cancels al-Arian hearing again,” IPT News, Oct. 29, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2286/hearing-may-determine-fate-of -al-arian-contempt (viewed 2/9/2011).
20 “A common word,” Oct. 13, 2007, http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=signatories; see also comments at http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=comments (both viewed 6/2/2010).
21 Abdullah, Jamal Badawi, “Freedom of Belief & Minority Rights in Muslim Countries,” Islam Online fatwa bank, Apr. 18, 2008, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-Engl ish-
Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaEAskTheScholar&cid=1119503547720 (viewed 6/10/2010); Freedom_of_Belief_&_Minoirity_Rights_In_Muslim_Countries_ISLAMONLIONE_ 4.18.2006.
22 “Terror friendly organizations issue fatuous fatwa against terror,” Pipeline News, Jul. 28, 2005, ibid.
23 “Redacted affidavit in support of application, in the matter of searches involving 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Va., and related locations, (E.D. Va 02-114-MG.), as cited in “Backgrounder on the Fiqh Council of North America and the
Council of American-Islamic Relations,” Investigative Project, undated, http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNACAIR.html (viewed 4/20/2010). (Now at
http://web.archive.org/web/20050830160244/http://www.justice.gov/usao/ vae/ArchivePress/OctoberPDFArchive/03/sa
faaffid102003.pdf (p. 36, now unsealed, viewed 2/16/2011).
24 A group of muftis, “Seeking Martyrdom by Attacking US Military Bases in the Gulf,” Islam Online fatwa bank, Mar. 24, 2003, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-Engl ish-
Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503546700 (dead linke) see: Martyrdom fatwa (viewed 6/13/2010).
25 Gretel Kovach, “Five convicted in terrorism financing trial,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/us/25charity.html?_r=1&pagewanted=pr int (viewed 5/10/2010); Paul J. Weber,
Los Angeles Times, Nov. 25, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/25/nation/na-muslim-charity25 (viewed 5/20/2010); Convicted HLF officers included former HLF chairman Ghassan Elashi, former chief executive Shukri Abu Baker, Mufid Abdulqater, Abdulraham Odeh and Mohammed El-Mezain. Two more former HLF officers, Haitham Maghawri and Akram Mishal (cousin to Hamas chief Khaled Mishael) had fled and were not tried.
26 Attachment A, in the U.S. District Court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas Division, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/2007-05-29-US%20v%20HLF-ListCoConsp irators.pdf (first viewed 6/1/2007); “History of the Fiqh Council,” FCNA, 11/22/2010, http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/6 (viewed 2/5/2011); Steven Emerson, “The American Islamic leaders’ fatwa is bogus,” Counterterrorism Blog, Jul. 28, 2005, ibid.
27 “Muhammad al-Hanooti,” Islam Online, undated http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503615091&pagenam e=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaCounselorE%2FFatwaCounselorE (dead link), see Muhammad al-Hanooti profile
28 Paul Sperry, “The great al-Qaeda patriot,” Front Page Magazine, Apr. 9, 2007, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=26058 (viewed 5/2/2007).
29 U.S. Plaintiff-Appellee v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et al, Defendants North American Islamic Trust, Movant-Appellant, No. 09-10875, Before Garza and Benavides, Circuit Judges, and Crone, District Judge,” 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oct. 20, 2010, http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-5th-circuit/1541806.html (viewed 11/25/2010).
By Alyssa A. Lappen
Act for America special report | Feb. 25, 2011
Those who believe Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi doesn’t threaten Egypt — or the U.S. — should reconsider. The U.S. banned Qaradawi as a terror-sympathizer in late 1999, 1 yet his MB emissaries continue working to implement his brand of sharia in North America.
Since its 1963 inception within the Muslim Students of America religious committee 2 the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), it has been key to MB plans for the U.S. Indeed, the MB so designated FCNA (by an earlier moniker) in an internal 1991 strategic memo. 3 FCNA focuses on implementing sharia: individually and collectively, FCNA advises and educates “members and officials on matters related to the application of sharia,” here.4
For at least a decade, FCNA has also espoused an unique version of classical Islamic law. 5 Drawn largely from Qaradawi’s frequently odious rulings, this temporary “fiqh al aqalliyyat” 6 covers Muslim minorities in the West, according to sharia finance adviser and FCNA secretary Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, 7 a Dow Jones Islamic Indexes adviser to date. 8
Like classic sharia, fiqh al aqalliyyat is highly illiberal. Unlike classic law, it is only interim: It encourages Muslims to temporarily accept non-Muslim rule but heavily populate the West.ix The thesis posits that Dar al-Islam exists wherever Muslims live. It prefers to call the Muslim world “dar-al ijaba,” land of response, and non-Muslim nations, “dar ad-dawah,” i.e., where Islam “has to be spread.” Traditional fatwas banning citizenship in the West block Muslims from fulfilling dawa requirements and calling non-Muslims “kufir” doesn’t persuade converts. Whether by conversion or war, the MB goal remains conquest of the West. 10
Sharia criminal law, for example, demands and routinely applies capital punishment for apostates from Islam, 11 directly contradicting U.S. constitutional rights to freedom of faith. In late Sept. 2009, Former Muslims United sent polite, respectful requests to several dozen U.S. Muslim leaders, that they sign its Freedom Pledge to protect lives, property and rights to freedom of faith for all former Muslims. Pledge recipients included FCNA chairman Muzammil Siddiqi, 12 vice chair Muhammad Nur Abdullah, executive director Zulfiqar Ali Shah, executive council members Mohamad A. El Sheikh, FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi, Abdur Rahman Khan and Zainab Alwani and member Ishan Bagby. 13 All falsely attest to moderation. None replied. None signed.
Apart from unindicted terror-financing co-conspirator Badawi, a onetime trustee of the U.S. arm of the global Muslim Brotherhood itself — and a decades-long trustee on ISNA’s 18-member board 14 — the FCNA executives and members include many figures whose troubling associations, rulings and deeds are equally difficult to digest:
In 2008, a federal jury unanimously convicted five Holy Land Foundation officers of 108 counts of funding Hamas, money laundering and tax fraud. 25 Prosecutors also pronounced FCNA executive trustee Jamal Badawi and FCNA member, trustee and former Islamic Association of Palestine (IOP) director Muhammad al-Hanooti 26 unindicted co-conspirators (with many MB organizations). A circa 1978 immigrant 27 — and unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trace Center attack — Hanooti remains in Washington D.C. 28 A preponderance of publicly accessible evidence prompted the New Orleans 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Oct. 2010 to leave all HLF unindicted co-conspirator designations unsealed and in tact. 29 Badawi, Hanooti et all remain highly suspect.
