Why does the US put up with this?
Radical Islam: Outspoken cleric, jailed activist tied to new Hub mosque
SPECIAL REPORT/by Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, Maggie Mulvihill and Kevin Wisniewski
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
First of two parts.
The Islamic organization poised to build the largest mosque in the Northeast on a site in Roxbury has long-standing ties to an Egyptian cleric who praises suicide bombings and a Muslim activist indicted last week in a terrorism financing probe.
The Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to build a sprawling $22 million Islamic cultural center and mosque on Malcolm X Boulevard, has had a long association with Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, whose vocal support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas prompted the State Department to bar him from entering the U.S. four years ago.
The local religious organization, now headquartered on Prospect Street in Cambridge, was founded by Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi - a high-profile Washington, D.C. activist who has publicly supported Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.
Alamoudi was arrested Sept. 28 at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and charged with making illegal trips to Libya and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Libyan government in violation of U.S. law.
Last Thursday, Alamoudi was indicted for his dealings with Libya and portrayed by prosecutors as a key financier for militant Islamic groups and terrorist organizations.
In that case, the U.S. government alleges Alamoudi funneled more than $230,000 to two front organizations for terrorist Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, as well as more than $100,000 to groups funding Hamas.
A lawyer representing the Islamic Society of Boston said the local group is not militant or extremist, and is in no way connected to Islamic terrorism.
However, public records indicate Al-Qaradawi and Alamoudi have both held leadership positions with the Islamic Society of Boston.
Alamoudi, of Falls Church, Va., founded the Islamic Society of Boston in Massachusetts in 1982 and was the group's first president, according to incorporation records in the Secretary of State's office.
Al-Qaradawi, who is based in Doha, Qatar, was listed as a member of the Islamic Society of Boston's board of directors from at least 1998 until sometime in 2001. In 1993, when the Islamic Society of Boston set up a real estate trust, it identified al-Qaradawi as a ``proposed additional trustee,'' records show.
The cleric never became a trustee of that real estate trust, which now holds title to the land on Malcolm X Boulevard where the new Islamic center is to be built.
The Islamic Society of Boston identified al-Qaradawi as one of its four directors in its income tax return filed two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In July 2002, when the group filed its 2001 income tax return, however, al-Qaradawi's name no longer appeared on the list of directors.
A leading voice of the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect of Islam, al-Qaradawi is also a high-ranking member of the oldest radical Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. He was banned from his native Egypt in 1962 and moved to Doha, where he now hosts one of the most popular television shows in the Middle East on the al-Jazeera television network.
On his show and in speeches and interviews, al-Qaradawi praises Palestinian suicide bombers, declaring they are martyrs, not terrorists. He also regularly denounces U.S. support of Israel and encourages Muslims to either join the Jihad as combatants or contribute money to finance it.
One alleged terrorism financier recently convicted of violating immigration laws in Virginia, Soliman S. Biheiri, described al-Qaradawi as a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood who is ``virulently anti-American,'' according to a Sept. 11 court affidavit by senior special agent David Kane of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Al-Qaradawi is also involved in Bank al-Taqwa, which the U.S. Treasury Department says has financed numerous Islamic terrorist groups, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
In testimony before Congress last year, international terrorism expert Steven Emerson said that as of Dec. 31, 1999, al-Qaradawi was one of the largest shareholders in Bank al-Taqwa. The cleric is also a member of the bank's Shari'ah Board, which oversees al-Taqwa's transactions to make sure they conform to Islamic law, Emerson said.
Youssef M. Nada, chairman of al-Taqwa, told the Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat in December 1997 that since its inception, al-Taqwa has ``placed all its transactions under the control of Sheik Yussef al-Qardawi.''
Al-Qaradawi and Alamoudi could not be reached for comment.
A lawyer for the Islamic Society of Boston, Albert Farrah, downplayed al-Qaradawi's involvement in the organization.
``He's not a director of the Islamic Society,'' Farrah said. ``I know the trustees and have known them since 1993 and I've never met him. He has nothing to do with this project to my knowledge.''
In a statement released to the Herald yesterday, the group said the following: ``The ISB has a policy of disallowing groups or individuals with extremist views from having any forum for their divisive and destructive rhetoric at the Society's mosque in Cambridge.
