 Here's the full text of the letter from Abdul Hakim Muhammad, the man who murdered an Army recruiter in Little Rock and tried to kill a second, to the judge presiding over his trial. I've transcribed it as written, hence all the mispelling, capital letters, and lack of paragraphs. Emphasis, though, is mine: To Judge Wright Jr.
From Abdul Hakim Muhammad I'm writing this because I wish to plead guilty. To all charges I'm facing. Without deals without respite. I wrote the prosecutor and Federal Buerau of Investigations and TBI (Tenn. Buerau of Investigation. Informing them of all of the acts I was involved in around or about May 29 - June 1 2009. I do not wish to recieve funds for my defense. I don't wish to have a trial. I'm affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Member of the Abu Basir's Army. This was a Jihadi Attack on infidel forces. That didn't go as plan. Flat out Truth. I plead to capital Murder, Attempt capital Murder and The other 19 counts without compulsion without Deals. My lawyer and prosecutors have fail to comply. I wrote John Johnson informing him of this. He responded I couldn't plead guilty to capital Murder Case. Which I think is a lie. That's why I'm writing you my lawyer has no defense. I wasn't insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this Act. Which I believe and it is justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religious Jihad To fight Those who wage war on Islam and Muslims. At the next hearing I look forward to pleading guilty and Await sentencing. Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad
11 pm 1/12/2010 I really have nothing to add. This was an act of individual jihad. The Abu Basir mentioned in the letter who's army Mr. Muhammad claims to be a member of is Abu Basir al-Wahishi, the Yemeni head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Even if he never received training from AQAP, just knowing who leads the group seems to me an indication that he traveled in jihadi circles (probably online0. I would direct you to read Ace's thoughts on the matter and I'll just echo his sentiment.
As Nidial Hassan taught us: one does not need to formally belong to a terrorist organization to inflict a lot of death and suffering in their name. Thanks to John in Little Rock for the copy of the letter. With thanks to the Jawa Report
 Last year in an unprecedented event at CPAC, Geert Wilders met Joe Sixpack, and it was good. This year, Atlas does not disappoint. We are ratcheting it up a few notches. Robert Spencer and I are organizing a joint venture to educate, elucidate and scare the bejeezus outta ya. THIS IS A NOT A CPAC EVENT - THIS IS A GELLER-SPENCER EVENT. Jihad: The Political Third Rail
What they're not telling us about the war on America It's Friday, February 19th from 10 am until Noon. We are still firming our speakers up, but here is a list of the invited: Wafa Sultan [confirmed]
Doctor, author, “A God Who Hates" Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff [confirmed]
Criminal complaint filed for “hate speech” under Austrian law
Human Rights Activist Steve Coughlin [confirmed]
Leading Islamic Specialist at the Pentagon, who was fired by Islamic infiltrators Simon Deng
Former Slave in Sudan, leading human rights activist against jihad Lt. Colonel Allen West [confirmed]
Running for Congress, Future Leadership Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer Invited: Rifqa Bary [invited]
teenage apostate Kurt Westergaard [invited] Danish cartoonist targeted for death by axe-wielding Muslim Marriott Wardman Park Hotel 2660 Woodley Road, NW Washington, District Of Columbia 20008 10 am until Noon
The latest assassination attempt on Kurt Westergaard's life by an axe-wielding Muslim (in his home with his five year old granddaughter present) has thrown an axe a wrench into this ............ Rifqa Bary is a free American. She should be free to speak anywhere she wants. Should she not? Plan to be at CPAC this year, or at least in DC, and set aside Friday, February 19th from 10 am to noon. I need your help getting it off the ground. I will not be charging for attendance, but it costs. No one underwrites me. No one. Not a penny. All of these right wing organizations have donors, big donors, small donors .... and fund raising arms. They are, by their very nature, fund raising machines. Not Atlas. More details at Atlas. With thanks to Atlas
 You would be excused for thinking that the Wahabbi religious establishment of Saudi Arabia and the religion guarantees of our First Amendment have no more in common than fire and water.
But I think this oddest of odd couples helps to explain two recent events involving American Muslims and the rest of us -- instances of so-called “home-grown” Islamist terrorism, such as the Fort Hood murders, and the resentment being reported among American Muslims at FBI and other law-enforcement-agency activities at U.S. mosques. To be sure, the religious values the First Amendment protects -- freedom of worship, the nonestablishment of a state church -- are diametrically opposed to the religious dispensation in the Saudi state. There, the free exercise of religion is not only not guaranteed; it is scorned, banned, and prosecuted. Christianity is a crime, and don’t even ask about Judaism. There, by all accounts, Wahabbi Islam is not merely the established state religion but also an institution whose control of Saudi life more nearly resembles a totalitarian government than the Anglican establishment, whose like the First Amendment forbade.
The Saudi minister of the interior, His Royal Highness Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, who runs their religious establishment, recently ordered a 75-year-old woman flogged with 40 lashes for “prohibited mingling.”
But the First Amendment seems to be the Wahabbi establishment’s best friend here in the U.S. “First Amendment concerns” seem to be a principal reason why, for nearly 30 years, the U.S. government has turned a blind and even benign eye on the creation within the U.S. of a network of Wahabbist mosques and related Wahabbist entities paid for and frequently staffed by the Saudi establishment -- a network now bearing bitter fruit.
