Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

14 Dec 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Apple-Pie Jihad: US Muslims Fight Domestic Extremism

Apple-Pie Jihad: Homegrown terror takes root By Judith Miller A terrorist threat in our midst? By Colbert I. King US Muslims Fight Domestic Extremism Aisha Qidwae, IOL Staff Virginia mosque grapples with young members' arrest in Pakistan By Bob Drogin and Sebastian Rotella URL of this page: http://newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamWarOnTerror_1.aspx?ArticleID=2216 ----------- Apple-Pie Jihad: Homegrown Terror takes root By Judith Miller 11 December 2009 They are named David. They are clean-shaven dental students and attendees of community colleges. They study hard, play sports, and open Facebook accounts. Their friends call them “normal Joes.” And they’re being arrested in ever-growing numbers, would-be terrorists plotting to kill their fellow Americans and conduct “holy war” at home and abroad. Wednesday’s arrest in Pakistan of five Muslim-American men attests to a growing phenomenon: the radicalization of young American Muslims on American soil. When the New York Police Department first issued a 90-page report in August 2007 asserting that what it called “homegrown radicalization” was destined to become a major terrorist threat, many of the nation’s civil libertarians, self-proclaimed Muslim spokesmen, and even law enforcement officials were outraged. Civil libertarians warned that the NYPD’s conclusions would lead to religious and ethnic profiling in policing. Muslim groups demanded and got meetings with senior NYPD officials. FBI analysts and officials disputed the NYPD’s findings in interviews and congressional testimony. But the department stood its ground, and police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly backed his troops. The department’s intelligence division continued its research, and the report gradually found supporters in Washington. With the arrest of the five young Americans in Pakistan, and with the charges filed last month against recruiters from al-Shabaab alleged to have enlisted Somali teens in Minnesota to fight in the Somali civil war, the report’s once-controversial conclusions appear to be all too true. At a Tuesday conference for Operation Shield, an NYPD program that shares intelligence and security tips with local businesses and private security firms, Mitchell D. Silber, the NYPD’s director of intelligence analysis, outlined his analysts’ updated findings. His bottom line hadn’t changed, he told the audience of over 200. While al-Qaida remained a vital source of “inspiration and an ideological reference point,” the more insidious terrorist threat was younger Muslim men between the ages of 15 and 35 who had no direct al-Qaida connection but who had become radicalized by exposure to extreme interpretations of Islam. The NYPD had seen nothing that would mitigate its concern that members of New York’s diverse Muslim population of 600,000 to 750,000 people—about 40 percent foreign-born—might be vulnerable to radicalization. What was new, Silber said, was the department’s understanding of the growing importance of the “spiritual sanctioner”—a religious figure who provides justification for violence, often through mosque lectures or radical websites. A prime example, he said, was Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Sunni imam who had preached at Dar al-Hijrah in Falls Church, Virginia in 2001 and 2002. The 9/11 Commission concluded that two of the 9/11 hijackers—Hani Hanjour and Nawaf al-Hazmi—had worshipped at that mosque in spring 2001. So, too, did Major Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist whom the government has charged with the murder of 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas last month. Silber added that al-Awlaki’s radical tracts had been linked to plotters in three other terrorist schemes: plans by six radical Islamists in 2007 to attack the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey; the 2006 plot to blow up multiple jet aircraft in flight; and the plot by the so-called “Toronto 18” to detonate powerful truck bombs in downtown Toronto in 2005 and 2006. Silber said that the key plotters in 30 of some 33 plots that the NYPD had examined, or 90 percent, had been radicalized in the West and were targeting the country in which they had been radicalized. In the past year alone, Silber went on, U.S. authorities had uncovered nine plots that had elements of homegrown radicalization, indicating that radicalization was an ongoing problem in the U.S. In half a dozen of these cases, he said, people who had contemplated traveling abroad to carry out violence decided instead to try to do it within the United States. This kind of threat “is substantially greater than what we have seen in the past,” Silber said. I was reminded of a Pew poll of American Muslims three years ago that showed that a third of American Muslims between the ages of 18 and 29 said that they supported suicide bombings. Still, there may be some good news buried in the NYPD’s graphs and charts. First, the number of al Qaida-inspired, homegrown terrorist plots against the West peaked in 2004 (experts are still hotly debating why that year saw such a high number – perhaps as a reaction to the 2003 Iraq invasion). Second, almost none has succeeded. Except for the case of Major Hasan, who may or may not have had links with a militant Islamic group, there have been no lethal terror attacks in the West since the bombings of the London Tube and train stations in July 2005. Consider the five Muslim Americans arrested in Pakistan this week. Pakistani officials said that the five had used their American passports to travel to Pakistan to meet with representatives of Jaish-e-Muhammad, a banned Pakistani militant group with links to al-Qaida. The young men were said to be seeking training to conduct jihad in northwestern Pakistan and against American troops in Afghanistan. One had even recorded a farewell video to his family. Their overtures to terrorist