Al-Haramain refiles suit against US wiretapping

By Ghazanfar Ali Khan

RIYADH: In yet another blow to the American terrorist surveillance program, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation (AHIF) has refiled a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court accusing the Bush administration of illegal wiretapping.

The suit follows the recent dismissal by a US court of the original lawsuit filed by the Oregon-based American branch of the now-defunct AHIF, which was declared a terrorist organization by the US Treasury Department in 2004.

“The refiling of the suit has asserted that the Bush administration had circumvented the US Constitution by authorizing wiretaps,” M. Wendell Belew, president of the Friends of Charities Association (FOCA), said yesterday.

Belew added that the AHIF has gone back to court, accusing the Bush administration of intercepting phone calls between AHIF’s Saudi directors and two of their US-based lawyers.

Although no future hearings have been set yet, the new suit has emboldened the morale and efforts of AHIF officials, their lawyers and FOCA office bearers. Belew also spoke about systematic persecution of Islamic charities, while strongly condemning the new US Treasury Department action against the Indonesian and Filipino branches of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) for “raising funds” for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Read more ...

Source: Arab News

Saudi "Charities" and the War Against America

By Jamie Glazov

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Alex Alexiev, vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy.

FP: The U.S. government recently designated the infamous Saudi Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation as a terror financier. Tell us about Al Haramain.

Alexiev: Well, there is a lot to tell and a lot has been written about it already in the counterterrorism blog and elsewhere for those who want more detailed information. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission had a separate case study dedicated to it, but here it is in a nutshell:

The Al -Haramain Islamic Foundation (AHIF) is one of the three largest Saudi front organizations active in the support of terrorism going back many years, and has been involved in the funding of Al Qaeda, the bombing of the American embassies in Africa and all manner of jihadist activities in Pakistan, the Balkans, Chechnia, Kashmir and elsewhere. But it will be a mistake to think of it simply as a terrorism enabler. It is even more important as a key player in funding and promoting the hateful Wahhabi/Salafi creed and the seditious shariah doctrine worldwide including in the United States.

Here are just a few figures that will give you a sense of the magnitude of these efforts. Before we moved against it, it had 50 offices around the world and operated out of Saudi embassies in another 40 countries. An official Saudi source claimed in December 2000 that it had built 1100 mosques and Islamic centers, employed 3000 proselytizers and published 13 million Islamic books. Read more ...

Source: FrontPage Magazine

Lawyers for Oregon Islamic charity fight terror designation and U.S. govt

Lawyers for the charity and the government argued over the U.S. Treasury Department's declaration that the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation based in Saudi Arabia was a lobal [sic] terrorist organization.

This case is about much more than just fighting a terror designation. It goes to the heart of whether the U.S. government has the right to conduct secret surveillance of terrorism suspects on American soil. A government employees error released surveillance documents to the defense, and plenty of Bush hating, America hating lawyers seized the opportunity to hijack the case which is now in the hands of liberal Clinton and Carter appointed judges. Read more ...

Source: Creeping Sharia

Islamic Hatred in the Heartland

By Patrick Poole

Khalid Yasin is one of the most notorious Islamic hate sheikhs in the world today. He had been widely condemned from the US to Britain to Australia for his virulent Wahhabist extremism, his intense anti-Americanism (despite the fact that he is an American-born convert), his justification of Islamic terrorism, his wild-eyed conspiracy theories, and his outright racial and religious bigotry. And an Australian news investigation found that Yasin had claimed academic degrees that the schools had no record or, and also discovered that he had engaged in outright fraud in his building his international Islamic media empire.

So it is troubling to see that Khalid Yasin will be lecturing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio on May 16th, sponsored by Dayton’s Masjid-at-Taqwa.

For example, consider some of his stated positions and activities:

• Yasin says that the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks.
• Yasin claims that AIDS was invented at a US government lab and spread by Western governments through UN agencies and Christian missionaries.
• Yasin advocates for the death penalty for homosexuality.
• Yasin justified the terrorist bombings in Bali because of years of Western oppression.
• Yasin says that the Quran permits wife-beating and that equal rights for women is a “delusion” and “foolishness”.
• Yasin calls the beliefs of Christians and Jews “filth”.
• Yasin says that Muslims cannot have non-Muslim friends.
• Yasin rejects any separation between Islam and the state and openly advocates for the reestablishment of the caliphate.
• Yasin visited Jemaah Islamiah terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir in prison.
• Yasin has lectured with Hizb-ut-Tahrir hatemonger Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from the UK in 2006.
• Yasin was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11 soliciting the support of Al-Qaeda front Al-Haramain Foundation, which was designated a terrorist organization in 2004 by the US government, to help finance his Islamic Broadcasting Company. Read more ...

Source: FrontPage Magazine