That such a network exists is beyond fair dispute. The website of the late King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz (Fayed’s brother) boasts of having funded mosques in prime and not so prime venues: New York; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles (two different ones); Chicago (three different ones); northern Virginia; Columbia, Mo.; Toledo, Ohio; and elsewhere.
The total number of Wahabbi-funded mosques in the U.S. is huge: Hussain Haqqani, a recent Carnegie Endowment scholar and now Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., estimates that Wahabbis with pro-Saudi leanings dominate 800 of the estimated 1,200 mosques in this country. Stephen Schwartz, an Islam expert (and no relation to me), estimates the total number of Wahabbi-financed mosques at “only” 600. Business Week editor Paul Barrett’s carefully reported -- and liberally oriented -- study American Islam demonstrates that the lavish Saudi expenditures have given Wahabbism a hold on many American mosques, which is either impressive or appalling, depending on how you feel about flogging 75-year-old women.
Moreover, ancillary organizations created or maintained by Wahabbist funders include the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, and others.
Even non-Saudi-financed mosques often employ Saudi or other Arab imams who have been sent here by the World Muslim League, a vehicle created and financed by Saudis for spreading Wahabbism around the world. Barrett’s book further reports that the Saudis pay American converts to Islam -- mostly African-Americans -- to go to Saudi Arabia, receive Wahabbist instruction, and come back here to serve as imams at U.S. mosques.
American law has treated the religious network created by this huge flow of Wahabbist money into the U.S. just as ut would treat mosques created and financed by U.S. citizens, with the full protection of the First Amendment.
The governing presumption is that their activities cannot be regulated -- or even monitored -- by government officials any more than those of an American mosque can. For example, because of First Amendment concerns, religious institutions do not have to receive advance approval from the IRS to claim tax-exempt status, as virtually all other charitable organizations do. For the same reason, religious institutions are exempt from filing the annual information return (Form 990) -- which reports on the institution’s sources and use of funds -- required of all other tax-exempts. “Mosques” are religious institutions for these purposes, and the law makes no distinction between mosques organized and paid for by Americans and those organized and paid for King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz or his whip-wielding brother.
Likewise, efforts by the FBI and other law-enforcement bodies to find out what is being said at public worship services in mosques have been condemned by the ACLU and sharply questioned in senatorial hearings as violating the guarantee of freedom of religion -- again, without any recognition of any distinction between King Fahd’s mosques and American mosques.
No effort is made to exclude Wahabbist imams from the rolls of those who preach to Muslims in our prisons –- a rather volatile population; to the contrary, for many years, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons relied on a Saudi-financed organization to pick Muslim chaplains. Just last summer, the U.S. attorney general chose as the venue for an “outreach” visit the Umar bin Al Khattab Mosque in San Francisco, one of the mosques financed by King Fahd.
This Wahabbi network has now been linked to incidents of “home-grown terrorism.” The Fort Hood murders are the most appalling case, in which an American citizen acted out in violent jihadist fashion after attending a Saudi-financed mosque.
Major Nidal Hasan was a congregant of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, in Falls Church, Va. –- part of an area known to some as Northernvirginiastan, or the Wahabbi Corridor. Dar al-Hijrah’s membership rolls also include a rogues’ gallery of terrorist sympathizers and participants, at least two now serving long prison sentences, another deported, a third an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center case, and two now fondling virgins in the hereafter -- two of the 9/11 perpetrators. The five Americans who were detained in Pakistan earlier this month on suspicion of aiding a Pakistani terrorist group worshiped at the I.C.N.A. Center in Alexandria, Va. One is not stunned to discover that that mosque is affiliated with the Islamic Center of North America, which in turn is closely affiliated with the Muslim American Society, described by Islam expert Schwartz as a “major component of the ‘Wahabbi lobby’” in the U.S.
No one can say for sure whether there is really a cause-and-effect relationship between attendance at a Saudi-financed or Saudi-affiliated mosque and recruitment to violence and terrorism. And it is also true that there have been instances –- like the Lackawanna Six –- of Americans who turned to jihadism not attending Saudi mosques.
But the questions we ought to be asking are these: Do we have to take the chance that imported Wahabbism is creating physical danger for Americans? Does something in our law require us to permit the Wahabbi religious establishment of Saudi Arabia to create Wahabbist institutions in the U.S.?
I think the answer is plain: absolutely not.
The assumption that American law cannot distinguish between Saudi mosques and American mosques is baseless. There is no case holding that a foreign religious establishment is entitled to claim the protections of the First Amendment.
Indeed, in all the voluminous jurisprudence that has grown up around the First Amendment, there is nothing that even suggests that its protections apply to the Wahabbist enterprise of planting on American soil mosques and affiliated organizations whose financing and organization are in the hands of a foreign religious establishment.
The words of Mr. Justice Jackson in a somewhat related context come to mind: “Such extraterritorial application of organic law would have been so significant an innovation in the practice of governments that, if intended or apprehended, it could scarcely have failed to excite contemporary comment. Not one word can be cited” (Johnson v. Eisentrager). More at Commentary Magazine H/T: David F. 
 By: Steve Emerson Given the raw number of terrorist plots this year, it shouldn't come as a surprise that 2009 is ending with an attempt to blow a commercial airliner out of the sky.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed bombing plot stands out in part because it appears to have been designed and launched from abroad.
