After Paris, De Blasio Should Reinstate Mosque Monitoring
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01/08/2015
news.investors.com
In the wake of the Islamist terrorist attack in Paris, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani argues to reinstate a policy cancelled by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has arguably left the city as exposed as it was on Sept. 10, 2001.
Although the Paris terrorist attack by Islamists has not been linked to any mosque, the historical record is dotted with similar attacks that have such links, including the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, by Maj. Nidal Hasan that killed 13 and wounded 31 as the self-proclaimed "Soldier of Allah" shouted "Allahu Akhbar" (God is great) in a manner similar to the Paris attackers.
Hasan's nearly two dozen messages to al-Qaida terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Hasan worshipped, put Hasan on the radar of authorities who, tragically, did not heed the warning signs.
Thinking of mosques as potential hotbeds of the Islamist fanaticism that can fuel terrorist attacks isn't politically correct, yet it's happened.
As we have noted, the Saudi Embassy-funded and Muslim Brotherhood-owned Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Northern Virginia, where Hasan worshipped and al-Awlaki preached, was also where the 9/11 hijackers who led the Pentagon attack got help with housing and IDs.
It was in part that link between the 9/11 terrorists and a mosque that prompted the creation of the NYPD anti-terrorism unit known as the Demographics Unit or Zone Assessment Unit.
It was created with the help of the federal intelligence community and the New York police commissioner at the time, Bernard Kerik, who was upfront about its purpose being to prevent another 9/11 by monitoring activity in Muslim mosques.
The reference to "demographics" is an acknowledgment that what some called "profiling" was what others would call a description of suspects as far as terrorism goes. The 9/11 attackers were young Middle Eastern males, not Southern Baptists from Georgia, and since 9/11, while not all Muslims are terrorists, most terrorists have been Muslims or converts to Islam.
The rise of the Islamic State has changed that dynamic somewhat, with its recruitment of Western passport holders and the urging of "lone wolf" attacks by "home-grown" terrorists. But radical Islamist activism at some mosques still occurs and bears watching.
The NYPD was successful in uncovering suspects, as well as the transfer of money from wealthy Muslims to the coffers of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups.
If authorities had monitored mosques in the Boston area, they might have been alerted to the increasing radicalization of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who, with his brother Dzhokhar, attended the Islamic Society mosque in Cambridge, Mass., where he frequently engaged in vocal outbursts expressing his radicalism.
A Sept. 7, 2014, article in the New York Post by Paul Sperry pointed out that six other people with terrorist ties attended the mosque, including its founder and a prominent member of the Islamic State.
Abdurahman Alamoudi was convicted in 2004 of taking part in the Libyan conspiracy to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and in 2005 the Treasury Department accused Alamoudi of raising money here for al-Qaida.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, appearing Wednesday on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor," said that in the light of the historical record, including the fact that the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 was hatched primarily in three New Jersey mosques, and that after the Paris attacks, it might be wise for de Blasio to reverse his decision to suspend the mosque monitoring unit, a case IBD has made many times.
Giuliani noted that Christian churches and Jewish synagogues would be unlikely to object to NYPD detectives sitting in on their services. "It's not racial profiling. It's logical deduction," he said.
We think so too.
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