The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations' ties to terrorism are not limited to Hamas and cross over to al-Qaida, America's No. 1 enemy, a top-selling new book alleges.
In just one of several shocking and previously unreported findings, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America" details a secret meeting between CAIR's founding chairman and al-Qaida's spiritual leader in America – blind Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman – who is now a convicted terrorist. Al-Qaida's top leaders have vowed revenge for the federal imprisonment of the Egyptian-born cleric.
CAIR has come under fire in the past for supporting the Blind Sheik, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing investigation. But the group maintains "this is a lie. No evidence substantiating this falsehood has ever been offered."
However, "Muslim Mafia" – co-authored by former federal agent P. David Gaubatz and investigative journalist Paul Sperry – reveals that around the time the Blind Sheik was plotting to bomb major New York landmarks, he traveled from New York to San Jose, Calif., to meet privately with Omar M. Ahmad, CAIR's long-time chairman, who is now under active federal investigation.
The CAIR leader allegedly hosted the senior al-Qaida figure and his phalanx of bodyguards at his home, according to the book. Just a few years later, the Blind Sheik's longtime Egyptian friend Ayman al-Zawahiri, now second in command of al-Qaida, showed up at a San Jose mosque led by Ahmad and other Muslim Brotherhood figures. The mosque hosted a fundraiser for him.
Ahmad, aka Omar Yehia, this year abruptly stepped down from CAIR's national board after U.S. prosecutors named him an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal plot led by the Holy Land Foundation charity to underwrite Palestinian terrorism. The trial, which ended in convictions on all 108 felony counts, marked the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history.
"During that trial," assistant FBI Director Richard C. Powers this April wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, "evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and its Executive Director) and ... HAMAS, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1995."
Source: WND