Homegrown American Islamist terror became impossible to ignore this year: Two fatal attacks on the U.S. military — one killing an Army recruiter, the other a mass murder of soldiers; an intercepted plot considered the biggest domestic threat since 9/11; and a series of conspiracies to blow up synagogues, office buildings, and other targets made 2009 the year homegrown American Islamist terror became a clear, serious threat.
An American stands accused of playing a key role in scouting targets in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed more than 170 people. Five college students gave up promising futures to try to join the jihad against American soldiers in Afghanistan. And two young men were convicted for working with Pakistani militants in plots at home and abroad.
The Nov. 5 Fort Hood massacre was the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. Six months earlier, Muslim convert Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad shot and killed Army recruiter William Long in Little Rock, Ark. Muhammad told police "he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," and that he would have shot more people if he had seen them outside the recruiting office.
This spike in violence and planned attacks got the White House's attention. President Obama noted in his speech at West Point explaining the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan: "In the past few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror."
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano cited the case of Najibullah Zazi (a U.S. resident charged with planning to detonate a weapon of mass destruction who allegedly trained with al-Qaida): "We are seeing young Americans who are inspired by al-Qaida and radical ideology. We are seeing increasing links" between al-Qaida and American citizens "for purposes of planning terrorist attacks."
These and other recent arrests of Islamist terror suspects on U.S. soil should debunk a popular illusion: that the United States has been so successful at integrating Muslims into American life that it need not worry about homegrown radicalization, said Zeyno Baran, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Eurasian Policy.
"I think there was always a little bit of denial here," Baran told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. "People have been repeating the mantra that 'America is different' " from Europe.
Baran warned against exaggerating the potential benefits of integrating Muslims better into American culture to prevent radicalization. She noted, for example, that the British doctors who attempted to carry out a series of car bombings in London and Glasgow two years ago appeared to be well-integrated medical professionals. But the outward signs of professional and social success masked the reality that they had become devoted jihadists.
And FBI counterterrorism chief Steve Pomerantz expressed skepticism about the idea that better integration of Muslims would reduce the jihadist threat. "You only become integrated if you want to," he said during an interview.
Noting that many of the Muslims who immigrated to Europe in recent decades showed little interest in integrating themselves, Pomerantz said the United States needs to accept the possibility that American Muslims may follow the European model.
He believes the jihadist danger in the United States is likely to worsen. More at Newsmax
 If a major homegrown terrorist attack happens on U.S. soil in the coming years, 2009 will be looked at as the year when the warning signs were missed. According to the Rand Corporation, the U.S. has experienced 30 homegrown terrorism plots since 9/11. One-third of these occurred in 2009; a frightening spike that warrants more attention than it is currently being given by public officials. The Obama Administration began its term by refusing to include terms like “radical Islam” as part of its lexicon. The Global War on Terrorism was alternatively called an “overseas contingency operation” or “a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm.” The Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, described terrorism as a “man-caused disaster. When asked about not even mentioning the word “terrorism” in her first address to Congress, she said, “That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear towards a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.” The homegrown terrorist activity this year has startled the Obama Administration, which now is forced to privately conclude that the radicalization of American-Muslims is increasing. In today’s 30-second news culture, shocking incidents such as these quickly fade away as the topic of coverage as other news develops. A summary of some of the biggest incidents this year is needed for the American people to understand how much activity took place: * In May, authorities broke up a plot by four prison converts to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and fire Stinger missiles at aircraft flying around the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York. * On June 1, a Muslim convert shot up a military recruiting center in Arkansas, killing one soldier and wounding another. The attacker, Abdulhakim Muhammad, was previously jailed in Yemen for traveling on a fraudulent Somali passport. Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org reported that a “well-placed source” informed him that he had gone to Yemen to try to study under a radical cleric named Yahya Hajoori. * In July, seven Muslims were arrested in North Carolina for training with high-powered weapons in preparation to join a jihad overseas. The leader of the group, Daniel Patrick Boyd, had previously trained in guerilla camps in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and enlisted his two sons in his plans. * In September, FBI and local law enforcement raided two apartments owned by Afghans in New York after the occupants were visited by Najibullah Zazi, a suspected terrorist who had traveled to an Al-Qaeda training camp last year. Nine backpacks and cell phones were confiscated, and Zazi was found to have purchased chemicals similar to those used in the 2005 London subway bombings, causing concern that the suspects were planning an attack styled after that operation. * Also in September, FBI sting operations led to the arrest of two desiring to carry out acts of terror. A Jordanian named Michael Finton, an admirer of the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, was arrested for planning to set off car bombs outside of a courthouse in Illinois and a skyscraper in Texas. