60 Minutes is interviewing Marzook, leader of Hamas, who lived in the United states from 1981 till he was extradited to Israel in 1997. looks like another favorable piece for terrorists...as CBS say the US considers Hamas to be a terrorist group...like CBS does not..
HAMAS Hamas has developed the largest network of all militant Islamic organizations in the United States. Its origins go back to 1981 when it started in Plainfield, Indiana. (Marzook was one of the three founders.) Today, Hamas. operating largely but not exclusively under the names the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development--- has offices, branch chapters or a major presence in Richardson and Houston Texas; Chicago and Bridgeview, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles and Santa Clara, California; Patterson, New Jersey; Brooklyn, New York; Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Its public activities largely consist of rallies and conferences (calling for jihad and death to the Jews), fundraising drives for "charitable" purposes, publication of Hamas newspapers and propaganda, efforts to reach out to local politicians to acquire political legitimacy and most frequent, constant efforts to mobilize support against Israel and pro-western Arab regimes and on behalf o the "Islamic movements" in Palestine and elsewhere. In previous years, conferences of the Islamic Association for Palestine have been vehicles to recruit and train terrorists to attack the Israelis.
The Rise of Hamas and Mousa Abu Marzook: The first manifestation of Hamas' presence in the United States was the creation of the Islamic Association for Palestine for North America in 1981--and it was soon followed by the replication of this organization in various cities. Among the founders were Dr. Mousa Abu Marzook, Ghassan al-Ashey and his brother Bassam al-Ashey.
Marzook and the al-Asheys developed extensive business holdings and corporate entities worth tens of millions of dollars. An examination of Marzook's achievements is instructive in understanding how Hamas has been able to develop a widespread network on American soil with neither scrutiny nor restrictions. Born in 1951 in the town of Rafiah in the Gaza Strip, Marzook earned a college degree in engineering in Cairo in 1975 and moved to Louisiana soon after to attain his doctorate. By the early 1980's, Marzook had become increasingly involved with a growing community of militant Muslims in the U.S. whose worldwide ideological fundamentalist fervor was unleashed by the Iranian revolution in 1980, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Marzook would later be elected head of the Islamic Association for Palestine. Majlis al-Shura or consultative council that oversaw all the groups' activities. By the mid-1980's--several years before Hamas came into formal existence in December 1987--the IAP had established offices in Indiana, Arizona, Illinois and California, and was publishing a militant magazine called Ila Falastin, which routinely called for the death of "infidels and Jews". Moreover, internal Hamas documents strongly suggest that parts of the Hamas charter, a virulent anti- Semitic tract that incorporates elements of both Nazi dogma and the notorious turn-of-the-century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was first written by members of the IAP in the United States in the early to mid-1980's.
As Hamas began leaving its special violent trademarks--stabbings and mutilations of its victims--in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, it was from the United States that Hamas was controlled and funded. Marzook was busy further establishing the Hamas network under the guise of seemingly innocent religious groups, research institutions and investment companies. In 1989, Marzook became the founding president of the United Association of Studies and Research (UASR), a self- described Islamic "think-tank" which in reality served as a covert branch for planning Hamas operations and disseminating propaganda.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Ahmed bin Yousef, current head of the Virginia-based UASR, denied any affiliation with Hamas and claimed that Mr. Marzook was only a "businessman" who briefly served on UASR's board of directors.
In June 1991, the largest international gathering of Islamist leaders ever held in the United States convened in the outskirts of Washington, DC. At the time this conference was held, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence were totally unaware of its existence. Such gatherings provided opportunities for the worldwide militant Islamic network to coalesce and establish new linkages.
Sponsored by the UASR, the extraordinary conference focused on the need to respond to the Western "crusades" against Iraq, the need to destroy the "Jewish state" and the threat of American-Crusader imperialism. It was represented by nearly every major radical fundamentalist organization, including Islamic Jihad, Hizba-Tahrir, Hizbollah, al-Jihad, Jamat Muslimeen and others.
Representatives at this extraordinary conference included, to name a few, Marzook, Ahmed bin Yousef, Abdulrahman al-Amoudi ( until last week executive director ofthe Muslim Council and now head of the AMC Foundation), Sami al- Arian (head of the Tampa based Islamic Jihad front group known as the Islamic Committee for Palestine), Ramadan Abdullah Shallah (now head of the Islamic Jihad and former head of the Tampa-based Islamic Jihad front known as the World Islamic Studies Enterprise, or WISE), and many senior terrorist chieftains from overseas. 13.
The presence of so many militants has made this gathering the all time "All-Star" terrorist conference in U.S. history.
Scores of papers and resolutions were presented that condemned the United States and Jews as part of a diabolical world plot to destroy Islam. Marzook rose to become chief operating office of Hamas, responsible for orchestrating and designing the group's terrorist apparatus and activities. He continued to come and go to and from the United States as he pleased, keeping homes in Ruston, Louisiana and Falls Church, Virginia. But all that changed--at least with regard to his use of the United States as a safe haven on July 25, 1995, when was detained at Kennedy Airport upon his return to the States. As Marzook attempted to reenter the United States, a routine primary inspection by an INS agent revealed that Marzook's name and date of birth matched a computer entry in the INS database that had been recently entered into a "terrorist watch" lookout.
In his possession at the time of his arrest was paperwork showing his business companies to be worth more than $10 million, which law enforcement officials believe to have been part of a massive money laundering operation for Hamas in the U.S. Equally significant was the discovery of Marzook's personal telephone directory that contained the telephone numbers of nearly every top terrorist in the world today. Interestingly, more than 20 percent of the phone numbers are those of Marzook's contacts and senior terrorist collaborators in the United States. At least ten of these close contacts still live in the Northern Virginia area.
geocities.com |