groups were rejected, Pakistani officials said, because they lacked the requisite references from trusted militants. What’s encouraging is that the families of the five had reported them missing to law enforcement officials, and that a Muslim-American group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which itself has been accused by Steven Emerson and other terrorism analysts of helping radicalize American Muslims, encouraged the families to contact the FBI. And Nihad Awad, CAIR’s cofounder—who had previously been reluctant to acknowledge that the Muslim-American community had a problem with potential radicalization—finally acknowledged as much this week. The incident in Pakistan should remind us that in addition to the intelligence-led policing efforts of the NYPD and the FBI, our most powerful defense against Islamic radicalization and terrorism is the efforts of mainstream Muslim-Americans to help prevent extremists from carrying out their plots. Judith Miller is a contributing editor of City Journal, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a FOX News contributor. Source: City Journal, A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson. --- A terrorist threat in our midst? By Colbert I. King Saturday, December 12, 2009 As alumni notices go, it was one of the more opaque: "There are news reports that a Howard University student was arrested on Wednesday overseas. By law, universities must maintain the privacy of student records, and Howard is committed to that. "There is no evidence of imminent harm to the University community. Students who may be in need of counselling have been advised to contact the University Counselling Centre." As best can be determined, Howard students have not been flocking to the counselling centre in search of psychological support. Neither have they taken to their beds with covers over their heads. There's probably plenty of buzz on campus, however, particularly in the university's College of Dentistry. Ramy Zamzam, a 22-year-old Muslim and Howard dental student of Egyptian background, and four other young American Muslims were arrested in Pakistan this week. Pakistani law enforcement officials said Zamzam and his friends, all Northern Virginia residents, had met with an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Sargodha, a city in the north of Punjab province. They reportedly were seeking training in jihad, which they hoped to wage against American troops in Afghanistan. According to news accounts, the president of Howard's Muslim Student Association, Samirah Ali, who has known Zamzam for three years, said she never suspected Zamzam would be involved in radical activities. "He's a very nice guy, very cordial, very friendly," she said. The Post reported that friends and fellow worshipers at the Northern Virginia mosque that the five men attended were incredulous that they had travelled for jihad. The five were described as respectful and devout but not given to radical ideas or beliefs. This refrain is heard frequently in communities where news about possible local jihadists has surfaced. It has been heard in Detroit and Dallas. People have talked about it in Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C., and at Fort Hood, Tex. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano put a name on it last week. "Home-based terrorism is here," she said in a speech to the America-Israel Friendship League in New York City. "And like violent extremism abroad, it is now part of the threat picture that we must confront," she said. "We are," Napolitano told the audience, "seeing young Americans who are inspired by al-Qaeda and radical ideology." Some of those U.S. citizens are radicalized abroad or become adherents of violent, extremist ideologies, she said. That explains why the FBI has been arresting extremist suspects in the cities cited above. Some of those arrested appear to have not been well-trained terrorists but rather radicalized klutzes and hapless al-Qaeda wannabes. Nonetheless, their desires and intentions seemed clear, even if they lacked the means to carry out their plots. And that is what has animated the conversations where home-based radicals have surfaced. Their presence -- whether they are operating as a pack or as lone wolves -- comes as a surprise. They have materialized as a danger, a serious threat from within, driven by a radical ideology that respects only its adherents. President Obama, in his masterful speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, captured the nature of the threat posed by religious extremists. "Most dangerously," he said, "we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan." Obama noted that Islamic extremists aren't the first to kill in God's name. Other have done so, too, in the name of their religions. Those killings cannot be justified, Obama said. "For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint -- no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of one's own faith." This is a reality of violence unlike any this country has faced. Foreign wars and organized crime, yes. Gangs, serial killers, deranged gunmen, rapists and child molesters, you bet. This is different. The men who pulled off the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were motivated by something apart from greed, lust or a thirst for power. Their malice sprang from a belief that the world in which they lived could not be reconciled with the wider world around them. They were on a mission to kill without regard to race, color, age, gender, sexual orientation or religion -- except maybe those sharing their warped views. Which brings us back to the five young men from Northern Virginia. Their families, according to a lawyer, doubt they have been involved in the activities alleged by Pakistani authorities. That will be sorted out in the weeks ahead, and along with it some hard truths. kingc@washpost.com Source: Washington Post --- US Muslims Fight Domestic Extremism Aisha Qidwae , IOL Staff Awad told IOL they plan to launch a website to be an online resource center for