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was arrested in Texas after trying to detonate a decoy car bomb underneath an office tower. * In October, the FBI tried to arrest a radical imam in Detroit connected to a range of criminal activity. When they arrived at a warehouse to get Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, he responded with gunfire, killing one of the FBI’s dogs before he was shot and killed. Six of his associates were arrested. In the same month, Tarek Mehanna was arrested in Boston for planning to attack a shopping mall and assassinate two public officials. * The next month, Nidal Malik Hassan carried out the horrific shooting at Fort Hood, killing 13 people. He is now known to have previously expressed his support for suicide bombers and to have communicated with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical imam in Yemen who has acted as a recruiter for Al-Qaeda and praised Hassan’s shooting. To this day, President Obama and senior officials have not publicly described the incident as terrorism. * Most recently, five Americans were arrested in Pakistan on their way to link up with the Al-Qaeda and Taliban. They were arrested at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group, who is the uncle to one of the suspects. These are only some of the major incidents related to radical Islamic activity in the U.S. that occurred this year. A total of 14 Somali-Americans from Minnesota have been indicted for helping to recruit fellow members of their community to join the Al-Shabaab terrorist group fighting for control of Somalia. The case of Rifqa Bary received considerable attention, as did the honor killing in Arizona of a daughter by her father for being “too Westernized.” More at FPM
 Unlike the terrified and Islamist media, Investors Business Daily is exposing the enemy within. Atlas covered the infiltration at the Pentagon described below here. Patriots at the Pentagonwere routed by devout Muslims. Penetration Even At The Pentagon: Muslim Spies Setting Muslim Policy Paul Sperry, www.Investors.com The internal threat from Muslim extremists in the military extends to high-level Defense Department aides who have undermined military policy. In fact, one top Muslim adviser pushed out an intelligence analyst who warned of the sudden jihad syndrome that led to the Fort Hood terrorist attack. An honored guest of the Ramadan dinner at the Pentagon this September was Hesham Islam, who infiltrated the highest echelons of the Ring despite proven ties to U.S. terror front groups and a shady past in his native Egypt. As senior adviser for international affairs to former deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Islam ran interference for the Islamic Society of North America and other radical fronts for the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, the subject of my new book "Muslim Mafia." For example, Islam persuaded brass to sack a Pentagon analyst, Stephen Coughlin, after he advised cutting off outreach to ISNA, which he accurately ID'd as part of a covert terror-support network in the U.S. — something the Justice Department recently confirmed in a major terror finance trial. Islam invited ISNA officials to lunch with the avuncular England, known by insiders as Gullible Gordon, who in turn spoke at ISNA confabs. Islam also helped set up a Pentagon job booth at one recent ISNA convention to recruit Muslim chaplains and linguists. Most disturbing, Islam met regularly with Saudi and other embassy officials lobbying for the release and repatriation of their citizens held at Gitmo. He in turn advised England, who authorized the release of dozens of Gitmo detainees. Some have resumed terrorist activities. No one really knew who Islam was when he was promoted — in fact, the Pentagon removed his bio from its Web site after reporters noted major inconsistencies in it — yet he was allowed to get inside the office of the Pentagon's No. 2 official. "In effect," a senior U.S. Army intelligence official told me, "we've got terrorist supporters calling the shots on our policies toward Muslims from the highest levels." Meanwhile, politically incorrect prophets like Coughlin have been frozen out. After the betrayal at Fort Hood, the military could use his analysis of Islamic doctrine more than ever. I attended a private briefing by Coughlin in February. In a PowerPoint presentation, he detailed how jihadists use the Quran to justify their actions. Some of his slides matched almost word-for-word Hasan's own PowerPoint slides extolling the virtues of jihad and martyrdom. Both, for instance, quoted from the same Quranic passage known as the "Verse of the Sword." Eerily, Coughlin predicted Hasan's mind-set. He first began briefing the Pentagon on this jihadist doctrine in 2002. So brass can't say they didn't know. They were warned that the enemy was drawing on religious principles, and that our own Muslim soldiers could succumb to such thinking. And they were warned that by using ISNA and other radical Brotherhood fronts to endorse Muslim chaplains and recruit Muslim soldiers, they were courting enemies of the U.S. — and courting disaster. But they were too drunk with political correctness to listen. The jihadist threat to U.S.-based armed forces is external as well as internal — and far greater than reported. It comes from both inside and outside the military. Fort Hood follows in a line of attacks or plots against military personnel and installations since 2006, when al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn, an American convert to Islam, appeared in a video with Osama bin Laden and encouraged fellow Muslim-Americans to "go on a shooting spree at the Marines' housing facilities at Camp Pendleton" in California. Over the past few years, an alarming number of homegrown Muslim terrorists have targeted military installations, including: • A North Carolina cell of white converts to Islam who trained to attack Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va. • A New York cell of black jailhouse converts who planned to down planes at an Air National Guard base with shoulder-fired missiles. • A lone Muslim convert who shot two soldiers at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting station, killing one. • A Los Angeles cell of black Muslim converts who plotted to hit military bases in California. • A New Jersey cell of hardened jihadists who trained to attack Fort Dix by posing as pizza delivery drivers. The Fort Dix terrorists had also talked about joining the U.S. Army so they could kill U.S soldiers from the "inside." They planned to hit the post just days after a National Guard unit arrived back from Gitmo. Some of them were inspired by al-Qaida preacher Anwar Awlaki, who on his Yemen-based Web site calls for jihad against U.S. military targets inside and outside the U.S. But so do so-called moderate American clerics like Zaid Shakir. In "Muslim Mafia," I transcribe for readers a CD recording of one of his sermons circulating in mosques across America. In it, he exhorts the Muslim faithful to attack planes carrying the 82nd Airborne. Frequently booked by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a guest speaker at its events, Shakir tells his Muslim audience: "Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad." Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft. "Islam doesn't permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people," he said, but "if you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that's something else." The 82nd Airborne is based out of Fort Bragg, which is part of North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw's home district. Shaw is CAIR's new chairman. He is also a minority contractor who operates Shaw Food Services Co. near Fort Bragg. According to the legislator's financial disclosure form, Shaw Food customers include the Defense Department. Yet CAIR, like ISNA, is an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator. The FBI says CAIR is a terrorist front group and has cut off formal ties to it. So should the military. Will Fort Bragg be next? Does anybody care? This enemy is hiding behind a religion, making it easier for them to infiltrate our sensitive security agencies. Communist spooks did not have such an advantage. Read the whole thing. With thanks to Atlas
 by Ryan Mauro Five Americans from the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area have been arrested in Pakistan on their way to commit jihad. The fact that they were caught before they got to hook up with those to-die-for 72 virgins (the ones that, according to one Saudi preacher, are white and have no phlegm, feces, urine, or perhaps most appealingly, menstrual cycles) is itself a success in the war on terror. In order to capitalize on this success, though, we need to learn several lessons from the episode. The first lesson is that we cannot ignore how Pakistan-based extremist groups have penetrated America’s shores. One of the student’s uncles, who is part of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist group, provided them with a safe house where they were ultimately captured. This group was created in the year 2000 after Maulana Masood Azhar, a former senior leader of Harakat ul-Ansar, was released from prison in exchange for 155 hostages. The group is primarily focused on fighting India over Kashmir and has carried out many attacks, including the 2001 attack on India’s parliament, and they are suspected of being linked to plots to kill former Pakistani President Musharraf when he was in office. The group had training camps in Afghanistan when the Taliban was in power and has received funding from Osama bin Laden.
According to the Australian government, the group met with various terrorist organizations in June 2008, where they agreed to shift their focus to removing coalition forces from Afghanistan. These aren’t the first Americans that JEM has recruited. In 2004, a man in Colorado was deported after it was learned that he had been trained in one of the group’s camps. There are also sympathizers, as found out earlier this year when four men were arrested for plotting to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and to use Stinger missiles to shoot down military aircraft flying out of the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York. The plot was busted when an FBI informant posed as a member of JEM, with whom the ringleader discussed his desire to join the group. Investigators should be on the lookout for a potential link between the five Americans and Jamaat ul-Fuqra, known in the U.S. as “Muslims of America.”
The United Press International reported in 2002 that ul-Fuqra “is a splinter group” of JEM and is also linked to Harakat ul-Mujahideen. As discussed previously, ul-Fuqra has isolated communities in the U.S. that are used as paramilitary training centers, as a videotape recently released by the Christian Action Network shows. More at Pajamas Media
 KARACHI, Pakistan — Pakistani police Monday seized luggage and a cell phone from a hotel where three of five Americans arrested on suspicion of militant links stayed, while a court ruled the men cannot be deported until judges review the case. Police allege the young Americans intended to join militants in the northwest tribal areas and then travel to Afghanistan before their arrest last week. The case has fanned fears that Americans and other Westerners are heading to Pakistan to link up with Al Qaeda and other militant groups. Police searched the mid-range Saddam Hotel in the southern city of Karachi, the country's commercial hub, where some of the men stayed on Nov. 30 after their arrival in the country. They found five travel bags containing clothes, a cell phone and a book, police official Abdullah Sheikh said. Hotel manager Mohammed Farooq Khan said the three left the hotel without informing management after staying one night. The book was "The Pact," the best-selling true story of three young men from broken homes who pledged to support each other as they pursue academic dreams. The detainees are accused of using Facebook and YouTube Web sites to try and connect with extremist groups in Pakistan and are said to have established contact with a Taliban recruiter. They have not been formally charged with any crime or produced in court. The court order Monday was aimed at preventing any deportation of the Americans before the judiciary gets a chance to review the case, Lahore High Court registrar Tahir Pervez said. No deportation order is known to have been issued so far, but officials in both countries have said such a move is likely. The court issued the order in response to a petition from Khalid Khawaja, a civil rights activist who has often filed court cases on behalf of alleged militants and people believed to have disappeared at the hands of Pakistan's security apparatus. Pervez said the court ordered the government of Punjab province to file a report on the case in a hearing Thursday. The men, who are from the Washington, D.C. area, were picked up by Pakistani authorities last week in the Punjab town of Sargodha after their worried families in the U.S. turned to the FBI to track them down. They were shifted over the weekend to Lahore, the provincial capital, for further questioning. FBI agents, who have been granted some access to the men, are trying to see if there is enough evidence to charge any of them with conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist group, an American official and another person familiar with the case said Friday. FoxNews
