An Islamic school in Northern Virginia with close ties to the Saudi government has revised its religious textbooks in an effort to end years of criticism that the school fosters hatred and intolerance.
While the Islamic Saudi Academy deleted some of the most contentious passages from the texts, copies provided to the Associated Press show that enough sensitive material remains to arm critics who claim the books show intolerance toward those who do not follow strict interpretations of Islam.
Astrid Riecken/The Washington Times Christine Brim is part of a group of critics who believe the textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy promote intolerance toward non-Muslims. The Northern Virginia school recently developed new Islamic studies textbooks in an effort to address the criticism.
The academy, which teaches nearly 900 students in grades kindergarten through 12th at its Alexandria campus, developed new Islamic studies textbooks for all grades after a 2008 congressional report called portions of the previous editions troubling. The school provided AP copies of the new textbooks, which revise language on hot-button issues such as requiring women to cover their heads and how Muslims should relate to people of other religions.
School officials say the books are part of the school's effort to promote universal values of tolerance and kindness, and modernize some of the lessons.
They've had to make similar defenses before.
The school was founded in 1984 and largely stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks, which focused attention on the Saudi educational system. In December 2001, two former academy students, Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were denied entry into Israel when authorities there found Mr. El-Yacoubi carrying what the FBI believed was a suicide note linked to a planned martyrdom operation in Israel.
In 2005, a former academy valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted in federal court of joining al Qaeda while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush.
Last year, the school's then-director, Abdalla al-Shabnan, was convicted of failing to report a suspected case of child sex abuse.
Found this great question an answer with the founder of Farsi Christian News Network. You can read the whole thing here.
An interview with Saman kamvar, managing director of Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN) and Christian representative member of the Iranian Human rights activist committee.
In recent years the Islamic Republic of Iran has systematically and often through violent, repressive, and anti human rights methods treated the Christian resident of Iran, especially those who have newly embraced the Christian faith and are Farsi speaking.
Meanwhile, in view of the fact that Iran is named among the top three countries in the world accused of violating the human rights of its Christian population, the reactionary sensitivity of the government has increased in recent years. In the context of the recently committed acts of repression and persecution towards the Christians of Iran, discriminatory laws, systematic violation of human rights, and the recently proposed and approved by penal code by the Islamic Parliament, an interview was conducted with Saman Kamvar, who is the executive member of the Christians represented in the federation of human right activists.
1- There has been news of systematic repression of Christian citizens of Iran. When did these repressive activities begin?
First and foremost, I would like to thank you for the opportunity given to me, and I would like to, by the way of a brief introduction, tell you about the history of church in general, which is not so unrelated to your original question. From the outset and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ, during the time of the disciples, until now, the true church through all the past centuries has been the subject of systematic persecution in the hands of the government of the time. In the early church, Christians were persecuted and murdered by the Roman Empire and countless Christians because of their faith in Jesus Christ were fed to lions and thus were made a spectacle and future deterrent for others in order to stop the rapid growth Christianity.
But, what was the result of all these persecutions? We see that the effect was actually the opposite and not only did it not stop the growth of the Church, but it helped change the course of history. Today, we divide our calendar on the basis of the birth of Christ. The Gospels declared this reality that as long as Christians are in this world there will be persecutions directed toward them.
Therefore, with this brief introduction, I would like to explain that after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979, and the form of government becoming a theocratic in nature, the church in Iran continued its divine mandate of evangelism and outreach to all Iranians until a few years later, the evangelical churches of Iran were targeted by the government and great repressive pressures were placed on the believers. In this context, the security intelligence apparatus of the Islamic Republic began assassinating several outstanding and well known leaders of the Church in Iran in a systematic fashion.
Evangelical Christians of Iran have given many martyrs to the cause of the Lord and the most outstanding example of such martyrdom is the arrest, conviction, and the execution of Martyr Rev. Soodmand in December of 1990 by the judiciary court of the Islamic Republic, which was carried out in the city of Mashhad, and his body buried in a shameful way in a abandoned ruin in the outskirts of the city.
After looking at this list of corrupt Obama appointees it makes one wonder if anyone in his administration isn't corrupt.
A District of Columbia employee and a technology consultant were charged with corruption counts Thursday after FBI agents raided the former office of the man tapped to be President Obama's chief information officer.
The White House said it was notified in advance of the search at the office of Vivek Kundra, who was formerly the D.C. technology officer. While the raid was happening at his old office, Kundra was giving a speech elsewhere on his new goals for government contracting.