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Alysssa A. Lappen, an ACT for America contributing editor and investigative journalist, is a former senior fellow at American Center for Democracy (2005-2008); former senior editor of Institutional Investor (1993-1999), Working Woman (1991-1993) and Corporate Finance (1991), and writes for many print and internet publications. ACT for America commissioned this work.
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NOTES:
1 Steven Salinsky, “Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi and Qatar’s Education City – Hosting American University Students from Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell & Others,” Middle East Media Research Institute, Feb. 19, 2010, http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3984.htm and http://www.memri.org/image/IA_Qaradawi.pdf (viewed 2/5/2011).
2 “History of the Fiqh Council,” FCNA, 11/22/2010, http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/6 (viewed 2/5/2011).
3 Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991,” www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pd f (first viewed 9/18/2007).
4 “Fiqh Council of North America responds to the question: What is the Islamic opinion on the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001,” reprinted at Islamopedia, undated, http://www.islamopediaonline.org/fatwa/fiqh-councilnorth-
america-responds-question-what-islamic-opinion-terrorist-attacks-unite d-sta (viewed 2/3/2011).
5 Taha Jabir Alwalani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International
Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Abu Amal Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
6 Ralph Ghadban, “Tariq Ramadan’s Islamism: a lecturer of unfree thinking,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sept. 9, 2009,
http://www.faz.net/s/RubC3FFBF288EDC421F93E22EFA74003C4D/Doc~E8D907A22 43D44E1BB6F26A34B25FD7
9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html (viewed 2/3/2011); Alwalani, “Prolegominato (sic, intended “prolegomenon”) the
Fiqh of the minorities: Some basic reflections,” undated, Islam Online,
http://web.archive.org/web/20071212175822/www.fiqhcouncil.org/Default. aspx?tabid=60 (viewed 2/5/2011); Alwalani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
7 Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, “Fiqh and the Fiqh Council of North America,” Islamicity, undated, http://www.islamicity.com/politics/shariah.htm (viewed 2/5/2011).
8 Jeffrey Imm, “Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and Islamist Financing,” Counterterrorismblog.org, Nov. 14, 2007,
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/11/wsj_and_islamist_financing.php (last viewed 2/21/2011); see also Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes rulebook, Dec. 2009,
http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/downloads/rulebooks/Dow_Jones_Islamic_ Market_Indexes_Rulebook.pdf (viewed
2/21/2011); http://www.djindexes.com/islamicmarket/?go=supervisory-board (viewed 2/21/2011); “Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo, Chief Shariah Officer and Board Member,” Managing Team / Shariah Supervisory Board, Sharia Capital, undated, http://www.shariahcap.com/about-mt-delorenzo.php (viewed 2/21/2011).
9 Ralph Ghadban, “Tariq Ramadan’s Islamism: a lecturer of unfree thinking,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, Sept. 9, 2009, http://www.faz.net/s/RubC3FFBF288EDC421F93E22EFA74003C4D/Doc~E8D907A22 43D44E1BB6F26A34B25FD7
9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html (viewed 2/3/2011); Taha Alwalani, “Prolegominato (sic, intended “prolegomenon”) the Fiqh of the minorities: Some basic reflections,” undated, Islam Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20071212175822/www.fiqhcouncil.org/Default. aspx?tabid=60 (viewed 2/5/2011), a preface; and Alwalani, “Towards a Fiqh for minorities: some basic reflections,” occasional paper #10, (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2003), pp. 44; Abu Amal Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53.
10 Hadhrami, “Muslim Americans need own outlook,” Islamic Horizons, Jan./Feb. 2000, pp. 48-53; see also abridged article, available at http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/waseem/fatwa.htm (last viewed 2/20/2011).
11 Yusuf Qaradawi, European Council for Fatwa and Research, “Fatwa on apostasy: apostasy major and minor,” 2006, http://www.islamonline.net/English/contemporary/2006/04/article01c.sht ml (dead link) see Apostasy fatwa and “The Lawful and prohibited in Islam, 1960, reprinted 2006, http://www.amazon.com/Prohibited-translators-ElHelbawy-Moinuddin-al-
Qardawi/dp/8171513735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253238796&sr=8-1 ; Abul ala Mawdudi, “Punishment of the apostate according to Islamic law,” 1963, translated from Urdu 1994,http://answeringislam.
org/Hahn/Mawdudi/#whya; Badawi, “Apostasy from Islam: any change in the contemporary context?” Islam Online, 2006, http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=Gz 9HCK; Sano Koutoub Moustapha, “Lina Joy’s case and religious freedom,” International Islamic University, Malaysia, undated,
http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=yu ha10 (link dead on 2/15/2011); Ahmad Shafaat, “Punishment of Apostasy in Islam, parts I and II,” Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, 2006 and 2007, http://www.islamicperspectives.com/Apostasy1.htm and http://islamicperspectives.com/PunishmentOfApostasy_Part2.html; “A Shiite opinion on apostasy, Kayhan International, March 1986, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from -islam/a-shiiteopinion-on-apostasy/; “A Sunni Muslim pronouncement on apostasy from Lebanon,” http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from -islam/pledge-fatwa-mufti-of-lebanon/; al-Azhr, the Egyptian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, “Fatwa on apostasy,” originally from German Wikipedia, as cited at http://www.atlasshrugs.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rechtsgutachten_betr_Apostasie_im_Is lam.jpg
as cited at http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/apostasy-from -islam/al-azhar-fatwa/ (all fatwas first viewed 9/24/2009) as cited by and with thanks to Nonie Darwish, co-founder, Former Muslims United, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/.
12 “Muzammil Siddiqi, past president,” ISNA, http://www.isna.net/ISNAHQ/pages/Muzammil-Siddiqi.aspx; “About us,” NAIT, http://www.nait.net/NAIT_about_ us.htm (all viewed 5/25/2010).
13 Former Muslims United cover letter and Freedom Pledge, Sept. 22, 2009, http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/the-pledge/co ver-letter-pledge/ (first viewed 9/22/2009).
14 “Dr. Jamal Badawi,” Fiqh Council of North America, undated,
http://fiqhcouncil.org/AboutUs/tabid/175/ctl/Detail/mid/601/xmid/38/xm fid/4/Default.aspx (viewed 6/2/2010); “ISNA
board of directors, http://www.isna.net/ISNAHQ/pages/Board-of-Directors.aspx (viewed 6/10/2010).