 By Joseph Weber Muslim leaders said Friday the five American youths arrested in Pakistan for allegedly attempting to join the al Qaeda network were lured through the Internet into embracing terrorist ideology and that they will wage a cyber counterattack. "This is a wake-up call involving our youths — Muslims and Catholics," Imam Mahdi Bray said outside the Islamic Circle of North American Center, the Northern Virginia mosque in which the men worshipped and participated in youth-group activities. "They see great injustices, and their emotions and passions are stirred, as they should be. … But we are determined not to let religious extremists exploit the vulnerability of our youth through slick, seductive and destructive propaganda on the Internet. We will respond in kind on the Internet. Silence in cyberspace is not an option." Pakistani officials say the men allegedly asked an al Qaeda-linked group for training but were rejected because they lacked credentials. They reportedly attempted first to contact jihadist groups in August through e-mails, then Facebook and YouTube. The men, ages 19 to 25, then went to Pakistan to set up meetings. U.S. official: Pakistan to deport U.S. youths The men disappeared last month from the Washington, D.C., area. One left behind a militaristic video that prompted family members to contact the FBI. Pakistani residents became suspicious of the young men and told police, who arrested them Tuesday in a home belonging to an uncle of one of the suspects. The men, all U.S. citizens, have been identified as Eman Yasir, Waqar Hasan, Umer Farooq, Ahmed Mimi and Ramy Zamzam, a dental student at Howard University and the group's alleged ringleader. They allegedly told Pakistani authorities at first they were in the country to attend a wedding. Mr. Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said the small Alexandria mosque where the young men met taught lawfulness and dignity, which he called the "core values of our faith." He and other religious leaders praised family members for taking swift action when their sons disappeared. "This could have been much worse," Mr. Bray said. Essam Tellawi, a spokesman for the Islamic center, said the mosque teaches the Koran and the teaching of the prophet Muhammad, including moderation, tolerance and peaceful interactions with neighbors. "Pray for the five families," said Mr. Tellawi, dressed warmly outside the mosque on a cold, gray afternoon. "They are going through severe hardship. Pray [the men] get back safely and for a speedy resolution to this matter." He declined to discuss specifics about the case, saying the matter remains under investigation. Mustafa Abu Maryem, the mosque's youth coordinator, said he never suspected the young men of "bad behavior" and that they are "fun-loving" and have a "bright future." "I hope all of this is not what it seems to be," he said. Mr. Maryem said group activities focused on community events and sports, which were meant to be "positive forces in the young men's lives." He also said discussions included ones on the positive aspects of marriage and the evils of gangs. "We never talked about politics or fighting — directly or indirectly," Mr. Maryem said. "Our focus was community, community, community." Washington Times H/T: ROP
 Leaders of several national Islamist organizations held a news conference Wednesday to broadcast their role in encouraging the families of five D.C.-area students now detained in Pakistan to report their children's disappearance to law enforcement. That the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) thought it was news that they and others cooperated with law enforcement is an interesting statement in itself.
But it was more interesting to see CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad acknowledge "that there is a problem" of American Muslims turning to jihad at home and abroad. In an effort to combat the trend, Awad announced his organization would "launch a major campaign of education to refute the misuse of where are verses in the Quran or the misuse of certain grievances in the Muslim world." This acknowledgement by CAIR and fellow Islamist groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) comes after at least nine cases of homegrown Muslim extremism in 2009 and the disappearance in 2008 of about 20 Somali men from Minneapolis who returned to Africa to fight with the Al-Shabaab terrorist group. It also follows their collective insistence that religious motivation be kept out of the discussion of Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting spree at Fort Hood last month. These past actions followed a pattern, in which CAIR spearheaded efforts to dismiss any concern about radicalization in America. That denial was on full display in 2007, after a Pew survey found a quarter of Muslim American men under age 30 found suicide bombings justifiable. In a television appearance, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper bobbed and weaved to avoid confronting the question. "I think it's wrong to focus on a couple of questions to put forward an agenda that goes against the bulk of the findings," he said. When host Tucker Carlson cited a finding that 61 percent of the respondents expressed concern for rise of Islamic extremism in the U.S., a number Carlson thought was too low, Hooper made it clear he was not among them: "I don't foresee a rise in religious extremism in the Muslim community." Similarly, MPAC spokeswoman Edina Lekovic cast the support among so many young American Muslim men for suicide bombings as a distraction: "When we look at the statistic about suicide bombing, it is indeed a disturbing one. But taken out of context, it's even more frightening. You know, the University of Maryland did a poll just in December where they found that 1 in 2 Americans support, sometimes--with the same wording--they find it at least sometimes justified for innocent civilians to be targeted by bombings or attacks. I think that any sort of support, no matter what side it comes from, is absolutely outrageous." None of the organizations launched any programming at that point to combat the ideology. That failure helps create a mindset that leads five young students with promising futures to give it all up to jihad, said M. Zuhdi Jasser, executive director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser's organization tries to counter the Islamist hue of the "mainstream" national organizations by advocating a strict separation between faith and public policy. Groups such as CAIR and MPAC have spread a message that America has been at war with Islam since 9/11, he said, rather than emphasizing the country's efforts to improve life for Muslims. "Unless they're going to do a 180, saying American soldiers are in Afghanistan liberating Muslims ... unless they change the narrative then this thing they're going to do is useless," Jasser said. More at IPT