``Dr. Yousef al-Quaradawi has never played any role in the ISB. In 1993, before any controversy surrounded Dr. al-Quaradawi, the ISB considered inviting him to serve as an honorary member of our Board of Trustees. However, in the end he was not invited to serve on the ISB board, but due to an administrative oversight, was listed on our tax returns until 2000.
``Abdulrahman Alamoudi was one of the founding members of the ISB. He has had no role in, or affiliation with, the ISB for approximately 20 years.''
Middle East money
The Islamic Society has been attempting to raise the money necessary to build the Islamic center for the last several years, and according to several sources most, if not all of the project's financing has come from the Middle East.
A project update in the Islamic Society of Boston's May 2000 newsletter reported that in the previous month alone, the group raised $2 million in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.
One source familiar with the project who spoke on the condition he not be named said the leaders of the Islamic society have made it clear that virtually all the financing for the cultural center is coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf states.
Many mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S. are funded by wealthy individuals and foundations in Saudi Arabia. Those financiers are almost without exception followers of Wahhabism, a harsh Saudi-based fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, and they make sure the American mosques they bankroll adhere to the sect's anti-Western ideology.
``Saudis and Gulf financiers are strongly nationalistic and therefore will not give money to those who do not support their line of reasoning,'' said Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, an assistant professor of religious studies at San Diego State University who studied for eight years in Saudi Arabia and taught at Brandeis University.
The result, said some Muslim activists, is that many mosques in the U.S. are disconnected from the majority of the American Muslims they supposedly serve.
``It has created this phenomenon of Muslims without mosques, and I would say the Islamic Society (of Boston) is no exception,'' said one Muslim activist who declined to be identified. ``The mosque is being paid for with money from the Middle East and it's connected to a larger agenda.''
That agenda is ``fundamental Islamist politics, anti-Semitic and anti-American in many ways,'' the Muslim activist said.
Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, president of the Islamic Council of New England and an Afro-American Muslim, said he knows the leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston and said that while most of them are from overseas, he does not view them as radicals or fundamentalists, but ``traditional Muslims'' like himself.
``I see them as a very balanced group trying to find their way in America,'' Faaruuq said. ``The ISB is doing good work. They are not a threat to me or my country.''
Faaruuq said he was not aware that al-Qaradawi was listed as a director of the Islamic Society of Boston.
He added, however, that last year he attended a fund-raiser for the Islamic Society of Boston's cultural center project at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston at which al-Qaradawi, who is barred from entering the U.S., delivered a videotaped message to the attendees encouraging them to support the project.
Farrah said he has no knowledge of the al-Qaradawi videotape, but confirmed the Islamic Society of Boston held a fund-raiser for the new cultural center at the Sheraton in November 2002, a few hours after the project's ceremonial groundbreaking in Roxbury.
Project applauded
The Boston Redevelopment Authority granted the Islamic Society of Boston final designation as developer of the Islamic Center in August 2000 and at the groundbreaking in November last year the project was hailed by Massachusetts politicians as a bridge between Islam and Boston's other religions.
``Boston is now and always has been a city of vibrant faith communities,'' Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a prepared statement. ``By creating a space for inter-faith dialog, this center will bring both the Muslim community and the community at large closer together.''
U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Somerville) also attended the ceremony. He said the new Islamic cultural center will ``help to create a dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims so we may learn more about each others' traditions.''
In May, the BRA sold the 1.9-acre lot to the group for the bargain price of $175,000, but construction has yet to begin. The Islamic Society of Boston's own newsletter said the land is worth $2 million.
Farrah said the ambitious project has been in the works for a decade. Now, he said, the Islamic Society of Boston has all the necessary building permits from the city and the start of work on the site is imminent.
``It's a wonderful project and has a lot of support,'' Farrah said. ``That support is citywide, from the mayor, the BRA and from other religious organizations, particularly after (the terrorist attacks of) 9/11.''
In its statement yesterday, the Islamic Society of Boston said: ``The ISB has a proven history of being an open organization, eager to work with people of all backgrounds. As part of our ten year effort to build the new Cultural Center in Roxbury, we have worked to establish solid relationships with the community and city leaders. We are proud of the contributions our organization has made to the community.''
Farrah praised the group's current leadership. ``I see these people as gentle, kind, religious, peaceful, educated, and wanting to be part of the community,'' he said. ``That's the way the city of Boston sees them and other religious groups see them that way.''
part2
Under suspicion: Hub mosque leader tied to radical groups
SPECIAL REPORT/by Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, Maggie Mulvihill and Kevin Wisniewski
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Last of two parts.