Kundra was not a target of the investigation, a source told FOX News.
But Yusuf Acar, a city technology worker who worked under Kundra, was charged. He was ordered held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors said $70,000 in cash was found during a search of Acar's home. Technology consultant Sushil Bansal was released but was ordered not to engage in overseas financial transactions. Bansal is due back in court on April 21.
The White House chief information officer is responsible for overseeing federal technology spending.
Tony Ward is the President’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division. If you want to know how far we are past 9/11, there’s your answer: John Walker Lindh’s defense attorney is going to work for Justice. I’m not saying he wouldn’t do a perfectly competent job, It just seems like one of those things that might have stuck out, once upon a time.
Chicago (IL) - The Facebook group, Christians On Facebook, has become the latest target of attack for hackers who are posting pro-Islam messages. At 11:15am CDT today, the group's name was changed to "La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah", which means "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." Since then the name has changed no fewer than ten times.
The Christians on Facebook group itself has over 327,000 members from all variations of the Christian faith. This channel or group hack appears to have been designed to replace the fundamental tenants of Christianity with those of Islam.
At 11:58am, the name began changing repeatedly to variations of the following:
"La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah"
"La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah -- In ALLAH We Believe"
"La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah - There Is No God But ALLAH"
"There is No God but ALLAH; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah"
The attack appears to be ongoing as the group's image has been changed, and the group's Basic Info section has also been changed to carry several paragraphs which claim to report on the foundation of Islam, including the first principle declaration in two parts, and several passages relating to the deity Allah and his prophet/servant/apostle Muhammad.
Amsterdam escaped a terror attack Thursday. A telephone call to the police Wednesday night said that three men wanted to set off explosives in packed stores in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. The authorities cleared branches of IKIA, MediaMarkt and Perry Sport Thursday morning and other stores remained closed due to 'a threat'.
Only on Thursday evening was it clarified what the threat was. The telephone call was made from an apartment in Brussels, which was also searched.
Seven people were arrested in the Netherlands, including a family member of somebody involved in the attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, five years and a day ago. They are six men and one woman aged 19 to 64, Dutch of Moroccan background.
The police thinks that the direct threat is over with the arrests, but they are not excluding anything. The investigation is still ongoing and it is unclear when the shops will open again.
Apparently Amir Ali who I posted about here has died. I posted video of him on a Chicago tv show stating that Islam will rule the USA. Well according to this he is dead.
On November 14 he went for a heart scan and it was determined that he needed open-heart bypass surgery, which was successfully performed on the 16th. At 1 am on the morning of the 19th he was observed by the nurses to be sitting in his bed and reading. At 4 am, while he was sleeping, his heart slowed down and stopped. The doctors were unable to resuscitate him. He was buried in Chicago on the 20th, which was attended by one of the largest funeral gatherings ever held by Muslims in Chicago.
It appears that he passed away this past November.
Creeping Sharia has more info on Amir Ali and the organization he founded.
PAKISTAN terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is an even bigger threat than Al-Qaeda, said US security experts.
And they say it could be targeting the US.
'We are and should be concerned about the threat LeT poses, given its global network,' Mr Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser for counter-terrorism in the Bush administration, told the Chicago Tribune in an interview published on Sunday.
Intelligence agencies report that potentially many tens of thousands of Pakistanis have been trained in LeT's guerrilla camps in Pakistan.
And a small number are active in the US.
'It doesn't just reside in South Asia. It is an organisation that has potential reach all over the world, including the US,' Mr Zarate said.
Mr Bruce Riedel, chairman of the Obama administration's Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy review team, said he believed such a 'global jihadist syndicate' of disaffected young Pakistanis was the most likely mechanism for launching an attack on US soil.
Authorities said thousands of disaffected Westerners and Pakistanis in Britain and other 'visa waiver' countries in Europe travel frequently to Pakistan.
An unknown number of those have trained in LeT camps.
They can also enter the US with virtually no background check.
Evidence confiscated from computer-savvy young militants shows LeT interest in the Washington area, New York, California and Georgia, according to interviews and court testimony.
FBI Director Robert Mueller also highlighted the concern in a recent speech, saying US authorities fear a Mumbai-style commando attack, and that such militants from 'less well-known terrorist groups...are merely an e-ticket away from the US'.