Exclusive: Never before seen footage at Islamburg released first here on Vlad and…Gates of Vienna. This is never before released footage from the Christian Action Network. Some info on all parties: The Muslims of America have concluded — by some statistical method unknown to everyone else — that Muslims actually form a majority in the United States, and that they are under threat from their domestic and foreign enemies. Thus they are not waging jihad per se, but simply defending themselves. Violent jihad is always justified in this manner, because Muslims always feel under threat, and thus always have to defend themselves. The very existence of non-Muslims constitutes a threat to Islam, and jihad is therefore an act of self-defense in the face of an existential menace. This is a reminder of why the non-Muslim world is known as Dar al-Harb, the House of War. [09-12-11 10:11:14 AM] Baron Bodissey: that’s my post [09-12-11 10:11:18 AM] Baron Bodissey: let me cut it down for you [09-12-11 10:13:08 AM] Baron Bodissey: For several years the Christian Action Network has conducted a lengthy investigation of Jamaat ul-Fuqra and its front organization, the Muslims of America. Their efforts culminated earlier this year in their movie Homegrown Jihad, which included excerpts from a secret jihad video featuring Sheikh Gilani and JuF mujahideen training with automatic weapons and explosives. Christian Action Network has recently uncovered another JuF training video. This one features talking-head appearances by two of the American leaders of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, and some previously unreleased footage of live-fire weapons training at the Muslims of America national headquarters at Islamberg, near Hancock, New York. Additional information on Jamaat ul-Fuqra here: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/02/charlotte-county-files.html The Muslims of America have concluded — by some statistical method unknown to everyone else — that Muslims actually form a majority in the United States, and that they are under threat from their domestic and foreign enemies. Thus they are not waging jihad per se, but simply defending themselves. Violent jihad is always justified in this manner, because Muslims always feel under threat, and thus always have to defend themselves. The very existence of non-Muslims constitutes a threat to Islam, and jihad is therefore an act of self-defense in the face of an existential menace. This is a reminder of why the non-Muslim world is known as Dar al-Harb, the House of War. Additional information on Jamaat ul-Fuqra here, “The Charlotte County Files”: and here, ‘Muslims are majority of Amerians’ This is an exclusive. This is literally the first place this footage has ever been shown publicly. Please send this link far and wide. It is with permission of the creators of this video. Please do pay attention this is very serious and needs to be seen by all. More: For several years the Christian Action Network has conducted a lengthy investigation of Jamaat ul-Fuqra and its front organization, the Muslims of America.
Their efforts culminated earlier this year in their movie Homegrown Jihad, which included excerpts from a secret jihad video featuring Sheikh Gilani and JuF mujahideen training with automatic weapons and explosives. Christian Action Network has recently uncovered another JuF training video. This one features talking-head appearances by two of the American leaders of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, and some previously unreleased footage of live-fire weapons training at the Muslims of America national headquarters at Islamberg, near Hancock, New York. Additional information on Jamaat ul-Fuqra here: The Muslims of America have concluded — by some statistical method unknown to everyone else — that Muslims actually form a majority in the United States, and that they are under threat from their domestic and foreign enemies. Thus they are not waging jihad per se, but simply defending themselves. Violent jihad is always justified in this manner, because Muslims always feel under threat, and thus always have to defend themselves. The very existence of non-Muslims constitutes a threat to Islam, and jihad is therefore an act of self-defense in the face of an existential menace. This is a reminder of why the non-Muslim world is known as Dar al-Harb, the House of War. With thanks to Vlad Tepes
 Terror suspect David Headley was questioned by an airport inspector in August and deceptive answers about his travels abroad helped officials begin to unravel Mr. Headley's alleged double life. The 49-year-old Chicago man was charged this week for helping plot the terror attack in Mumbai a year ago that killed 166 people. Federal authorities, already suspicious of him, used his return to the U.S. this summer as an opportunity, according to officials.
A border inspector asked Mr. Headley about his overseas travel, according to court records and people familiar with the case. Mr. Headley said he was working for a company called First World Immigration Service. First World is a business that allegedly provided Mr. Headley with cover as he traveled to scout terrorist targets for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the November 2008 assault in Mumbai, according to the federal charges. Agents searched Mr. Headley's luggage and found it "contained no papers or other documents relating to such a business," according to court documents. They also searched tax records and found no record of income paid to Mr. Headley by the company, court records show. U.S. officials said Tuesday the questioning at the airport gave a significant boost to the investigation. Mr. Headley was returning to the U.S. from a trip to Denmark in which he was scouting potential targets, authorities alleged. He is also being charged with planning an armed assault on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. Authorities said little more about the airport interview, including where it happened or why they had become suspicious of Mr. Headley. But court records showed that federal surveillance of Mr. Headley, who is an American, accelerated afterward. Mr. Headley's case is the most potent example of a U.S. born radical. Law enforcement and terrorism specialists said Lashkar's alleged deployment of Mr. Headley underscored the usefulness of recruits with U.S. passports in terror plots. Mr. Headley traveled to India and Pakistan over nearly two years to videotape targets and brief his co-conspirators in the Mumbai attacks, according to the federal charges. Westerners have largely played supporting roles in terror activities, but Mr. Headley's ability to travel freely on a U.S. passport to Pakistan, India and Denmark gave him high value, a U.S. law enforcement official said. "It's exactly the way you'd think al Qaeda would want to use operatives," said Evan Kohlmann, who has testified on Lashkar as an expert witness in U.S. and British courts. More at WSJ
