New Jersey: 2 Muslims sentenced for conspiring to join al-Qaida, kill US soldiers

AP Photo: Carlos Eduardo Almonte and Mohamed Mahmood Alessa

via 2 NJ men sentenced for conspiring to join al-Qaida – News – Boston.com.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Two New Jersey men were each sentenced to at least 20 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to conspiring to join an armed Islamic group in Somalia with ties to al-Qaida.

Mohamed Alessa, of North Bergen, was given a 22-year sentence, and Carlos Almonte, of Elmwood Park, was given a 20-year prison term.

Attorneys for 23-year-old Alessa and the 27-year-old Almonte had sought to portray the men, who were teenagers when they came to the attention of law enforcement, as troubled youths spurred to radicalism under the influence of a man who was actually an undercover officer working for the New York City Police Department.

Federal prosecutors sought to counter that portrayal by arguing the two were dangerous, calculating, would-be terrorists bent on joining an overseas organization in order to kill ‘‘disbelievers in Islam.’’ Prosecutors said the two had carried videos on their cellphones of American soldiers being beheaded, and considered Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged perpetrator of the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military installation at Fort Hood, in Texas, a role model.

‘‘Your honor, if you send a message that homegrown violent extremism will be met with serious consequences, it will be less likely that others will engage in this crime,’’ Asst. U.S. Attorney L. Judson Welle argued before U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise, who oversaw the case in federal court in Newark.

Attorney Stanley L. Cohen, representing Alessa, said his client’s 22-year sentence was far too harsh for an individual Cohen described as so immature that he had asked the undercover informant if he could take his beloved pet cat Princess with him to Egypt and suggested the trio might go nightclubbing and surfing while there.

Cohen questioned why his client, who was arrested with Almonte in June 2010 before they could board separate planes to Egypt at New York’s Kennedy Airport, received a sentence two years longer than American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, and five years longer than convicted terrorism plotter Jose Padilla.

‘‘I think the sentence is excessive and unwarranted,’’ Cohen said. ‘‘Although I think the judge is very diligent, I think these cases are very difficult, because we live in times when people are frightened and scared, and people have lost the ability to differentiate between reality and perception, and it’s very difficult to jump over that hurdle.’’

Alessa and Almonte, turning frequently to look at their respective family members who packed the courtroom, each spoke before their sentencing. Their statements were similar, emphasizing the remorse for the pain they had caused their families, and arguing they had been misguided, troubled young people who never really intended harm.

‘‘I’ve learned it’s not a game. I have no one to blame but myself. My family is paying the price now.’’ Alessa said, apologizing profusely for the ‘‘anguish’’ and ‘‘shame’’ he had brought on his mother and father, who were in the courtroom, and who could be heard wailing and shouting in the courtroom hallway following the sentencing.

He spoke of being a once-troubled teenager prone to outbursts of anger that he didn’t understand, and spoke of his longing to be given a second chance.

‘‘After all, I only consider myself a Jersey boy,’’ he added.

Almonte, known as Omar, echoed Alessa’s statement of being an isolated, lonely teenager who had looked up to the informant who had seemingly taken the pair under his wing, become their friend, and urged them to channel their anger into joining militant groups overseas.

Both Cohen and Almonte’s attorney, James Patton, argued it was the undercover NYPD officer who had repeatedly insisted the two get passports and buy tickets to Egypt, from where they allegedly would move on to Somalia.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Welle countered with transcripts of audio tapes made by the informant, purporting to show Alessa and Almonte relishing the thought of getting the chance to kill American soldiers overseas. The two men viewed multiple online videos, including some they kept on their cellphones that showed U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan under sniper attacks, ambushes, bomb attacks, executions and beheadings, according to Welle.

‘‘I like watching (disbelievers) get slaughtered,’’ Almonte allegedly said, according to a transcript of an undercover tape shown in court.

Alessa and Almonte each pleaded guilty in 2011 to a charge of conspiring within the United States to murder individuals outside the U.S. by trying to join al-Shabab, a designated terrorist organization.

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Previously: NJ: Muslim parents of jihad suspect blame FBI

Nadia Alessa, a Palestinian from the West Bank, gave birth to her only child in July 1989 while visiting friends in North Bergen.

She and her husband, an ethnic Palestinian from Jordan, then returned to Kuwait, where he owned a billboard advertising business.