Fox News reports that at least one Somali-American who was attending the University of Minnesota student missing since last year is being probed by a federal grand jury. Three others are being probed and may face charges of materially aiding a terrorist organization.
The way the story reads, it sounds like all four were students at UM:
A woman who identified herself as a 20-year-old student at the University of Minnesota said she testified before the grand jury [yesterday] morning, after receiving a subpoena on Friday. A copy of the subpoena obtained by Fox News says, "You are hereby commanded to appear and testify before the Grand Jury of the United States District Court." The subpoena told her to appear at 9 a.m. local time.
She said FBI agents previously told her that she has "some important information" related to an ongoing FBI investigation. The woman told Fox News she knew four of the Minneapolis-area men who went missing late last year, but she said they were only "acquaintances" whom she knew from growing up in the area.
The woman said that during her four-hour testimony today she was asked about the missing men, who they hung out with before they left, and why they may have left. She said the FBI informed her that she was not a target of the investigation and did not face any charges.
It's also not clear whether the probe stops at the students, or whether or not they are looking for whoever is behind their recruitment into Somalia's al Qaeda affiliate.
You have got to be kidding me. In response to this the Taliban said there is no such thing as a "moderate" member of the Taliban. See here.
“5 percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated. Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. And roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money, because of them being — getting paid.”
Robert Spencer does a good job of breaking this down and showing how ridiculous it is.
According to the vice president -- and don't ask where he came up with these precise numbers -- only 5% of the Taliban is "incorrigible" (i.e., are determined jihadis); 25% are on the fence, sort of; the other 70% are in it for the money (i.e., they are not serious about this whole Islam, jihad, and sharia jazz, but are "frustrated," "impoverished, "disaffected," etc., and so let's buy them off.)
Thus, according to the vice president of the U.S., 70% of the Taliban -- those guys responsible for spraying girls with acid, blowing up shrines, daily murdering infidels and apostates, fighting and dying in the name of sharia law -- are "moderate"; they only act that way because they're poor. So why not reach out to them? If only we give them lots of money, perhaps they'll go away -- only, of course, to regroup with better weapons, and come back to fight another day.
As Sudan Tribune writes, "an alliance of Sudanese Islamic jihadists and Darfur Arab militia groups pledged to carry out attacks against countries that are supporting the decisions of the International Criminal Court (ICC)" in retaliation to the last weeks indictment of Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur since 2003.
The alliance promised "world imperialists and CIA agents in US, UK, and France with another September 11 attack." The group also called for assassinations of the ICC chief prosecutor and Darfur rebel leaders.
The joint statement was signed by the Martyr Abu-Qiseissah Suicide Group, Ansar Al-Sunnah Al-Jihadiyah Group, the Group in Search of Martyrdom, the Martyr Ali Abdel-Fattah Brigade, and the Darfur Lions Brigade.
Earlier, high ranking officials from Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad visited Khartoum after the ICC arrest warrant was issued and expressed full support for president al-Bashir.
Ali Larijani, Iran's parliament speaker, said the ICC indictment is an "insult directed at Muslims."
Interestingly, over the last six years, while the Sudanese Arab government and their militias ravaged Darfur, killing more than 200,000 people and displacing over 2 million, hardly anybody in the Arab and Muslim world objected.
It did not matter that the victims in Darfur were Muslims.
Even though millions of innocent Muslims have been oppressed in Darfur since 2003, the fact that they are the victims of an Arab regime in Khartoum seems to prevent the Arab and Muslim public and governments from even acknowledging the suffering and humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur.
Up to this day, not one Arab or Muslim leader has publicly criticized Sudan's actions and atrocities in Darfur.
But now that president al-Bashir is charged for the war crimes and crimes against humanity, this is seen in Sudan and across the Middle East as yet another Western imperialist conspiracy which justifies calls for a global jihad against "crusaders, infidels, and Zionists."
An Arab male is currently being interrogated by the NYPD after screaming “Jihad threats” in a Boro Park Shul.
Highly credible sources tell YWN that sometime early Monday afternoon, a 36-year-old male entered the ‘Sephardish Shul’ located on 14th Avenue and 45th Street and began reading a paper with various “Jihad-type threats”.
Thanks to the quick response of Boro Park Shomrim, the suspect was quickly apprehended, and was placed under arrest by officers of the NYPD’s 66th Precinct.
Detectives from the NYPD INTEL Division are currently speaking with the ‘Middle-Eastern man’ at the 66 Station-House.