Muslims who are vulnerable to extremist ideologies. WASHINGTON – Leading American Muslim organizations and community leaders are planning to launch a website and organize a summit where young Muslims can ask mainstream scholars questions as part of renewed efforts to combat extremism. "The idea is really to refute and counter the misuse of certain ayahs [verse of the Qur'an] and hadiths [sayings of Prophet Muhammad] that are commonly misused by recruiters or young people who do not understand the depths and circumstances of revelations and just juxtapose superficial and disconnected meaning to justify their actions," Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told IslamOnline.net. He described the website as an online resource center for Muslims who are vulnerable to extremist ideologies. The announcement coincided with reports about the arrest of five young American Muslims in Pakistan who are being investigated for possible extremist ties. Many believe they are the same students who disappeared in late November from northern Virginia and Washington, DC. Muslim families had reported the men missing, who are in their late teens to early twenties, to their local mosque, which called CAIR, the largest US Muslim advocacy group, which in turn informed the FBI. One of the missing young men left a farewell video in which he juxtaposed Qur'anic verses and common grievances in the Muslim world. US officials have not yet confirmed the identity of the young men held in Pakistan and their purpose for being there. Usman Anwer, the District police officer in Sarghoda, Pakistan, confirmed to IOL Pakistan correspondent that the five arrestees are US nationals, including two of Pakistani background, one Yemeni origin and two of Egyptian background. He identified them as Umer Farooq Ahmed, Ahmad Abdullah, Ramy Zamzam, Ihsan Hussein Yasser and Waqar-ul-Hassan Aman. A spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad told IOL they are working with the Pakistani government on the issue. Youth Mentoring Imam Bray told IOL they would organize a summit to reach out to young Muslims to do peer mentoring. In addition to putting together theological rebuttals to misused verses and hadiths, CAIR, along with Muslim organizations, is organizing a summit where young Muslims can ask mainstream scholars questions at this year's conference of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Muslim American Society. The annual conference will be held in Chicago from December 24 – 26. Imam Mahdi Bray, the Executive Director of MAS Freedom, said the summit will also reach out to young Muslims to do peer mentoring. "That will focus on positive solutions involving issues of hate, violence and intolerance," he told IOL. "One has to recognize that there are real issues here and abroad. We need their [youth] voices to see how constructively they want us to address these issues in a nonviolent way." Bray personally knows Zamzam, a dental student at Howard University. "If you said to me, that person would have gone to Pakistan to allegedly do what they're dong, that person would have been the last person in my mind to think like that." Imams Role Bray believes more imams and trained scholars should take steps to respond to incorrect ideas being promoted on the Internet, because young people get most of their information online and use social networking sites, blogs and links as modes of communications. "They’e not out here writing, they're not posting their stuff on the Internet," he said about scholars and prominent Imams. "Therefore, people are taking religious information in a vacuum." He cited the case of Nidal Hasan, a Muslim army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 fellow soldiers in a shooting spree at Fort Hood military base. Hasan reportedly exchanged online communications with Anwar Awlaki, an American imam of Yemeni origin now living in Yemen who is accused of preaching extremism and violence. Imam Bray said when someone says shooting unarmed civilians is worthy of praise, a comment attributed to Awlaki after the Fort Hood shooting, it deserves theological scrutiny from the Muslim community. Prominent Muslim scholar Dr. Jamal Badawi had refuted Awlaki's claim that the shooting tragedy was an act of Jihad against the enemies of Islam. "The Qur’an and Sunna allow the use of force only as a last resort and only in two cases; to resist oppression or in defense against aggression," he explains. "You don’t just sneak and attack without declaration. This is not in accordance with Islamic ethics," Dr Badawi told IOL after the attack. The Fort Hood shooting had also drawn immediate condemnation from all leading American Muslim organizations, including CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Imam Bray underlined the importance of a continued investment in American-born imams so they can respond to contemporary issues. "Is just going sitting in a Halaqa [religious discussion] gives enough solitude and knowledge and development for our young people today, or are we missing something?" he asked. "Is the Tarbiyah [education] within our organizations meeting the instructional needs and desires of our young people today? "That is the challenge for all of us." http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1260257840109&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout  Virginia mosque grapples with young members' arrest in Pakistan By Bob Drogin and Sebastian Rotella Sunday, Dec 13, 2009 The five young Americans from immigrant families reportedly 'never talked about politics' or violence. FBI and Pakistani officials are still investigating whether they sought to join a militant group. FBI and Pakistani officials are still investigating whether the young men Â? from left, Waqar Khan, Ramy Zamzam, Umer Farooq Chaudhry, Ahmed Abdullah Minni and Aman Hassan Yemer Â? sought to join a militant group. (Associated Press / December 11, 2009) By Bob Drogin and Sebastian Rotella December 11, 2009 | 8:06 p.m. Reporting from Washington and Alexandria, Va. - The bungalow-turned-mosque