In August 2005, his mother said he was arrested in Jersey City for defacing a Coptic Christian church with the words “allahu akbar,” which means “God is great” in Arabic. He was released without charges, she said.

A judge dismissed him as “a stupid kid,” Nadia Alessa said, and released him.

As we noted then, who was the stupid one?

Conversely, it was reported that:

Almonte’s father said he will not be supporting his son and the Dominican immigrant did not attend his son’s first court appearance.

Syrian with ties to 9/11 hijackers still in US, immune from deportation

via Exclusive: Syrian with ties to 9/11 hijackers still in US, virtually immune from deportation | Fox News.

Daoud Chehazeh, left, and Eyad al Rababah

Free to do as he pleases, living out his days in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, a Syrian national who is a known associate of the 9/11 hijackers never has to worry about deportation by the U.S. government, according to an investigation by Fox Files.

With nearly 400,000 people waiting for U.S. citizenship, Daoud Chehazeh last November received political asylum for a third time after a series of bureaucratic screw ups at the federal level, according to a review of court documents and interviews with former federal and state investigators.

“It’s a slap in the face to Americans, especially the victims of 9/11 and the families,” said Jim Bush, who as a New Jersey state criminal investigator was part of the 9/11 investigation code-named PENTTBOMB. His partner in the investigation was Bob Bukowski, a now-retired FBI special agent.

“Three thousand people were murdered,” Bukowski said. “(Chehazeh) was definitely part of that conspiracy. … He facilitated the moves and protection up to the whole flight, basically, of Flight 77. Could we prove that in a court of law? No. But there are other remedies. Deport him. That’s what should have been done in this case.”

“This is an example of our national security policy gone mad,” Debra Burlingame, the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, said. Fox Files’ findings and the connection between Chehazeh and the Flight 77 hijackers were especially disheartening because Burlingame’s brother, Charles, was the pilot of Flight 77, which was hijacked and slammed into the Pentagon.

“This is what comes of demilitarizing the ‘War on Terror’ and political correctness, treating enemies with the rights of ordinary people,” she said. “We owe a person like this absolutely nothing. His confederates were summarily executed by drone. This is an utterly incoherent national security policy.”

Chehazeh arrived in the U.S. in July 2000 from Saudi Arabia and quickly settled into Paterson, N.J.’s Middle Eastern community. Paterson was the launching pad for the plot, where 11 of the 19 hijackers passed through before the attacks.

In Paterson, Chehazeh met up and lived with another key facilitator of the hijackers, a Jordanian named Eyad al Rababah. The significance of the Chehazeh-Rababah support network for the hijackers in Virginia and New Jersey was first reported by Fox News in May 2011. Law enforcement sources told Fox News that revelations Chehazeh was still living in the U.S. went to the most senior levels of the FBI.

Seven months before the attacks, Chehazeh, who had no job and no known source of income, suddenly decided to leave Paterson. Along with his roommate, Rababah, the two men moved to suburban Washington, D.C., and almost immediately made contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the imam at the mosque in Falls Church, Va.

Fox Files’ exclusive reporting showed al-Awlaki, killed in September 2011 by a CIA drone strike in Yemen, was a guest speaker at the Pentagon five months after the 2001 attacks and that there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence suggesting the cleric was an overlooked key player in the plot.

By April 2001, beside al-Awlaki, Chehazeh’s new circle of friends and neighbors included future Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, a pilot. Chehazeh made a point to tell Rababah, even though both men later admitted to investigators they were not religious men, to go to the mosque and ask Imam al-Awlaki for work.

“Al-Rababah returns home with two of the hijackers,” Bush explained. “And that’s the first time, that we know of, that Daoud Chehazeh met the hijackers.”

Rababah got the hijackers an apartment in Virginia.  He helped them get settled.   And in May 2001, Rababah drove al-Hazmi, Hanjour and two of the newly arrived muscle hijackers to Connecticut and New Jersey. The 9/11 Commission Report said that within a few weeks seven of the hijackers were living in New Jersey in a one-room apartment.

…

For now it looks like Chehazeh is never leaving the United States. Last November, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed its decision to reopen Chehazeh’s case. And on Feb. 13, the case was officially closed and entered into court records of the United States District Court District of New Jersey.

But others suspected of 9/11 connections faced very different outcomes. Rababah was deported to Jordan in 2003. And al-Awlaki was killed by drone in Yemen in 2011.

