Free Republic

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 29 - A prominent Islamic leader who has met with President Bush and been an aggressive defender of militant Middle East causes was charged today in connection with possible terrorist financing. The leader, Abdurahman Alamoudi of Falls Church, Va., was detained on Sunday at Dulles International Airport in Virginia after a flight from London. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Alamoudi had been arrested for making illegal trips to Libya and for accepting money from the Libyan government. Mr. Alamoudi, a naturalized American citizen, was born in Eritrea and moved to the United States from Yemen in 1979. He...

Friends in high places WASHINGTON -- The rumpled, balding figure was spotted darting into the offices of Republican power broker Grover Norquist last July. When Sami Al-Arian emerged more than two hours later, someone was waiting for him. Conservative activist Frank Gaffney, whose think tank on national security issues has offices on the same floor, was eager to confirm a tip that the suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative was next door. Best known for his high-profile campaign for a "Star Wars" national missile defense system, Gaffney for months had been quietly pursuing another project: trying to convince the Bush administration...

"TERRORIST RECRUITMENT AND INFILTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES: PRISONS AND MILITARY AS AN OPERATIONAL BASE. " Testimony of Dr. Michael Waller Annenberg Professor of International Communication The Institute of World Politics October 14, 2003 Statement of J. Michael Waller Annenberg Professor of International Communication Institute of World Politics Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security Senate Committee on the Judiciary 14 October 2003 Thank you, Chairman Kyl, and members of the Subcommittee for holding this important series of hearings. Thank you also for inviting me to testify on the subject of terrorist penetration of the U.S. military...

WASHINGTON -- Nine days after the federal government raided their homes and businesses, leaders of an alleged terror financing operation were given the opportunity to question the agency investigating them. The meeting on March 29, 2002, in the office of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is an example of the political clout of what the government calls the "Safa Group," a web of companies and nonprofits based in northern Virginia. One week later, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill met with Muslim leaders with connections to the Safa Group to hear complaints about the raids. The leaders are suspected of running more...

ALEC “The Bloviator” Baldwin has a new bosom buddy: Beltway Republican strategist Grover Norquist. The Bush-bashing actor-turned-activist and the Muslim vote-courting political organizer joined together at a Washington, D.C.-area conference last weekend to perpetuate bald lies about the Patriot Act and to oppose the “repressive” War on Terror (repressing terrorist suspects apparently being a bad thing). Baldwin and Norquist’s panel, titled “Strange Bedfellows,” was sponsored by the ultraliberal group People For the American Way (PFAW). When PFAW head and panel participant Ralph Neas ranted about the lack of judicial and congressional oversight of the Justice Department’s terror investigations, the audience...

ABDURAHMAN ALAMOUDI is a prominent American Muslim leader, welcomed by presidents and founder of the Muslim chaplain program for the U.S. military. Now he's in jail, caught heading to Syria with $340,000 in cash, money prosecutors believe came from Libya. According to FBI counterterrorism chief Steve Pomerantz, “It's very hard to explain in any innocent way a suitcase full of money going from one terrorist-sponsoring nation to another terrorist-sponsoring nation.” AUDIOTAPE EXAMINED U.S. investigators speculated in court that the money was headed for Hamas or another terror group in Syria. A British document obtained by NBC News describes Alamoudi as...

<p>WASHINGTON - On Aug. 20, 2001, Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman Hussayen, a man who would soon be named a minister of the Saudi government and put in charge of its two holy mosques, arrived in the United States to meet with some of this country's most influential fundamentalist Sunni Muslim leaders.</p>

(Daniel Pipes' Weblog, Visit http://www.danielpipes.org) Dark Days for North American Islamist Organizations? The Islamist establishment in the United States and Canada must be wishing that September 2003 never happened.Evan McCormick shows in "A Bad Day for CAIR" how on a single day, Sept. 10, the Council on American-Islamic Relations took three blows: "It ran away from testifying before an influential Senate panel that heard a barrage of incriminating evidence about the group and its connections. It saw one of its former officials plead guilty to terrorist-related crimes in Federal Court. And, it was stood up by two Department of...

Two held over US fears of radical cell in forces By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 24/09/2003) The United States military is urgently investigating a potential radical Muslim cell among its own servicemen at the Guantanamo Bay prison as it emerged yesterday that two more members of the garrison are in custody. Senior Airman Ahmad I al-Halabi, an Arabic language translator, was secretly arrested a month ago, Pentagon officials said last night. He is being held at an air base in California and is charged with more than 30 counts of espionage, aiding the enemy, disobeying a lawful order and...

FBI directors don't make a habit of breaking bread with organizations their agents may soon be investigating, perhaps even closing. Robert S. Mueller III, however, is about to make precisely this blunder: On June 28, he is scheduled to deliver a lunch talk to the American Muslim Council. Mueller accepted this invitation, his spokesman Bill Carter explains, because the FBI regards the AMC as "the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States." The AMC does indeed seek to convey a message of moderation. Its event this month, for example, is reassuringly titled "American Muslims: Part of America." AMC also...

"...[John Muhammad] Williams’s unit was sent to Operation Desert Storm to clear mines and bulldoze holes in enemy lines. A few nights before the invasion of Iraq, Sergeant Berentson awoke in the early hours to find his tent, with 16 sleeping men inside, on fire. Someone had tossed in a thermite grenade. Berentson, who was fed up with Williams’s insubordination, immediately suspected Williams and told the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division. Berentson says he last saw Williams being led away in handcuffs. Williams’s military records make no mention of the incident; indeed, they suggest Williams had a distinguished gulf-war stint. But...