American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (17 page)

We have discovered that among prominent groups that enjoy the wide protections granted in this country to “research,” “charitable,” or “civil-rights” organizations are several who provide significant support for terrorist organizations. All the groups included in this Appendix are radicalized. I have not included any group that accidentally hosted a militant speaker, for example; what follows is a rundown of groups whose leaders and key activities serve to support and enable terrorist activity, whether through fund-raising, recruitment, or propaganda.

It would be unfair to say these groups are engaged in actual terrorism. But the monies they raise support an entire spectrum of services and activities that support the agenda of radical Islamic ideology. In the United States, militant groups raise financial and military support for their networks in the rest of the world while spreading their
da‘wa
—political propaganda—designed to gain adherents. Money is solicited for
zakat
or charity for orphans, widows, and children. But much of this money goes explicitly to support the survivors of “martyrs”—terrorists who have died carrying out acts of violence. Suicide bombers have become common in the Middle East—just as they are now appearing here.

Although all charitable groups deny giving financial support to jihad, monies are commingled when disbursed. In a revealing admission, the
Friday Report,
a militant publication in Colorado, openly stated in 1995 that
zakat
is given for jihad so the “warrior (Mujahid) is equipped and given whatever he needs to fight for the cause of Allah…because he is unable to earn his living while fighting.”
¹
“These groups know money is fungible,” says former ambassador Paul Bremer, who served as head of the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism in the 1980s. “Every dollar that is raised to buy milk frees up money that can be poured into terrorist activities.”

Although there is no evidence that the myriad Islamic groups in the United States are coordinated centrally, evidence shows an ad hoc collaboration and cross-fertilization among these networks. Sheikh Rahman of Jersey City was sponsored by half a dozen innocent-sounding “charitable” and “religious” organizations while he was plotting to terrorize Manhattan.

The central tenet of MAYA is that Western society, particularly the United States, is morally corrupt and intrinsically evil. “In the heart of America, in the depths of corruption and ruin and moral deprivation, an elite of Muslim youth is holding fast to the teachings of Allah,” states the preface to MAYA’s constitution. A companion MAYA publication, “Guide for the Muslim Family in America,” does not hide its revulsion for the West: “Western civilization is based upon the separation of religions from life [whereas] Islamic civilization is based upon fundamentals opposed to those of Western civilization.” Muslim women are specifically warned to be “conscious of the evils of Western civilization.”

MAYA conferences provide social reinforcement to Muslims living in the United States and profess to protect them from secularized Western culture. But they also provide a forum for the expanding militant jihad. “There lies Rome waiting again!” said the welcoming message to MAYA’s fifteenth annual convention in Oklahoma City in 1992. The implication, of course, was “an empire waiting to fall.” A panoply of radical groups hawked their wares promoting Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about twenty-five other groups.

These conferences typically have “bazaars” or markets where different organizations set up booths to garner support for their many causes. At the booth for the Islamic Association for Palestine, books extolling the conspiracies between Jews and the United States abounded. When I asked how one could help the cause of Palestine, the young man at the table replied, “First you must understand who our enemies are.” Then he handed me a pamphlet entitled “America’s Greatest Enemy: The Jew!” Copies of the Hamas charter described the inner workings of the global conspiracy of Jews and Western “crusaders” to destroy Islam.

One of the highlights of the four-day conference was the “Palestine Evening,” restricted to Muslims and would-be converts. In his trademark raspy voice, Kamal Helbawi, a leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood based in Pakistan, delivered a spellbinding address. Two years before, Helbawi had demanded that the borders of Jordan be open “so that Muslim youth can confront the Jews and the Americans at once.” On this night he was giving the keynote address. “Oh noble Brothers,” he began, “the Palestinian cause is not a conflict over borders and land only. It is not a conflict over thought or human ideology. It is not a conflict over peace alone. Rather it is an absolute clash of civilizations, between truth and falsehood—a conflict between two inclinations, a Satanic inclination led by Jews and their allies and a divine inclination, led by Hamas, the entire Islamic movement, and the Islamic people standing behind them.”
²

Helbawi was followed by Khaled Mishal, a Hamas operative from Sudan, who lauded the “heroism of Hamas fighters.” “Since the Muslim nation of Palestine has decided to take matters into its own hands, it has decided to engage in Jihad to reclaim their land of Palestine. This blessed
intifada
was evoked by Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, the weak and paralyzed man who caused the earth to shake under the feet of the occupiers. Since that time the Palestinian people have shown examples of sacrifice and human courage. Among the proof are their Molotov [cocktails] and knives.”
³
Mishal went on to deliver a Hamas “state-of-the-union” report.

After Mishal, Ibrahim Muzayyin asked for contributions from the increasingly emotional crowd, which frequently interrupted with chants of “Allahu akbar!” (Allah is great!). Muzayyin specifically asked that contributions be given to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. At the time, I was just back from the Gaza Strip. Listening to all this incendiary invective being spouted in Oklahoma City was a little unreal. The most intense moment came when the crowd of several thousand joined to chant: “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud; Jay’sh Muhammad saufa ya‘ud!” which means “Kaybar, Kaybar, O Jews! The Army of Muhammad Will Return!” This contemporary chant is to remind Jews of Muhammad’s victory over them and the annihilation of some of the Jewish tribes in the seventh century of the common era.