Deputy Inspector Peter DiBlasio along with Brooklyn South Chief Joseph Fox reminds the community “if you see something, say something”.
Additionally, Inspector DiBlasio tells YWN that there is no reason for concern, and assures the community that extra officers have been added to keep the streets safe throughout Purim.
The three along with a Muslim convert were part of a Birmingham terror cell whose leader was convicted of plotting to kidnap and behead a British soldier on video, the Old Bailey was told.
Using the earthquake in Pakistan in late 2005 as a cover, the three collected funds from their community on the pretext of sending out humanitarian aid.
Instead they diverted the money to buy vital equipment needed by the terrorists to fight coalition forces.
Spending tens of thousands of pounds in high street chains such as Aldi, Lidl, Argos, Millets and Maplins, the cell bought outdoor equipment and electrical goods not available over the counter in Pakistan.
Among the items were winter clothes, night vision goggles, laser sights, binoculars, compasses, first aid kits, tents, walkie-talkies, mobile phones and other equipment needed to equip the terrorists.
They also bought night time cameras and computer equipment for the "AQ media boys" to record the wills of suicide bombers and other propaganda material.
The three were seen by uncovered police delivering the goods to Parviz Khan's home in Alum Rock, Birmingham, who had him under surveillance when they discovered the supply line to the terrorists.
Using a hidden bug, they recorded Khan telling them they were the "tools doing the will of Allah."
Khan, who is currently serving a life sentence after being convicted of planning to murder a British Muslim member of the armed forces, was the "fanatical extremist" leader of the cell.
Muslims tore and performed other acts of desecration on Jewish prayer books and books of Psalms at Maarat Hamachpelah, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, according to HNN.
The desecration was discovered Monday evening as Jews gathered to read the Book of Esther as part of Purim observances. During the day, entrance was granted only to Muslims for a special day on their calendar.
A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.
According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, "Fahd" and "Hadian."
Fahd told the policeman that he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with duties such as enforcing dress codes, prayer times and segregation of the sexes. Under Saudi law, women face many restrictions, including a strict dress code and a ban on driving. Women also need to have a man's permission to travel.
A Muslim man set fire to a Coptic young man, murdered his father and wounded his younger brother, after it was rumored that the young Copt allegedly had a relationship with the Muslim man's sister.
The events took place in the small village of "Dmas" Meet-Ghamr, after a rumor spread around of a relationship between the 25-year-old Copt Shihata Sabri, and the sister of a Muslim man named Yasser Ahmed Qasim.
Yasser went to Coptic Shehata, holding a gasoline canister, poured it over him and set him on fire, as bystanders looked on in horror. The young Copt threw himself into the adjacent canal to try to put out the flames from his burning body. The fire left burns all over his body, leading to his death.
Following this incident, people in the village rallied and when the 60-years-old Sabri Shehata, father of the Coptic victim arrived, he was attacked by a group of Muslims stabbing him with knives and daggers; one stab penetrated his back to come out of his abdomen below the rib cage, resulting in his death, after being transferred to hospital.
A Coptic witness said that Yasser Ahmed, who is reputed to be a thug, and others have also beaten the Coptic victim's younger brother, 22-year old Rami Sabri Shehata, causing a deep injury to his head.
The security forces moved into the village of Dmas, which has a population of 60,000 people, including over 1000 Copts, surrounded the victims' house and deployed extra forces throughout the village.
The offenders were arrested together with the accused Yasser Ahmed Kassem and his friend, as well as the Copt Shehata Sabry who was held in custody in Dmas Hospital. The offenders were charged with deliberate homicide.
The body of Coptic victim Sabri Shehata was released for burial after prayers took place at the Church of Our Lady in the village of Dakados, which lies 20 kilometers from Dmas, amid a tight security siege.
A Muslim villager portrayed the incident as an honour killing stressing that it was because of Coptic Shehata Sabri teasing Yasser about a relationship he has with his sister, which prompted him and his friend to pour gasoline all over the Copt before setting him on fire. He denied that this incident will have an impact on the relations between the Muslims and Copts in the village.
The prosecution and the State Security Services are still investigating the incident amid media blackout.
In fact by my observations, it is even more complicated than that: the US Administration is being advised that any change in strategy in Afghanistan is better than the previous situation. It is being told that the surge model as applied in Iraq may work, if modified to meet Afghanistan’s “complexities.” The President must also be attracted to the idea that an “engagement” with some quarters of the Taliban will fit perfectly with the global idea of engagement, sit down and listening that he seems to have adopted for the entire region.