15 “Muzammil H. Siddiqi,” Islam Online, undated
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503614805&pagenam e=IslamOnline-English-
Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaCounselorE%2FFatwaCounselorE (dead link) see Muzammil Siddiqi profile; Muslim World League, Saudi Arabia Market Information Resource, http://www.saudinf.com/main/k312.htm (viewed 5/20/2010); Lappen, “A secular market nightmare,” ibid.; “Muslim World League,” History Commons, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=muslim_world_league (viewed 5/2/2010). Siddiqi remained U.S. MWL director until at least 2005. The FBI and Homeland Security raided MWL’s offices for possible terrorist ties in 2002 and again in July 2005, according to the investigative Pipeline News service. “Terror friendly organizations issue fatuous fatwa against terror,” Pipeline News, Jul. 28, 2005, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:L_0IwlWft2wJ:www. pipelinenews.org/2007/Terror-Friendly-
Organizations-Issue-Fatuous-Fatwa-Against.html (viewed 6/1/2010).
Siddiqi simultaneously headed the Muslim Student Association religious affairs department, and one recent report suggests that he may still. “Muzammil Siddiqi,” ProCon.org,
http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=004996 (viewed 6/1/2010).
16 “Muzammil Siddiqi,” Islam Online, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503614805&pagenam e=IslamOnline-English-
Ask_Scholar/FatwaCounselorE/FatwaCounselorE, (viewed 5/25/2010).
17 “Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Friday sermon at Cairo’s Tahrir Square: pray for conquest of al-Aqsa,” Feb. 18, 2011, http://www.memritv.org/report/en/5020.htm, as cited, Bostom, “For the De-Nile-ists—Qaradawi-Khomeini in Cairo,” Feb. 18, 2011, http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/02/18/for-the-de-nile-ists%E2%80 %94qaradawi-khomeini-incairo/ (both viewed 2/18/2011).
18 Alyssa A. Lappen, “A secular market nightmare,” Front Page Magazine, May 9, 2008, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C64342C1-C28F-4BED -8658-B69E78684D38 (viewed 4/12/2010)/
19 “Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA),” Investigative Project, undated, http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNA-CAIR.html (viewed 2/5/2011). Al-Arian funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated foreign terrorist organization. To avoid a new trial after a jury deadlocked on 9 of his 17 terrorfunding charges in Dec. 2005, al-Arian accepted a 57-month prison sentence, to be followed by immediate subsequent deportation. However, in Oct. 2006, al-Arian defied a subpoena to testify before a U.S. grand jury. He served an added year for contempt and was released on bail, and under house arrest, in Apr. 2008. Meanwhile in Jan. 2008, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Apr. 2006 plea agreement contents did “not establish that the plea agreement immunized al-Arian from future grand jury subpoenas.” Despite that ruling, endless further court wrangling ensued over the terms of al-Arian’s Apr. 2006 plea deal. To date, al-Arian apparently remains under house arrest. “U.S. to deport Palestinian it failed to convict,” New York Times, Apr. 15, 2006, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE5D9163FF936A25757C 0A9609C8B63 (first viewed 4/15/2006); “Judge cancels al-Arian hearing again,” IPT News, Oct. 29, 2010, http://www.investigativeproject.org/2286/hearing-may-determine-fate-of -al-arian-contempt (viewed 2/9/2011).
20 “A common word,” Oct. 13, 2007, http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=signatories; see also comments at http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=comments (both viewed 6/2/2010).
21 Abdullah, Jamal Badawi, “Freedom of Belief & Minority Rights in Muslim Countries,” Islam Online fatwa bank, Apr. 18, 2008, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-Engl ish-
Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaEAskTheScholar&cid=1119503547720 (viewed 6/10/2010); Freedom_of_Belief_&_Minoirity_Rights_In_Muslim_Countries_ISLAMONLIONE_ 4.18.2006.
22 “Terror friendly organizations issue fatuous fatwa against terror,” Pipeline News, Jul. 28, 2005, ibid.
23 “Redacted affidavit in support of application, in the matter of searches involving 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Va., and related locations, (E.D. Va 02-114-MG.), as cited in “Backgrounder on the Fiqh Council of North America and the
Council of American-Islamic Relations,” Investigative Project, undated, http://www.investigativeproject.org/FCNACAIR.html (viewed 4/20/2010). (Now at
http://web.archive.org/web/20050830160244/http://www.justice.gov/usao/ vae/ArchivePress/OctoberPDFArchive/03/sa
faaffid102003.pdf (p. 36, now unsealed, viewed 2/16/2011).
24 A group of muftis, “Seeking Martyrdom by Attacking US Military Bases in the Gulf,” Islam Online fatwa bank, Mar. 24, 2003, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-Engl ish-
Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503546700 (dead linke) see: Martyrdom fatwa (viewed 6/13/2010).
25 Gretel Kovach, “Five convicted in terrorism financing trial,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/us/25charity.html?_r=1&pagewanted=pr int (viewed 5/10/2010); Paul J. Weber,
Los Angeles Times, Nov. 25, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/25/nation/na-muslim-charity25 (viewed 5/20/2010); Convicted HLF officers included former HLF chairman Ghassan Elashi, former chief executive Shukri Abu Baker, Mufid Abdulqater, Abdulraham Odeh and Mohammed El-Mezain. Two more former HLF officers, Haitham Maghawri and Akram Mishal (cousin to Hamas chief Khaled Mishael) had fled and were not tried.
26 Attachment A, in the U.S. District Court for the northern district of Texas, Dallas Division, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/2007-05-29-US%20v%20HLF-ListCoConsp irators.pdf (first viewed 6/1/2007); “History of the Fiqh Council,” FCNA, 11/22/2010, http://www.fiqhcouncil.org/node/6 (viewed 2/5/2011); Steven Emerson, “The American Islamic leaders’ fatwa is bogus,” Counterterrorism Blog, Jul. 28, 2005, ibid.
27 “Muhammad al-Hanooti,” Islam Online, undated http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503615091&pagenam e=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaCounselorE%2FFatwaCounselorE (dead link), see Muhammad al-Hanooti profile
28 Paul Sperry, “The great al-Qaeda patriot,” Front Page Magazine, Apr. 9, 2007, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=26058 (viewed 5/2/2007).
29 U.S. Plaintiff-Appellee v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et al, Defendants North American Islamic Trust, Movant-Appellant, No. 09-10875, Before Garza and Benavides, Circuit Judges, and Crone, District Judge,” 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oct. 20, 2010, http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-5th-circuit/1541806.html (viewed 11/25/2010).
Though Europe Rots, We Must Defend the West
With free speech under attack, our civilization’s survival is at stake.