Although the Crusades took place 900 years ago, you would think they happened yesterday. From Bosnia to Kashmir, from Palestine to the Philippines to the United States, it is said, Muslims are being subjected to vicious genocidal assaults that require the response of militant Islamic youth. The reaction of MAYA’s Arabic newspaper to my video was “Jihad in America: The Crusades Continue!”

Men and women are kept separate at MAYA conferences, although they mix in the halls and elevators. Almost all the women wear traditional Muslim headscarves. Half the attendants are younger than twenty, a microcosm of the dramatic demographic changes in the Muslim world. In 1995 in Toledo the mood of the gathering was upbeat. Islamic fundamentalists had scored big victories in Egypt and Algeria. In the Philippines rebels had made dramatic gains. The siege of Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya only served to reinforce the charge that the crusades persisted. Finally, in Palestine, Hamas suicide attacks had once again penetrated the Zionist enemy in his very home.

Two floors below was a mass-market bazaar of Muslim paraphernalia. Sprinkled throughout were books on Jews. One (still available) was entitled “The Struggle for Existence Between the Quran and the Talmud.” It described in methodical detail the evil traits and subhuman qualities of Jews, routinely referring to them as “children of snakes” and “descendants of apes.” Another was an Arabic translation of a Nazi publication, updated to include evils committed by Jews against Muslims. A children’s coloring book in Arabic featured caricatures of evil-looking, hook-nosed bearded characters emblazoned with Jewish stars. Several editions of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” along with “Freemasons and Christians Conspiracy Against Islam” and “The Myth of Jesus Christ” adorned the shelves.

The Committee to Free Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman did a brisk business collecting donations for the imprisoned mullah. “U.S. War on Islam and Its Scholars” proclaimed the brochure of the American Islamic Group in San Diego. The sheik’s indictment, the pamphlet proclaimed, was a “prelude for a U.S. government campaign against all Muslim activists.” It was “proof that Islam in America is targeted by the U.S. government. After four of the brothers were convicted in the WTC bombing, the court marshals threw the Qurans that the brothers were holding on the floor and then stepped on it [
sic
]. They said, ‘Call Allah to help you now!’ This is a case against Islam and not against these 16 Muslims.” Another broadside called for the reinstatement of the Islamic Caliphate and condemned the “evil systems of capitalism and democracy.”

But the main attraction at MAYA conferences was the charismatic speakers. Kamal Helbawi has been a perennial favorite. At MAYA’s 1994 meeting about killing women and children with car bombs, he responded, “Children will grow up to be Golda Meir or Shimon Peres.” Bassam al-Amoush, who at the time was a leader of the Islamic bloc in the Jordanian Parliament, opined, “Once in a mosque, somebody asked me, ‘If I see a Jew on the street, should I kill him?’ I said, ‘Don’t ask me. After you kill him come and tell me.’” The crowd roared with laughter. “What do you want from me, a
fatwa
[religious ruling]?” he persisted. “A good deed does not require one.”
⁴

Minutes later a messenger interrupted al-Amoush’s lecture, handing another speaker a note. A hush fell over the conference room. “We have good news,” the speaker proclaimed. “A Palestinian policeman has carried out a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Three were killed and fifteen wounded. Hamas claims responsibility for the incident.” The crowd responded ecstatically with shouts of “Takbir! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
⁵

At the 1997 MAYA conference held in Ontario, California, Egyptian cleric Sheikh Wagdy Ghuneim made a presentation. In his speech, Sheikh Ghuneim, in reference to four suicide bombings that took place in Israel in 1996, stated, “Those young people who explode themselves to kill the Jews were not committing suicide but jihad. They are mujahideen because there is no way to struggle and fight the Jews except that way. Allah bless those martyrs.”
⁶

Aside from its own publications, the AIG disseminated communiqués of Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. One of the most radical groups endorsed by the American Islamic Group was the GIA, a terrorist organization whose
raison d’être
is the overthrow of the “un-Islamic government” of Algeria. The American Islamic Group served as a distribution center in the United States for such GIA publications as
Al-Murabitoun, Al-Qital,
and
Sawt Al-Jihad.
⁹
According to the American Islamic Group, the GIA is “the only legitimate leadership of Muslim resistance in Algeria.”
¹⁰
Reports of the numerous atrocities committed by the GIA appeared daily on the
Islam Report—
including a particularly gruesome attack in which GIA members kidnapped and decapitated seven French monks. Algeria has been one of the bloodiest battlegrounds in the world in recent decades, with militant Islamic rebels and the secular military government slaughtering tens of thousands in their struggle with one another. Anwar Haddam, the leader of Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front, allied with the GIA, attempted to obtain political asylum here in 1993. Though the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) determined in December 1996 that he had been directly involved in promoting acts of terrorism and refused his asylum request, Haddam has since been released from INS custody and is currently residing in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.