But many questions still need to be answered. Does the plan require a dialogue with the Taliban organization as a whole or with elements “within” the organization? Apparently the US channel is to be established with “elements” not with the leadership of the network. Then the next question is: if they aren’t part of the top leadership, are these elements able to sway the entire organization towards engagement? Apparently not, according to experts on the Taliban, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, the goal is to sway these factions – called moderates - from the Taliban, not to steer the entire group in another direction.
Here we have to pause and come to the first “complex” conclusion: while President Hamid Karzai has extended an olive branch to Mullah Omar to join the Government, an invitation quickly rejected, President Obama is announcing a more modest goal that is to identify “moderate elements” from the Taliban and “strike a deal with them.” But the modest narrative of the goal doesn’t make it necessarily reachable. Here is why.
If the “moderate Taliban” we’re looking to identify are “inside” the network, when they engage with the US, they will be lethally ejected by the hard core of the group, backed by al Qaeda. Hence the next question will be to know if those “dissidents” would actually secede and form a “moderate Taliban” organization working with the US and the Karzai Government. From the names available on such a list, including the former “Taliban ambassadors” to Pakistan and the international community and those who sought Saudi Arabia’s help in launching a dialogue, we can’t see strong commanders willing to surge militarily against the mother ship. As far as we can project, there are no leaders and radical clerics who would carry that task of establishing an all-out new “good Taliban,” even with millions of dollars as incentive. A Taliban civil war is not going to happen, for now. But is there another more attainable goal? According to the Obama Administration and some experts, there may be other options.
Little “talibans?”
In recent months a new concept has been pushed via the Defense and counter terrorism circles arguing that instead of chipping off from the actual “Taliban” militia on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, attention must be focusing on harvesting the local “taliban” (little ts). According to this theory, the little “ts” are individuals and groups who have joined the large umbrella under Mullah Umar but not the membership of the organization, or have proclaimed themselves as “taliban affiliates.” Hence, in comparison with the Iraqi Sahwa movement backed by US Coalition, these sub-militias of all walks of life would become the target of American political charm and dollars. If identified and reached out to – so believe the architects of the forthcoming Afghan “surge” - they will become the Afghani parallel to the Sahwas of Mesopotamia. Note that President Obama specified that it will be the “American military who would reach out to these moderate elements.” Meaning they will be dealt with from a lower level rather than from a full fledged diplomatic perspective.
In that case, unlike what the media has been speculating about, this is not a US dialogue with the party it is at war with, headed by Mullah Umar and his emirs. It is not even an attempt to break the mother ship into two and recuperate the more moderate branch. There are no takers for a massive retreat from the Taliban into the arms of Kabul’s Government or Washington’s “infidel” generosity.
In January I reported here at Pajamas Media on U.S. Army War College (USAWC) professor Sherifa Zuhur’s paean to the terrorist group Hamas, “Hamas and Israel: Conflicting Strategies of Group-Based Politics,” published by USAWC’s Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). In her monograph she claims that Hamas had “evolved” beyond their 1988 covenant calling for the destruction of Israel and the eventual murder of all Jews by Muslims, and that that Hamas has been misunderstood due to the misreporting by “Israeli and Western sources that villainize the group.”
I followed up that article last month with a report about the ongoing controversy between Zuhur and USAWC over their refusal to renew her contract. Last June she enlisted the support of Middle East Studies Association (MESA) president Mervat Hatem, who sent a letter to USAWC Commandant LTG Robert Williams repeating claims by Zuhur that she had been harassed and her academic freedoms had been infringed by USAWC.
I observed that Zuhur’s grievance-mongering with USAWC was merely a repeat performance of her claims of censorship and discrimination when her contract with the American University of Cairo (AUC) was not renewed in 2000. In that case, she had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming discrimination by AUC on the basis of gender and national origin. The EEOC found that her complaint had no basis and closed the case. She then took her case public by encouraging a letter-writing campaign directed at AUC leadership by fellow academics and ideological supporters. She then began a hunger strike in protest of the decision by the AUC Faculty Senate denying her appeal. Her efforts to win a contract renewal from AUC were unsuccessful and she wandered through several low-level academic positions before being hired by USAWC.