By Alyssa A. Lappen
Pajamas Media | Jan. 18, 2011
Defending the rights to free speech of editor, columnist and Danish and International Free Press Society president Lars Hedegaard — especially the right to criticize orthodox Islam as freely as one may Christianity or Judaism — now equals defending the right of Western civilization to survive. 1 Barring an effective international outcry — or a rare fever of Sudden Enlightenment Syndrome one morning soon awakening Denmark’s Public Prosecutor with common sense — Hedegaard will face trial on Danish racism charges and conviction alike on Jan. 24, 2011: 2 a veritable auto da fé.
In Dec. 2009, Hedegaard remarked in a taped interview upon certain domestic violence peculiar to Muslim families (“they” rape their own children). He was then charged as a common criminal. 3
In 1969, Denmark’s proud history of supporting freedom, whatever the cost, enticed me to live for a summer with a family of potters in Grena, Jutland. In the 1940s, Denmark saved virtually its entire Jewish population from a regime whose totalitarianism many Islamic leaders now hope to best. Since then, Denmark may have gone rotten. The state apparently deems it far less criminal for groups driven by ideological or religious belief to behave criminally, than for anyone to publicly observe their heinous deeds. All the more, as (in this case) said criminal behavior would in other situations scandalize civilized people. Should a modern Danish coven of warlocks and witches regularly rape and roast their teenage daughters, doubtless the public prosecutor would charge no one for saying as much.
Alas, Hedegaard challenges modern Danish liberalism too, as he did in a Jan. 2009 interview with me. 4
Denmarks’ Public Prosecutor charged Hedegaard with racism for allegedly violating article 266 b of its penal code, (aka “racism clause”). This allows a prosecutor to infer criminal offense in any statement that he believes threatens, demeans or ridicules anyone based on race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, religious faith or sexual orientation. In other words, the law gives the prosecutor endless latitude to levy criminal charges over a wide range of easily misconstrued statements by or about — well, almost anyone.5 This absurdity of law in effect lets Denmark’s public prosecutor lavish his taxpayer-funded time on perusing news and other taped records of public figures for factual statements on Islam or predominantly Muslim behaviors; and that is how he seems to cast his own prejudiced net.
In North America, free speech is presumed a fundamental right cemented into the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — namely the first article in the Bill of Rights that Congress passed, the states ratified and U.S. law adopted on Dec. 15, 1791. It naturally includes the right to criticize almost anything, short of treason, charges for which the U.S. has not prosecuted in a very long while. Moreover, foreigners can no longer easily rebuke Americans via foreign lawsuits for taking full advantage of that enshrined U.S. freedom. 6
But in the early 1960s, orthodox Islamic believers calling themselves the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan, in Arabic) initiated global efforts to destroy the West and its values, free speech foremost among them. By their thinking, God alone can make laws, not man — the only just laws therefore being Islamic (sharia). All others, especially secular Western laws, must go, particularly those allowing what Islamic law considers blasphemy and a capitol offense — any criticism of Islam or Mohammed.
In 1982 and again in 1991, the Brothers set to paper their long-held plans to decimate Western societies and impose global Islamic law. They declared war on basic human rights — evolved from Judeao-Christian traditions codified in King Henry I’s 1100 C.E. Charter of Liberties, 7and expanded into various forms of due process 8 via Britain’s 1215 Magna Carta, 9 King Edward I’s 1305 writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, 10 New York’s 1683 Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 11 William Penn’s 1701 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 12 the U.S. 1791 Bill of Rights, article § 77 of the Danish Constitution (letting anyone publish without censorship or government consent) — and a host of like statutes in most Western nations. These culminated with the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, affirming human rights to “enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want….” 13
Upon first hearing of MB plans, Westerners generally react with stupefied incredulity. Some furiously rage at the messenger. Yet global Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi concretely stipulated 14 these MB plans on Dec. 1, 1982 in “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” 15 which Swiss officials discovered in Nov. 2001 at the villa of MB chief financial officer Yusuf Nada. 16 North American MB chief Mohamed Akram on May 22, 1991 created a similar “regional” outline in an “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” 17 presented as evidence by U.S. prosecutors to help convict five Holy Land Foundation officials of 108 terror-financing related charges. 18
The realities behind this decades-long Muslim Brotherhood campaign have now slammed Europe. On Dec. 3, 2010, Denmark’s public prosecutor figuratively collected his first scalp for racism, that of pastor and Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe, 19 not surprisingly for defending Hedegaard. “Of course Lars Hedegaard should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters,” Langballe stated, “when the truth appears to be that they make due with killing their daughters (the so-called honor killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them.”
Randers municipal court found MP Langballe (Danish People’s Party) guilty of hate speech under Denmark’s penal code, Article 266b after duly honoring Danish legal precedent to deny Langballe the right to prove his truthful allegation that Muslim families often sexually abuse and murder their daughters for family honor. In such cases, Danish law figures the truth immaterial. As if under Islamic libel law itself, 20 Denmark may nowadays convict a defendant solely upon the personal offense taken or perceived in his or her statement. No actual crime need have occurred.
At his kangaroo court trial, MP Langballe therefore concluded, “With this article in the penal code, I must be assumed convicted in advance. I have no intention of participating in this circus. Therefore I confess.” Denmark denied MP Langballe both freedom of speech and due process and may now fine or incarcerate him up to two years. 21
These are but the latest journalists, elected European officials and humanitarians charged for perceived defamations of Islam in their statements of fact and exact reiterations of Quranic and other Islamic sacred texts. Finland first stepped to the plate, in 2009 convicting its best known political blogger, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, then 38. 22
However in May 2008, Gregorius Nekschot, a pseudonymous Dutch cartoonist was similarly arrested and charged with discriminatory speech. In Sept. 2010, Dutch prosecutors finally dropped charges against Nekschot, on the eve of Holland’s next travesty of justice. Despite a court order that he dismantle his personal website, Nekschot was victorious. “I can carry on making caricatures, perhaps even more controversial ones, because I have been allowed to keep my anonymity,” he said.23
Then came five charges of hate speech against Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Prosecutors initially ruled that Wilders’ statements might hurt Muslim feelings but weren’t crimes. But in Jan. 2009, Amsterdam’s Appeals Court reversed the finding and ordered prosecutors to proceed. 24 At trial, an empaneled judge snidely remarked on Wilders’ intent to remain silent. An immediate appeal to replace the biased panel was denied. 25 Dutch prosecutors then reiterated the legality of criticizing religion (Muslim feelings determine no “facts of the case”), but trial judges ignored their request to acquit on all five charges.26
After incontestable judicial bias surfaced, however, a new appeals court on Oct. 22 terminated the Wilders trial. At a private May 2010 dinner party, Islamic expert and defense witness Hans Jansen revealed, magistrate Tom Schalken (among the Amsterdam judges to order Wilders’ prosecution) had approached to explain why Wilders must be prosecuted. Schalken’s unlawfully expressed, extra-judicial comment to a defense witness forced the appeals justices to order a new Wilders trial.27
Next up was Austria’s Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Pax Europa‘s Austrian representative and a former Organization for Security and Co-operation envoy in Europe. Pax Europa, focusing on sharia law incursions and simultaneous erosion of free speech in Europe, is Germany’s “foremost human rights organization,” she says. 28 In Sept. 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff learned she was accused of “defamation of religion” during a 2009 three-part seminar on “Islamization of Europe” for the Freedom Education Institute (FEI). She is not a member of FEI or any part of the late, controversial Joerg Haider‘s “far-right” Austrian Freedom Party. But even if Sabaditsch-Wolff did belong, it would not be criminal: the state gives public monies to the Austrian Freedom Party’s Institute.