The leader of the local Islamic organization preparing to build a major new mosque in Boston is allegedly linked to a network of Muslim companies and charitable groups in Virginia suspected by federal investigators of providing material support to Islamic terrorists.
The chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to construct a $22 million cultural center and mosque in Roxbury, was also a leader of an Indiana-based Muslim organization known for its anti-Western rhetoric and for providing a platform for radical Islamists, some of whom have been linked to terrorism.
The chairman, Osama M. Kandil, has been a leader of the Islamic Society of Boston for more than a decade. In addition to serving on the group's board of trustees for many years, public records show he has been a trustee of the group's real estate arm since 1993, when it purchased property for its current mosque in Cambridge.
Outside Massachusetts, however, Kandil is identified in a federal government affidavit as a member of what U.S. investigators have dubbed the ``Safa Group,'' a complicated array of individuals and interlocking for-profit and non-profit entities allegedly involved in financing Islamic terrorism.
One Safa Group firm, American Products International Inc., lists Kandil as its registered agent. The company's registered address is the Herndon, Va., home of Safa Group member Jamal Barzinji, which was raided in March 2002 as part of Operation Green Quest, a terrorist financing probe.
A 101-page search warrant affidavit unsealed in federal court in Virginia last week said financial activity by the Safa Group ``evidences a conspiracy. . .to route money through hidden paths to terrorists and to defraud the United States.''
``I believe that Barzinji is not only closely associated with PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad). . . but also with Hamas,'' wrote David Kane, an agent in the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been formally designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government since 1995, Kane wrote.
According to Kane's affidavit, Barzinji is an officer of at least 14 Safa Group entities, and his neighbor, M. Yaqub Mirza, is an officer of 29 Safa Group entities. Mirza was also a board member of Ptech, a Quincy-based computer software company raided by federal agents last year as part of Operation Green Quest.
Another link between the Islamic Society of Boston and the Safa Group is Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder and first president of the local Muslim organization.
Alamoudi was indicted last week for laundering money from the Libyan government and is suspected of funding terrorist groups in the Mideast through Safa Group charities and businesses.
The Herald reported yesterday that in addition to Alamoudi, the Islamic Society of Boston has a longstanding relationship with Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, a radical Egyptian cleric whose vocal support of suicide bombings and the terrorist group Hamas prompted the State Department to bar him from entering the U.S. four years ago.
Even though the group's tax filings from 1998 to 2000 list al-Qaradawi as a director, the Islamic Society of Boston said in a written statement Monday that al-Qaradawi ``never played any role in the ISB.''
The group attributed the appearance of the cleric's name on its tax forms to ``an administrative oversight.''
However, the Herald also reported that during a fund-raising event for the planned mosque last November at the Sheraton in Boston, hours after the project's ceremonial groundbreaking, Islamic Society of Boston officials played a videotaped message from al-Qaradawi urging attendees to support the new Islamic cultural center on Malcolm X Boulevard.
The statement released by the Islamic Society of Boston on Monday also said: ``The ISB has a policy of disallowing groups or individuals with extremist views from having any forum for their divisive and destructive rhetoric at the Society's mosque in Cambridge.''
In a telephone interview yesterday, Kandil, speaking from a hotel in Frankfurt, Germany, said he believes the U.S. government mistakenly associated him with the so-called Safa group.
``The only connection I have is I rented a house on Safa Court,'' Kandil said. ``American Products International was a trading company we established and we ran the business from our house. I had nothing to do with the Safa group.''
He said he knew Barzinji and Mirza because they were his landlord and next-door neighbor, respectively. ``I was never part of that group. I was never involved in their activities,'' he said.
Kandil said the new mosque planned for Roxbury is being financed by donors both from the Boston area and the Middle East. He said all donors have been checked to make sure they do not appear on the U.S. Treasury's list of designated terrorists and terrorist organizations.
He said the new mosque and Islamic cultural center will promote ``the moderate, sophisticated view of Islam.''
`Evils of Western civilization'
Meanwhile, public records show that Kandil is also one of nine founding directors of a controversial organization called the Muslim Arab Youth Association.
MAYA established in the 1970's and incorporated in Plainfield, Ind., in 1989, held a series of conferences at which prominent members of the Palestinian organization Hamas and others associated with Islamic terrorism were featured speakers, including al-Qaradawi.