has no sign out front. It sits behind a Firestone tire store and across from a busy Dunkin' Donuts in a working-class neighborhood in suburban Virginia. Members of the unmarked mosque struggled today to understand how and why five well-liked members of the mosque's youth group went to Pakistan and were arrested on suspicion of seeking to join terrorist groups. "Those are our children," Essam Tellawi, the imam, said in an emotional sermon to about 30 worshipers after noontime prayers at the ICNA Center -- which is affiliated with the Islamic Circle of North America. "I could never describe the difficulties and hardships that our five families have been afflicted with." The young men belonged to a group of 12 to 15 who often went camping, played basketball and performed community service projects. "Our group never talked about politics" or waging war, said Mustafa Maryam, the youth leader who has known the five since 2006. In Pakistan, the Americans -- ages 18 to 25, the sons of immigrant families from Pakistan, Egypt and East Africa -- spent another day behind bars. A State Department spokesman said today that no charges were pending. Pakistani and U.S. officials suggested that deportation was likely, rather than prosecution in Pakistan, because the men apparently had not gone far with their alleged aspirations when police arrested them at a house in the city of Sargodha. But FBI agents and Pakistani officers still were investigating the men on suspicion that they had contacted militant leaders and planned to join an extremist group in the Al Qaeda stronghold of northwest Pakistan. Interior Minister Rehman Malik cautioned that deportation would not occur until the government was certain that the men did not commit crimes. If deported, the five could face prosecution in the United States for offenses such as conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists -- a charge used against alleged militants who try to join foreign networks, U.S. officials said. The families of the men, who all lived near the mosque, pleaded for privacy today and did not talk to reporters. "They are extremely worried about the safety of their sons and do not believe that they could have been involved in the kind of activities currently being reported by Pakistani officials," Nina Ginsberg, their lawyer, said in an e-mail. She added: "Their only concern is that their sons be safely returned . . . and they continue to look to the FBI and the State Department for assistance in securing their release." U.S. officials have praised the parents for making the agonizing decision to alert the FBI -- an effort that distinguishes the case from other recent incidents of suspected home-grown extremism. The five families expressed their anguish to the imam two weeks ago, after the youths disappeared. Their worries deepened when they discovered a video message left behind, according to a U.S. anti-terrorism official, by dental student Ramy Zamzam, 22. The Egyptian American is thought to be the leader of the group. In the video, Zamzam declared his plans to fight on behalf of Muslims, said the official, who requested anonymity when discussing the ongoing case. The video also showed images of American casualties, according to U.S. officials. "I would call it jihadist propaganda: He talks about the struggle, fighting for Allah," the anti-terrorism official said. Members of the mosque contacted a national Muslim group based in Washington, which helped them secure lawyers and contact the FBI. The imam broke the news at Friday prayers last week, urging the congregation to pray for the youths and to cooperate with federal investigators. "Even if people think this community is naive, we still hope for the safe return of these young men to their families," said Ashraf Nubani, the mosque's lawyer. He called them "wholesome, regular kids" who were "very polite." Umer Farooq Chaudhry, 25, lived next to the mosque with his parents, who run a computer business. A hand-scrawled "no trespassing" sign leaned against their white fence today. Farooq Chaudhry's parents had spent time in Pakistan in recent months and were at the house in Sargodha where the group was arrested, officials said. Police also detained Farooq Chaudhry's father, Pakistan officials said today. Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, lived down the street from the Alexandria mosque. His parents run a day-care center out of their home. Aman Hassan Yemer, 18, is of Ethiopian descent, as is Minni, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. Waqar Khan, 22, another Pakistani American, had a minor criminal record for offenses including misdemeanor embezzlement, according to U.S. officials. The mosque plans an internal inquiry to see whether the young men were recruited by outsiders or had followed firebrand sheiks or extremist videos on websites. "We want to know: What did we miss?" said Mahdi Bray, head of the Muslim American Society, an advocacy group based in nearby Falls Church, Va. "We saw these kids every day. In hindsight, what could we have done?" The suburbs of northern Virginia have experienced previous cases of Islamic extremism. Anwar Awlaki, the Yemeni American radical ideologue seen as an influence on militants -- including the gunman charged with killing 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, last month -- had served as an imam in the area. A dozen local extremists were convicted in Alexandria in recent years of terrorism-related offenses, such as training at militant camps in Pakistan. As they filed out of the mosque today, some worshipers spoke of the most recent incident in personal terms. "It's very disturbing," Elmar Chakhtakhtinski, an Azerbaijani, said as he huddled in the cold. "It's frightening to think that maybe the man praying next to you could be planning something truly terrible." bob.drogin@latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-pakistan-americans12-2009dec12,0,6677813.story --- URL of this page: http://newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamWarOnTerror_1.aspx?ArticleID=2216