Moreover, Sabaditsch-Wolff based her academic observations on experience gained, by choice, from living most of her adult life “in Arab and Muslim-majority countries.” Exactly which statements prompted Vienna’s prosecutor to indict her for hate speech, he did not see fit to specify. 29 She was “tried” in Vienna, if you can call it that, in Nov. 2010. No decision has yet been announced.
That same month, the European Union required member states to implement the “Framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia,” a measure adopted Nov. 28, 2008 to combat “certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.” This EU legal provision required all EU member states to comply fully by Nov. 28, 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff asserts, and punish “intentional conduct” considered a pretext to target “a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” 30 Oblique or not, this means Muslims.
Who passed these measures, at whose proposal, without consulting Europe’s parliaments or populaces — and whether are they binding under national constitutions — should immediately arise as critical topics of debate in all EU member states. And Americans, lest we think ourselves immune, should steel the ramparts for the continuing onslaught upon our own treasured rights to free speech. Despite our new Free Speech protection measure, free speech remains under barrage assault.
NOTES:
1 In borrowing the title from the book of my friend and colleague, Ibn Warraq, I intend him the highest compliment for being, with Lars Hedegaard, among those at the vanguard of defending Western civilization.
2 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010,http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/12/the-scandal- of-danish-justice/ (first viewed 12/12/2010).
3 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
4 Alyssa A. Lappen, “The eternal Danish optimist,” Right Side News, Jan. 5, 2009, http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043173/life-and-science/culture-war s/the-eternal-danish-optimist.html.
5 Ahmed Mohamud and Eva Agnete Selsing, “The lawsuit against Lars Hedegaard,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 27, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/4087/ (viewed 1/9/2011).
6 NY Assembly Rep. Rory I. Lanceman, “Author of New York State’s first-in-the-nation law against “libel tourism” applauds congressional passage of the “Speech Act” to protect Americans’ 1st Amendment rights,” N.Y. Assembly District 25, Jul. 25, 2010, http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=025&sh=story&story=39928; Alyssa A. Lappen, “America’s First Amendment lifeline,” Human Events, 1/25/2008, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24649; “Gov. Patterson signs legislation protecting New Yorkers against infringement of First Amendment rights by foreign libel judgment,” New York State press release, May 1, 2008, http://www.r8ny.com/node/16798; On May 1, 2008, New York State established the first libel terrorism protection act in the U.S.; I played a critical role obtaining necessary legislative support, without which I suspect it would have been impossible to achieve passage of a federal law along the same lines.
7 “Charter of Liberties,” Medieval Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hcoronation.html (viewed 1/10/2011).
8 “Due process,” U.S Constitution, 5th Amendment, annotations, p. 11, reprinted at FindLaw, undated, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/11.html; see also “Due process,” Cornell Univ. Law School, http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process (both viewed 1/10/2011)
9 “Magna Carta,” Britannia History, http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
10 “A brief history of habeas corpus,” BBC, Mar. 9, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4329839.stm (viewed 1/10/2011).
11 Charter of Liberties & Privileges, NY, 1683, http://www.montauk.com/history/seeds/charter.htm (viewed 1/10/2011).
12 William Penn, “Charter of Privileges,” Oct. 28, 1701, http://www.constitution.org/bcp/penncharpriv.htm (1/10/2011).
13 “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations General Assembly, Dec. 10, 1948, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml; The document recognizes “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people….” (emphasis added).
14 Lappen and Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Sharia financing and the coming ummah,” Chap. 28, Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, ed. Jeffrey Norwitz, (U.S. Naval War College: 2008), pp. 389-404, http://www.alyssaalappen.org/wp-content/uploads/sharia-financing-and-t he-coming-ummah-by-ehrenfeld-and-lappen.pdf.
15 Yusuf Qaradawi, “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” global Muslim Brotherhood, Dec. 1, 1982, as cited by Patrick Poole, “The Muslim Brotherhood Project,” Front Page Magazine, May 11, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4475 and http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4476 (first viewed 5/11/2006).
16 Olivier Guitta, “The Cartoon Jihad,” Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006, http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/00 6/704xewyj.asp (viewed 2/22/2006).
17 Mohamed Akram, “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” Muslim Brotherhood, global Muslim Brotherhood, North America, May 22, 1991, p. 15, http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategic Goal.pdf (first viewed 9/18/2007).
18 Jason Trahan and Tanya Eiserer, “Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 28, 2008, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/112 508dnmetholylandverdicts.1e5022504.html; see also “Ruling: humanitarian aid to Palestine a front for Hamas support,” Raw Story, Nov. 24, 2008, http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Largest_Muslim_charity_in_US_ruled_1124. html; “US-based Muslim charity guilty of funding terrorism,” Telegraph, Nov. 24, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3515658/US- based-Muslim-charity-guilty-of-funding-terrorism.html; “Federal judge hands down sentences in Holy Land Foundation case,” Dept. of Justice, May 27, 2009, http://dallas.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/dl052709.htm (all viewed 12/2/2010).
19 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
20 Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, 1991 and 1994, Amana Publications (revised ed., 1994), p. 730, as noted in Lappen, “Does sharia law now apply in the U.S.” Pajamas Media, Jan. 2, 2008, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/sharia_libel_law_now_applies_i/.
21 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
22 James Cohen, “23 minute interview with Jussi Halla-aho,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 17, 2009, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/09/23-minute-intervi ew-with-jussi-halla-aho/ (viewed 1/10/2011); see also “Jussi Halla-aho,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussi_Halla-aho (viewed 1/10/2011).