Last Wednesday the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Sherifa Zuhur had been suspended by USAWC beginning this week. According to the Chronicle, her suspension is the result of several incidents of professional misconduct, including threatening the school with forwarding her complaints, along with the MESA president’s letter and another letter sent to USAWC by the Council of America-Islamic Relations’ Pennsylvania chapter on her behalf, to the Arab Times.
Zuhur has also made a series of complaints against USAWC claiming sexual harassment, failing to accommodate her religious practices, and that SSI department chairman Steven Metz physically threatened her during a confrontation in her office, prompting her to faint. Unfortunately for her, a witness present during the incident involving Metz contradicted her account. A comment left on my last Pajamas Media article purportedly from Sherifa Zuhur included accusations that Metz and SSI staff had been responsible for my article (for the record, I have not had any direct communication with Metz or SSI officials).
Now this: He tells our troops Iraq is not their land so dont complain when they are shot at by snipers or blown up. This guy is a disgrace and I hope the FBI is watching him.
Here is the whole video it runs around 10 minutes. What I posted above is from the very end.
I have been harping on this for a long time. I have even pointed out jihadist websites for Somalia groups that are being hosted right here in the US. See here.
Minneapolis, Minn. — The FBI is looking into whether a group of Twin Cities men were recruited to fight in Somalia. But still unclear is who was responsible for spreading extremist ideology. Is there a recruiter lurking in the community? Or were the young men targeted through the Internet?
Sharmarke Jama was amused when two FBI agents showed up at his Minneapolis apartment. They wanted to ask him about a recent trip he took to Toronto.
The University of St. Thomas grad thinks the authorities stopped him as part of an ongoing investigation into the missing Somali-American men.
"It took a couple of minutes to realize I don't exactly fit the profile they were looking for," Jama said. "They asked me which mosque I attended, and I kind of laughed because I couldn't remember the last time I attended a mosque."
Jama looks urban-chic, wearing a black and white Puma jacket and jeans. He was born in Somalia, grew up in the United Arab Emirates, and now manages his family's daycare center in Minneapolis.
In his mind, the typical profile of a recruit is someone who is already fallible -- someone who feels anxious or disillusioned about his place in the United States, or someone who is at a religious crossroads in his life.
While Jama is no expert on terrorism, a recent report confirms his instincts.
Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy helped convene a task force on ways to counter radical extremism. Last week it recommended the U.S. engage in broader community outreach with mosques and Muslim community leaders.
He could be guilty as sin but it wouldn't matter to them.
To friends and family, he was a maturing leader in the Muslim community, a passionate writer who was departing for Saudi Arabia for a career as a pharmacist. But the arrest of Tariq Mehanna in November, as he was about to board a plane at Logan International Airport for his new life in the Middle East, has cast the 26-year-old in darker terms, as a liar supporting and associating with terrorists.
With an indictment in federal court, the Sudbury man faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison on charges of lying to investigators in a terrorism inquiry. But a community of supporters has rallied around him, questioning how Mehanna could have been ensnared in a federal case and whether he is being used a pawn in the FBI's war on terrorism.
"They're kind of painting the wrong picture of the Muslim community," said S. Ahmad Zamanian of Houston, a friend of Mehanna's. "Anyone who has met Tariq . . . would all tell you that this man is far removed from anyone's definition of a terrorist."
Mehanna has been released pending trial after his parents posted more than $1 million in surety, including their sprawling Sudbury home. His lawyers, led by J.W. Carney Jr. of Boston, are challenging the case.
But he is also fighting a separate battle to shed a stigma that has shadowed him since his arrest, as he faces scrutiny over his blog postings, his acquaintances, and his associations with people such as Daniel Maldonado, who later became the first American charged with terrorism activities in Somalia.
Just as often as Mehanna's friends have defended him, others have referred to him as an "Al Qaeda blogger." His interpretations of Arabic passages - seen as poetic by some - have been taken by critics as a promotion of Islamic fundamentalism.
"You can bet that the FBI arrest on relatively minor charges was taken because there was a reasonable fear that Mehanna was leaving the country to join or further support the jihad himself," said a blogger known as Rusty Shackleford, on the popular Jawa Report website he runs that monitors terrorism investigations.
I posted a story from the UK about a man that told his wife "read the Quran" while he was murdering her. See here. Well now the Daily Mail has now removed this reference to the Quran. See the story now here. Just another example of the UKs dhimmitude. Thanks to Jihad Watch for pointing this out.