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Read it all.

The Obama administration is in deep with Syrian jihadis at this point but who else might be linked to this case? Chehazeh lived in Paterson, NJ home of one of the most radical mosques in the U.S. where the imam is an illegal immigrant convicted of being part of terror group Hamas. That imam is one Chris Christie has personally praised and helped avoid deportation. Catherine Herridge should delve into Christie’s knowledge and possible involvement in this case.

NJ attorney general visits mosque of Hamas-linked imam on deportation list

The title should read ” NJ attorney general visits yet another mosque.”

via Chiesa visits Paterson mosque as part of outreach | The Asbury Park Press NJ | app.com. h/t HALALPORKSHOP

PATERSON — New Jersey’s attorney general has visited another mosque as part of an ongoing effort to improve relations with the Muslim community.

Jeffrey Chiesa attended Friday services at The Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson.

New Jersey officials have been working to repair relations between Muslims and state law enforcement in the wake of revelations that the New York Police Department conducted secret surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey and elsewhere.

The Paterson mosque is led by an imam who federal authorities have been seeking to deport.

Immigration officials have sought unsuccessfully to tie Mohammad Qatanani to Palestinian terrorist groups.

Gov. Chris Christie and New Jersey law enforcement officials have long supported the imam.

Qatanani is a member of Chiesa’s newly-formed Muslim outreach committee.

Apparently Chiesa has had no comment on the Muslim who beheaded two Christians last week in Jersey.

Related:

• NJ attorney general panders at another mosque
• Gov Christie puts Hamas-linked imam facing deportation, 3 more Islamists, on outreach committee
• When Christie was AG, he spent his time pandering at mosques too
• NJ imam supported by Gov. Christie wants to replace First Amendment with sharia law
• NJ Gov Christie praised Hamas-linked imam as “man of great good will”

$200 Million Muslim credit card scam busted in New Jersey

via Shariah Finance Watch

Eighteen people have been charged in what federal prosecutors in New Jersey called one of the largestcredit card fraud schemes ever uncovered by the U.S. Department of Justice, spanning 28 states and eight countries.

“The defendants are part of a massive international fraud enterprise involving thousands of false identities, fraudulent identification documents, doctored credit reports and more than $200 million in confirmed losses,” FBI Special Agent James Simpson said in court records.

According to court records, the scheme involved three basic steps: The defendants allegedly created thousands of fake identities, pumped up the credit histories of those fictitious people and then racked up charges on fraudulently obtained credit cards.

The scam began in 2003 as false identities were used to create credit profiles with major credit bureaus, prosecutors say. Some were completely fictitious; others were created using Social Security numbers matched to someone with the same name. In other instances, fake pay stubs and tax returns were used to get credit cards.

Prosecutors say the accused pumped up their credit worthiness by making small purchases and paying off the charges, enabling them to run up credit lines and make large charges that were never repaid.

By 2012, they had created more than 7,000 false identities to obtain more than 25,000 credit cards. Millions in cash were wired to Pakistan, India, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, China and Japan.

“Due to the massive scope of the fraud, which involved over 25,000 fraudulent credit cards, loss calculations are ongoing and final confirmed losses may grow substantially,” Simpson said.

The proceeds, authorities said, were used for luxury automobiles, electronics, spa treatments, high-end clothing and millions of dollars in gold. Authorities said the fraudsters also stockpiled large sums of case and approximately $70,000 in cash was found in one defendant’s oven.

Though the scheme targeted credit card companies, Paul Fishman, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, said customers everywhere could feel the impact.

“Through their greed and their arrogance, the individuals arrested today and their conspirators allegedly harmed not only the credit card issuers, but everyone who deals with increased interest rates and fees because of the money sucked out of the system by criminals acting in fraud rings like this one,” Fishman said.

At least eight in the group — Babar Quresh, Muhammad Shafiq, Ijaz Butt, Qaiser Khan, Shafique Ahmed, Muhammad Naveed, Khawaja Ikram and Nasreen Akhtar — have been unemployed since 2008.

Prosecutors identified Qureshi and Shafiq were identified as the group’s ringleaders, and linked Shafiq and his brother, Naveed, to 464 credit cards and nearly $2.6 million in losses. Some of those charged also stockpiled cash. At one defendant’s home, arresting officers found $68,000 in a kitchen oven.