23 Katrine Winkel Holm, “Prosecutor drops case against Dutch cartoonist,” International Free Speech Society, Sept. 25, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/prosecutor-drops- case-against-dutch-cartoonist/ (viewed 9/30/2010).
24 Mike Corder, “Dutch court: prosecute anti-Islamic law-maker,” Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2009, as reprinted in http://sweetness-light.com/archive/court-prosecute-geert-wilders-for-h ate-speech (viewed 1/10/2011).
25 Bruce Mutsvairo, “Wilders hate speech trial to resume,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 5, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/1005/Geert-Wilders-hate-speech-tri al-to-resume-in-Netherlands (10/6/2010).
26 “Dutch prosecutors sought anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders’ acquittal on five hate speech charges Friday, saying his criticism of the Muslim religion, though hurtful to some, was not criminal,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Oct. 15, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/acquit-dutch-anti-islam-lawmaker-pr osecutors (viewed 1/10/2011).
27 “Hans Jansen, scholar of Islam, and a witness for the defense in the Wilders trial, describes a curious dinner party,” and “Uproar: Dutch court orders retrial for Wilders,” New English Review, Oct. 22, 2010, http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_months.cfm/m/10/y/2010/sr/100 (both viewed 10/22/2010).
28 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, http://www.hudson-ny.org/1596/sabaditsch-wolff-lawfare-austria (first viewed 10/12/2010).
29 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, ibid.
30 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: We are Being Systematically Silenced, This is our Time,” In Defense of Free Speech, Nov. 27, 2010, http://english.savefreespeech.org/?p=221 (viewed 1/10/2011).
By Alyssa A. Lappen
Pajamas Media | Jan. 18, 2011
Defending the rights to free speech of editor, columnist and Danish and International Free Press Society president Lars Hedegaard — especially the right to criticize orthodox Islam as freely as one may Christianity or Judaism — now equals defending the right of Western civilization to survive. 1 Barring an effective international outcry — or a rare fever of Sudden Enlightenment Syndrome one morning soon awakening Denmark’s Public Prosecutor with common sense — Hedegaard will face trial on Danish racism charges and conviction alike on Jan. 24, 2011: 2 a veritable auto da fé.
In Dec. 2009, Hedegaard remarked in a taped interview upon certain domestic violence peculiar to Muslim families (“they” rape their own children). He was then charged as a common criminal. 3
In 1969, Denmark’s proud history of supporting freedom, whatever the cost, enticed me to live for a summer with a family of potters in Grena, Jutland. In the 1940s, Denmark saved virtually its entire Jewish population from a regime whose totalitarianism many Islamic leaders now hope to best. Since then, Denmark may have gone rotten. The state apparently deems it far less criminal for groups driven by ideological or religious belief to behave criminally, than for anyone to publicly observe their heinous deeds. All the more, as (in this case) said criminal behavior would in other situations scandalize civilized people. Should a modern Danish coven of warlocks and witches regularly rape and roast their teenage daughters, doubtless the public prosecutor would charge no one for saying as much.
Alas, Hedegaard challenges modern Danish liberalism too, as he did in a Jan. 2009 interview with me. 4
Denmarks’ Public Prosecutor charged Hedegaard with racism for allegedly violating article 266 b of its penal code, (aka “racism clause”). This allows a prosecutor to infer criminal offense in any statement that he believes threatens, demeans or ridicules anyone based on race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, religious faith or sexual orientation. In other words, the law gives the prosecutor endless latitude to levy criminal charges over a wide range of easily misconstrued statements by or about — well, almost anyone.5 This absurdity of law in effect lets Denmark’s public prosecutor lavish his taxpayer-funded time on perusing news and other taped records of public figures for factual statements on Islam or predominantly Muslim behaviors; and that is how he seems to cast his own prejudiced net.
In North America, free speech is presumed a fundamental right cemented into the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — namely the first article in the Bill of Rights that Congress passed, the states ratified and U.S. law adopted on Dec. 15, 1791. It naturally includes the right to criticize almost anything, short of treason, charges for which the U.S. has not prosecuted in a very long while. Moreover, foreigners can no longer easily rebuke Americans via foreign lawsuits for taking full advantage of that enshrined U.S. freedom. 6
But in the early 1960s, orthodox Islamic believers calling themselves the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan, in Arabic) initiated global efforts to destroy the West and its values, free speech foremost among them. By their thinking, God alone can make laws, not man — the only just laws therefore being Islamic (sharia). All others, especially secular Western laws, must go, particularly those allowing what Islamic law considers blasphemy and a capitol offense — any criticism of Islam or Mohammed.
In 1982 and again in 1991, the Brothers set to paper their long-held plans to decimate Western societies and impose global Islamic law. They declared war on basic human rights — evolved from Judeao-Christian traditions codified in King Henry I’s 1100 C.E. Charter of Liberties, 7and expanded into various forms of due process 8 via Britain’s 1215 Magna Carta, 9 King Edward I’s 1305 writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, 10 New York’s 1683 Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 11 William Penn’s 1701 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 12 the U.S. 1791 Bill of Rights, article § 77 of the Danish Constitution (letting anyone publish without censorship or government consent) — and a host of like statutes in most Western nations. These culminated with the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, affirming human rights to “enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want….” 13
Upon first hearing of MB plans, Westerners generally react with stupefied incredulity. Some furiously rage at the messenger. Yet global Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi concretely stipulated 14 these MB plans on Dec. 1, 1982 in “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” 15 which Swiss officials discovered in Nov. 2001 at the villa of MB chief financial officer Yusuf Nada. 16 North American MB chief Mohamed Akram on May 22, 1991 created a similar “regional” outline in an “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” 17 presented as evidence by U.S. prosecutors to help convict five Holy Land Foundation officials of 108 terror-financing related charges. 18
The realities behind this decades-long Muslim Brotherhood campaign have now slammed Europe. On Dec. 3, 2010, Denmark’s public prosecutor figuratively collected his first scalp for racism, that of pastor and Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe, 19 not surprisingly for defending Hedegaard. “Of course Lars Hedegaard should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters,” Langballe stated, “when the truth appears to be that they make due with killing their daughters (the so-called honor killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them.”
Randers municipal court found MP Langballe (Danish People’s Party) guilty of hate speech under Denmark’s penal code, Article 266b after duly honoring Danish legal precedent to deny Langballe the right to prove his truthful allegation that Muslim families often sexually abuse and murder their daughters for family honor. In such cases, Danish law figures the truth immaterial. As if under Islamic libel law itself, 20 Denmark may nowadays convict a defendant solely upon the personal offense taken or perceived in his or her statement. No actual crime need have occurred.
