Emile friends among us:
October 15, 2001 -- PORTLAND, Maine - Isanu Dyson, a fifth-generation
>American who converted to Islam three years ago, is prepared to join the
>jihad against the United States, and believes government workers are fair
>targets.
>The 24-year-old Maine resident, who carries a dagger and 3-foot sword, told
>The Post it would be "noble" to enlist with the Taliban and fight against
>American soldiers in Afghanistan.
>"I am a Muslim-American, not an American-Muslim - I have a greater
>obligation to them than to anybody," he said.
>"I pray when the day comes that Allah doesn't make me a coward - that I
>don't run away from the fight."
>Dyson, who spoke from his apartment in Portland, said "colonialists,"
>including the United States and Britain, created a monster by trying to
>oppress Muslims and propping up governments sympathetic to the West.
>"Now the monster they created is biting them back," he said. "The U.S.
>might be an economic and military superpower, but Islam is a religious and
>manpower superpower - we are 1 billion people."
>Dyson's inflammatory comments have drawn the attention of Portland cops.
>Portland Police Chief Mike Chitwood told The Post, "These sort of comments
>are disheartening and sickening.
>"If he feels that way, he should go and join Afghanistan."
>Dyson, who says he began carrying the sword and dagger after Sept. 11 for
>"self-protection," admitted he felt uncomfortable making such comments
>while living in America, and said he had considered going to Afghanistan
>immediately after the attack.
>"I would consider it more noble for me to go and get myself out of the
>country, renounce my citizenship, end up in Afghanistan, pick up a gun and
>fight alongside everyone else against the enemy - American soldiers," he
>said.
>But he said he consulted an Islamic scholar for guidance, and was told his
>first responsibility was to a young son from his previous marriage.
>Dyson, who raced motorcycles before turning to Islam, said he would
>continue to obey American law - "up until the point where I would have to
>disobey the law of Islam."
>He claimed he knew one of the Sept. 11 kamikaze hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi,
>two years ago.
>Dyson said he met Alhazmi, who was aboard the plane that killed nearly 200
>Americans when it crashed into the Pentagon, through the Muslim community
>when Alhazmi first came to America as an illegal immigrant.
>Dyson was living in his hometown of San Diego, Calif., and said he helped
>Alhazmi settle in, not realizing he was part of a deadly plot against
>civilians.
>Terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi spent their final night in
>Portland before going to Boston and hijacking the planes they piloted into
>the World Trade Center.
>Dyson said he believes that Islamic laws forbid the killing of civilians
>and that the hijackers were wrong to involve innocent people.
>But Dyson said that crashing a plane into the Pentagon would be within the
>boundaries of acceptable fighting if the plane were empty, because U.S.
>government workers helped to implement foreign policy.
>Dyson, who is unemployed, also backed terror lord Osama bin Laden, saying
>the chain of evidence against him is extremely thin.
>"Osama bin Laden says he wasn't involved - that is enough for me," he said.
>He said if bin Laden is captured, he should be tried in a Muslim court.
>Dyson also described the United States as "hypocritical," because it
>believes in freedom but interferes in the affairs of other countries by
>helping to install governments against the peoples' wishes.
>Dyson said he had heard many Muslims in Portland say they were prepared to
>join the jihad.
>"Things are going to be very dangerous, and that's not a threat from me -
>that's a fact," he said. |