In the 2002 book ``American Jihad,'' author and Islamic terrorism expert Steven Emerson wrote that MAYA conferences ``have regularly attracted a parade of top Islamic militants.''
Emerson also excerpted the preface to MAYA's constitution: ``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.''
And according to Emerson, a companion MAYA publication states that ``Western civilization is based upon the separation of religions from life (whereas) Islamic civilization is based upon fundamentals opposed to those of Western civilization'' and warns Muslim women to be ``conscious of the evils of Western civilization.''
Abdullah bin Laden, a nephew of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, was also a founding director of MAYA. Bin Laden headed the U.S. office of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, a major Saudi-based charity investigated by the FBI for suspected financing of terrorism. Bin Laden abandoned WAMY's office in Falls Church, Va., soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks masterminded by his uncle.
Kandil, a former instructor at Harvard Medical School and the founder and chairman of an Egyptian pharmaceutical company, Biopharm Group, said yesterday he was a member of MAYA and became the group's vice president for several years, beginning in the late 1980s.
Kandil described MAYA as a moderate group. ``MAYA was an organization established by Muslim students who came to the U.S. to study,'' he said. ``Its purpose was to help new students acclimate to life in the United States and to make sure they could perform their Islamic rituals.''
Kandil strongly disagreed with Emerson's description of MAYA as a forum for radical Islam. He said MAYA allowed many different people to speak at its conferences, but also made it clear those speakers did not necessarily reflect the views of the organization.
``Before we make conclusions from a self-proclaimed expert of Islam, we should make decisions on what is and is not true,'' Kandil said. ``The fact that MAYA was never named by the government (as a terrorist organization) is a very strong indication no wrong activities were performed.''
The Islamic Society of Boston backed Kandil in its written statement Monday: ``Dr. Osama Kandil has served on the ISB Board of Trustees for ten years. Dr. Kandil served as Vice President of MAYA, an organization that assisted Muslim families in adjusting to life in the U.S. Dr. Kandil is a well-respected Muslim, and the ISB is confident of his character and integrity.''
Friends at Ptech
In December 2002, Basyouny Nehela, the imam at the Islamic Society of Boston, posted a message on the group's website exhorting Muslims to support Ptech, Inc., a Quincy company raided just weeks earlier by federal agents probing the software firm for suspected ties to terrorism financiers.
In Imam Basyouny's message, he described the actions against Ptech as ``oppression'' and said all members of the Muslim community ``are obligated to stand with the oppressed ones regardless of their religion or origin.''
Imam Basyouny said the people ``running and working'' at Ptech are ``well known within the Muslim Community and respected among this community.''
He also urged Muslims to lobby on behalf of the company: ``We must contact our elected officials to express our concern about this aggression and also to urge them to take a just and expeditious stand in resolving this injustice.''
Imam Basyouny moved from Egypt five years ago to take over as the spiritual leader at the Islamic Society of Boston's mosque on Prospect Street, just outside Central Square. When he arrived to take his new post in America, he did not speak English, sources said.
According to Kandil, most imams in mosques in the U.S. and Canada come from the Middle East because there is a shortage of qualified imams in North America. He said Imam Basyouny was educated at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the oldest and most prestigious Islamic school in the world.
``He is a very humble, kind person,'' Kandil said. ``He reflects the peaceful, moderate aspects of Islam.''
Ptech remains under investigation by a federal antiterrorism task force for its connection to Saudi businessman Yasin al-Qadi, who the U.S. Treasury Department has identified as a financier of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and other terrorist groups. Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have frozen al-Qadi's assets.
Investigators led by the U.S. Customs Service searched Ptech's office in Marina Bay on Dec. 6. after being told al-Qadi may have invested $16 million in the software company.
Federal authorities are concerned about Ptech's ties to al-Qadi because the company has provided software and consulting to 18 federal agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Treasury, Customs Service, Secret Service, Department of Energy, Army, Navy, Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, and U.S. Postal Service.
Ptech executives, who have not been charged with a crime, have denied any involvement with terrorists and said they are cooperating with the government's investigation.
Federal investigators have said there is evidence al-Qadi, a Ptech investor, and Mirza, a Ptech director, had financial dealings. Mirza, along with Kandil of the Islamic Society of Boston, are both alleged members of the Safa Group, which the government believes has financed Islamic terrorists.
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