At his kangaroo court trial, MP Langballe therefore concluded, “With this article in the penal code, I must be assumed convicted in advance. I have no intention of participating in this circus. Therefore I confess.” Denmark denied MP Langballe both freedom of speech and due process and may now fine or incarcerate him up to two years. 21
These are but the latest journalists, elected European officials and humanitarians charged for perceived defamations of Islam in their statements of fact and exact reiterations of Quranic and other Islamic sacred texts. Finland first stepped to the plate, in 2009 convicting its best known political blogger, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, then 38. 22
However in May 2008, Gregorius Nekschot, a pseudonymous Dutch cartoonist was similarly arrested and charged with discriminatory speech. In Sept. 2010, Dutch prosecutors finally dropped charges against Nekschot, on the eve of Holland’s next travesty of justice. Despite a court order that he dismantle his personal website, Nekschot was victorious. “I can carry on making caricatures, perhaps even more controversial ones, because I have been allowed to keep my anonymity,” he said.23
Then came five charges of hate speech against Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Prosecutors initially ruled that Wilders’ statements might hurt Muslim feelings but weren’t crimes. But in Jan. 2009, Amsterdam’s Appeals Court reversed the finding and ordered prosecutors to proceed. 24 At trial, an empaneled judge snidely remarked on Wilders’ intent to remain silent. An immediate appeal to replace the biased panel was denied. 25 Dutch prosecutors then reiterated the legality of criticizing religion (Muslim feelings determine no “facts of the case”), but trial judges ignored their request to acquit on all five charges.26
After incontestable judicial bias surfaced, however, a new appeals court on Oct. 22 terminated the Wilders trial. At a private May 2010 dinner party, Islamic expert and defense witness Hans Jansen revealed, magistrate Tom Schalken (among the Amsterdam judges to order Wilders’ prosecution) had approached to explain why Wilders must be prosecuted. Schalken’s unlawfully expressed, extra-judicial comment to a defense witness forced the appeals justices to order a new Wilders trial.27
Next up was Austria’s Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Pax Europa‘s Austrian representative and a former Organization for Security and Co-operation envoy in Europe. Pax Europa, focusing on sharia law incursions and simultaneous erosion of free speech in Europe, is Germany’s “foremost human rights organization,” she says. 28 In Sept. 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff learned she was accused of “defamation of religion” during a 2009 three-part seminar on “Islamization of Europe” for the Freedom Education Institute (FEI). She is not a member of FEI or any part of the late, controversial Joerg Haider‘s “far-right” Austrian Freedom Party. But even if Sabaditsch-Wolff did belong, it would not be criminal: the state gives public monies to the Austrian Freedom Party’s Institute.
Moreover, Sabaditsch-Wolff based her academic observations on experience gained, by choice, from living most of her adult life “in Arab and Muslim-majority countries.” Exactly which statements prompted Vienna’s prosecutor to indict her for hate speech, he did not see fit to specify. 29 She was “tried” in Vienna, if you can call it that, in Nov. 2010. No decision has yet been announced.
That same month, the European Union required member states to implement the “Framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia,” a measure adopted Nov. 28, 2008 to combat “certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.” This EU legal provision required all EU member states to comply fully by Nov. 28, 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff asserts, and punish “intentional conduct” considered a pretext to target “a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” 30 Oblique or not, this means Muslims.
Who passed these measures, at whose proposal, without consulting Europe’s parliaments or populaces — and whether are they binding under national constitutions — should immediately arise as critical topics of debate in all EU member states. And Americans, lest we think ourselves immune, should steel the ramparts for the continuing onslaught upon our own treasured rights to free speech. Despite our new Free Speech protection measure, free speech remains under barrage assault.
NOTES:
1 In borrowing the title from the book of my friend and colleague, Ibn Warraq, I intend him the highest compliment for being, with Lars Hedegaard, among those at the vanguard of defending Western civilization.
2 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010,http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/12/the-scandal- of-danish-justice/ (first viewed 12/12/2010).
3 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
4 Alyssa A. Lappen, “The eternal Danish optimist,” Right Side News, Jan. 5, 2009, http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043173/life-and-science/culture-war s/the-eternal-danish-optimist.html.
5 Ahmed Mohamud and Eva Agnete Selsing, “The lawsuit against Lars Hedegaard,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 27, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/4087/ (viewed 1/9/2011).
6 NY Assembly Rep. Rory I. Lanceman, “Author of New York State’s first-in-the-nation law against “libel tourism” applauds congressional passage of the “Speech Act” to protect Americans’ 1st Amendment rights,” N.Y. Assembly District 25, Jul. 25, 2010, http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=025&sh=story&story=39928; Alyssa A. Lappen, “America’s First Amendment lifeline,” Human Events, 1/25/2008, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24649; “Gov. Patterson signs legislation protecting New Yorkers against infringement of First Amendment rights by foreign libel judgment,” New York State press release, May 1, 2008, http://www.r8ny.com/node/16798; On May 1, 2008, New York State established the first libel terrorism protection act in the U.S.; I played a critical role obtaining necessary legislative support, without which I suspect it would have been impossible to achieve passage of a federal law along the same lines.
7 “Charter of Liberties,” Medieval Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hcoronation.html (viewed 1/10/2011).
8 “Due process,” U.S Constitution, 5th Amendment, annotations, p. 11, reprinted at FindLaw, undated, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/11.html; see also “Due process,” Cornell Univ. Law School, http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process (both viewed 1/10/2011)
9 “Magna Carta,” Britannia History, http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
10 “A brief history of habeas corpus,” BBC, Mar. 9, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4329839.stm (viewed 1/10/2011).
11 Charter of Liberties & Privileges, NY, 1683, http://www.montauk.com/history/seeds/charter.htm (viewed 1/10/2011).
12 William Penn, “Charter of Privileges,” Oct. 28, 1701, http://www.constitution.org/bcp/penncharpriv.htm (1/10/2011).
13 “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations General Assembly, Dec. 10, 1948, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml; The document recognizes “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people….” (emphasis added).
14 Lappen and Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Sharia financing and the coming ummah,” Chap. 28, Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, ed. Jeffrey Norwitz, (U.S. Naval War College: 2008), pp. 389-404, http://www.alyssaalappen.org/wp-content/uploads/sharia-financing-and-t he-coming-ummah-by-ehrenfeld-and-lappen.pdf.