 ...being waged by native-born jihadists. "U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat: This may have been the most dangerous year since 9/11, anti-terrorism experts say," by Sebastian Rotella for the Los Angeles Times, December 7 Reporting from Washington - The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism. Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia. Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said: * There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks. * Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo. * The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat. "We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront." Officials acknowledged that her tone had changed, though they said terrorism has been her focus since becoming Homeland Security chief. In some of the 2009 cases, extremist leanings are suspected but motives are not known. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- accused of killing 13 people in a Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting rampage last month -- has apparently suffered emotional problems. But in interviews, officials and experts have also raised his Muslim beliefs as an alleged motive. A previous attack on the U.S. military, a shooting in June by an American convert who killed a soldier and wounded another at an Arkansas recruiting center, was apparently a case of a lone wolf radicalized in Yemen, according to Homeland Security officials. "You are seeing the full spectrum of the threats you face in terrorism," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.," said Mitchell Silber, director of analysis for the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department. "In years past, you couldn't say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe."... Nonetheless, recent investigations have run across Americans suspected of being operatives of Al Qaeda and its allies who were trained overseas and, in several cases, allegedly conspired with top terrorism bosses. They include a convert from Long Island, N.Y, who was captured in Pakistan late last year; a Chicago businessman accused of scouting foreign targets for a Pakistani network; and at least 15 Somali American youths from Minneapolis who returned to fight in their ancestral homeland.... With thanks to JihadWatch
 Click here for my latest article for Pajamas Media, this one about how as part of Christian Action Network’s ongoing investigation into Jamaat ul-Fuqra/Muslims of the Americas’ presence on U.S. soil, I have received a videotape from a reliable source of members of the group training on American soil. We believe it took place at Islamberg in Hancock, New York. I’ve also received recordings of gunfire from a neighbor near Islamville in York, South Carolina. Please do what you can to spread this story to other blogs, message boards and media. This is important, frightening news and we need to fight to have it covered and not lost in the barrage of Tiger Woods and Afghanistan news. World Threats
 DEARBORN, Mich. -- There's a swirl of activity in a spacious, modern kitchen as final meal preparations are made. An older man tries to swipe a felafel off an appetizer plate but instead gets a loving hand slap from a woman. The happy, well-dressed guests move to a table full of food in a dining room adorned with Middle Eastern wall-hangings. It's an inviting, if idealized, dinner party scene from any Arab-American home _ at least that's what the CIA seeks to convey in the first television commercial of its kind. The agency, in turn, hopes it's an inviting message to U.S. Arabs. "Your nation, your world," a male voice says with a Middle Eastern accent, as the frame moves outside and pans out to show the party through a window of a gleaming, high-rise building. In seconds, the shot zooms out to an image of the U.S. from space. "They're worth protecting. "Careers in the CIA." The commercial, which the agency plans to debut on mainstream and ethnic TV stations and Web sites nationwide within the next few months, represents artistic and technological leaps for the agency. Until now, its print, broadcast and Web advertising has focused on the variety of career options and the diversity among its ranks, but the agency hasn't used a storytelling approach to sell its message. It's part of an ambitious outreach effort to communities the CIA deems critical to reducing the threat of terrorism in the U.S. The agency has a five-year plan to boost fluency in Arabic and other languages. But resistance could come from U.S. Arabs who have felt the sting of suspicion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Many Arabs and Muslims have been dubious of the government's intelligence gathering and believe spying is going on in mosques and other places. The CIA on Wednesday held a private screening of the commercial and another 30-second spot aimed at recruiting Iranian-Americans. Each drew applause from the group of about 40 people gathered for the viewing in Dearborn, in the heart of Michigan's large Middle Eastern community. Daw Alwerfalli, a mechanical engineering professor at Lawrence Technological University in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, said he liked the casual approach. An added benefit and point of pride for Alwerfalli: His son, Tamer, was among the actors. "It's talking to anybody _ it shows that the CIA cares about the integrity of the family in general," Alwerfalli said. Suehaila Amen, 30, thought the commercial was visually appealing and positive, but it "didn't resonate" with her because it didn't fully deliver on its message. "I just saw family together sharing a meal, doing what we do best _ the hugs and kisses over great food and great company _ but I didn't see why it's important to the CIA," said Amen, a community activist in Dearborn. The ad's soft-selling, storytelling approach emerged from focus groups and conversations with CIA employees of Middle Eastern heritage. The research revealed that Arab-Americans want to retain their ties to their homelands but embrace a sense of duty to the U.S. They stressed a desire to work in places where they can use their experiences and enjoy an exciting career. "It's important for them to know we understand how important their culture is to them. They're not going to lose that once they walk through the front doors of the CIA to work," said Christina Petrosian, chief of advertising and marketing for agency's recruitment and retention center. Petrosian and her team filmed the commercial in the same Hollywood studio that once was home to Desilu Productions and the pioneering 1950s sitcom "I Love Lucy," which itself broke ethnic barriers by costarring Cuban-American actor Desi Arnaz in the role of Ricky Ricardo. Petrosian believes the commercial portrays a broad yet authentic slice of life that will resonate with its audience. "We hear over and over again, 'The CIA is not even on my radar to come and apply,'" she said. "Showing the commercial in this way _ with a Middle Eastern focus _ hopefully that will generate that interest." NewsMax
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Here's the full text of the letter from Abdul Hakim Muhammad, the man who murdered an Army recruiter in Little Rock and tried to kill a second, to the judge presiding over his trial. 
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