15 Yusuf Qaradawi, “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” global Muslim Brotherhood, Dec. 1, 1982, as cited by Patrick Poole, “The Muslim Brotherhood Project,” Front Page Magazine, May 11, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4475 and http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4476 (first viewed 5/11/2006).
16 Olivier Guitta, “The Cartoon Jihad,” Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006, http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/00 6/704xewyj.asp (viewed 2/22/2006).
17 Mohamed Akram, “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” Muslim Brotherhood, global Muslim Brotherhood, North America, May 22, 1991, p. 15, http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategic Goal.pdf (first viewed 9/18/2007).
18 Jason Trahan and Tanya Eiserer, “Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 28, 2008, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/112 508dnmetholylandverdicts.1e5022504.html; see also “Ruling: humanitarian aid to Palestine a front for Hamas support,” Raw Story, Nov. 24, 2008, http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Largest_Muslim_charity_in_US_ruled_1124. html; “US-based Muslim charity guilty of funding terrorism,” Telegraph, Nov. 24, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3515658/US- based-Muslim-charity-guilty-of-funding-terrorism.html; “Federal judge hands down sentences in Holy Land Foundation case,” Dept. of Justice, May 27, 2009, http://dallas.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/dl052709.htm (all viewed 12/2/2010).
19 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
20 Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, 1991 and 1994, Amana Publications (revised ed., 1994), p. 730, as noted in Lappen, “Does sharia law now apply in the U.S.” Pajamas Media, Jan. 2, 2008, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/sharia_libel_law_now_applies_i/.
21 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
22 James Cohen, “23 minute interview with Jussi Halla-aho,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 17, 2009, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/09/23-minute-intervi ew-with-jussi-halla-aho/ (viewed 1/10/2011); see also “Jussi Halla-aho,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussi_Halla-aho (viewed 1/10/2011).
23 Katrine Winkel Holm, “Prosecutor drops case against Dutch cartoonist,” International Free Speech Society, Sept. 25, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/prosecutor-drops- case-against-dutch-cartoonist/ (viewed 9/30/2010).
24 Mike Corder, “Dutch court: prosecute anti-Islamic law-maker,” Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2009, as reprinted in http://sweetness-light.com/archive/court-prosecute-geert-wilders-for-h ate-speech (viewed 1/10/2011).
25 Bruce Mutsvairo, “Wilders hate speech trial to resume,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 5, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/1005/Geert-Wilders-hate-speech-tri al-to-resume-in-Netherlands (10/6/2010).
26 “Dutch prosecutors sought anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders’ acquittal on five hate speech charges Friday, saying his criticism of the Muslim religion, though hurtful to some, was not criminal,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Oct. 15, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/acquit-dutch-anti-islam-lawmaker-pr osecutors (viewed 1/10/2011).
27 “Hans Jansen, scholar of Islam, and a witness for the defense in the Wilders trial, describes a curious dinner party,” and “Uproar: Dutch court orders retrial for Wilders,” New English Review, Oct. 22, 2010, http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_months.cfm/m/10/y/2010/sr/100 (both viewed 10/22/2010).
28 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, http://www.hudson-ny.org/1596/sabaditsch-wolff-lawfare-austria (first viewed 10/12/2010).
29 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, ibid.
30 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: We are Being Systematically Silenced, This is our Time,” In Defense of Free Speech, Nov. 27, 2010, http://english.savefreespeech.org/?p=221 (viewed 1/10/2011).
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
By David Nordell
The drastic spending cuts forced on Britain's new Tory-LibDem
government by its predecessor's wastefulness have not only damaged the
war on terrorism through a heavy downscaling of British forces in
Afghanistan, and in fact across the board of national defence spending.
They have also severely damaged the fight against terror finance, both
within the United Kingdom and in fact internationally: one of the
victims of the spending cuts has been the UK's Financial Intelligence
Unit (UKFIU), part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which has recently lost almost its entire professional leadership.
SOCA/UKFIU's director, David Thomas, together with several key
department heads, all took early retirement in October, spurred by a
combination of budget cuts and the government's planned reorganisation
of SOCA and various other national crime-fighting agencies into a new
National Crime Agency. In practical terms, the agency's has lost all its
top intelligence professionals in one blow and will in any case lose
some of its formal tasking for analysis of financial intelligence;
it will be left mainly with the role of reporting agency for the
Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) regime, which obliges financial and
other regulated businesses to report on every suspicious financial
transaction.
The SAR regime, both in Britain and everywhere else, has in any
case come in for severe criticism. This has not only been from the banks
and other businesses that have had to spend significant resources on
filing SARs, but also from financial intelligence professionals, audit
reports such as one on SOCA itself by KPMG a few years ago that found
that the majority of SARs were just gathering dust because the banks'
practice of 'defensive SAR filing' meant that UKFIU staff couldn't cope
with the mass of reports, and indeed from independent analysts such as
this writer. But the hollowing-out of the UKFIU almost certainly means
that the signal-to-noise ratio between the SARs filed and the number
that produce useful intelligence -- whether in terms of leading to
convictions or simply frustrating planned terrorist activity -- will
deteriorate significantly.
SOCA was founded with the intention of becoming Britain's
equivalent of the FBI, the only major national crime-fighting agency in a
nation that, a little like the USA, has its police organised
in regional forces. The results have proved to be controversial, not
least because the UKFIU itself incorporated a lot of former customs and
revenue officers (like Thomas himself) who were not seen as 'real
policemen.' It was also because the agency threw together a lot of
different functions, from computer crime to trafficking in women and
children, from drug smuggling to UKFIU's focuses of money laundering,
terror finance and asset recovery; national police liaison with Interpol
and Europol are also included. Another reason has been that only a
minority of SOCA officers have been given arrest powers. And in spite of
some well-publicised increases in its budget in the past, more recent
cuts have led to its leaking hundreds of experienced officers.
The loss of much of UKFIU's intelligence capabilities shouldn't be
taken lightly, even though the country retains one other national agency
specifically tasked with combatting terror finance, the National Terror
Finance Investigation Union (NTFIU): this is jointly staffed by the
Metropolitan Police's Special Branch and by the Security Service (MI5),
and took the credit for 'Operation Overt,' the foiling of the plot to
blow up airliners scheduled from Heathrow to the USA using liquid
explosives. By most estimates, the UK is a net exporter of terrorist
funds, partly money collected within the Muslim and other immigrant
communities for use in other theatres of terrorist operations, and
partly money originating elsewhere that routed through Britain's massive
financial industry. As a result, any downgrading of this intelligence
capability is likely to make the task of terror financiers worldwide
easier, and very possibly to lead to an increase in terrorist activity.
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