Quereshi alone made a wire transfer of $500,000 last September — and more than $1 million has flowed through one of many personal bank accounts since 2005, the complaint alleges. One has to wonder if this scheme at least partially funded jihad…

According to the complaint and officials, most of the 18 defendants have ethnic ties to Pakistan. Six of them live in New Jersey (including four in Iselin); one in Philadelphia, and the rest in New York. Some of the defendants may be related, officials also said, while adding that the entire scheme had strong ties to Jersey City — including to three jewelry stores on Newark Avenue named Ashu Jewels, Tanishq Jewels and Raja Jewels.

Elsewhere in Chris Christie‘s sharia paradise also known as New Jersey an Egyptian Muslim beheaded two Christians.

Related:

Ohio imam gets just 1 year in $3.8M food stamp fraud

Detroit: Muslim doc arrested in Medicaid fraud, shipped cash to Lebanon

Illinois, Nevada and Utah – Multi-million dollar Muslim food stamp fraud busts

Maine: Somali Muslim couple arrested in welfare fraud scheme

Minnesota: Iraqi Muslim’s food stamp fraud costs taxpayers $3.1M

Virginia: $1.5M theft estimate revised after Muslim says she “didn’t steal during Ramadan”

More Muslims arrested in massive Medicare fraud schemes

Just search our archives for the word “fraud” and many more posts will pop up.

Sharia-preaching cleric helping decide punishment of 2 N.J. Muslim terror plotters

via Experts helping decide punishment of two N.J. terror plotters : page all – NorthJersey.com.

Two ex-CIA officers, a retired brigadier general and a Muslim cleric are part of a team of defense experts who could help a federal judge decide the punishment for a pair of North Jersey men convicted of conspiring to join a terrorist group to commit murder and mayhem overseas.

The list of advisers includes psychiatrists and psychologists, among them a consultant on the government’s side who figured prominently in the cases of a would-be presidential assassin and the only person tried and convicted in a U.S. court on charges of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The dueling experts could influence how long Mohamed Mahmood Alessa of North Bergen and Carlos Eduardo Almonte of Elmwood Park will spend in prison. Alessa, 23, and Almonte, 26, each face up to life after pleading guilty in March 2011 to conspiring to murder non-Muslims outside the United States. They were arrested by the FBI at John F. Kennedy International Airport in June 2010, as they attempted to board separate flights to Egypt.

In what has become a slow, methodical process for a hearing that’s still nearly three months down the line, the advisers have completed their evaluations and are assisting the lawyers in refining their arguments. They will square off during what could be a weeklong hearing in Newark that will mark the first time in New Jersey that a panel of specialists has been assembled to try to get inside the heads of a pair of homegrown terrorists.

The hearing, which was to get under way in early February, is now set to begin April 15. U.S. District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise recently granted a defense request for more time to submit forensic reports and legal memos — due in part to damage related to superstorm Sandy.

Although federal sentencing guide­lines prescribe a term of 30 years to life, under their plea deals the government agreed not to seek a sentence of more than 30 years, and defense lawyers agreed not to argue for less than 15.

The judge, however, is not bound by the plea agreement and can impose any sentence he deems appropriate. As is customary in such proceedings, neither side would preview their positions or discuss the case in advance of the hearing.

The defendants’ youth, cultural identity issues, history of bad behavior, mental health and vulnerability “to either a sophisticated law enforcement agent or the influence of a powerful cleric” are among the factors likely to play key roles in the sentencing, said lawyers who have been involved in terrorism cases.

Ironic considering the known information, added below, on the defense’s cleric. He should have no influence on this or any other case. 

Given their clients’ acknowledgement of guilt, the defense will raise various mitigating factors to try to convince the judge they are not “hard-core terrorists” who should be locked away for life, said Rocco C. Cipparone Jr., one of the defense lawyers in the case of five men convicted in 2007 of plotting to attack the Fort Dix Army base.

“Maybe there are things in their upbringing or their background that psychologically made them weak and vulnerable at a particular time, or explain why they developed this state of mind,” Cipparone said.

“If you are a hard-core terrorist, the courts and the Congress — in terms of the sentencing guidelines — look at you as if you are essentially hopeless in terms of … rehabilitation,” he said. “Or, put more directly, once a terrorist, always a terrorist. You’re always going to be a recidivist because it’s ideologically based. And that may be one of the things the defense will try to counter.”

Still, the prosecution can be expected to press for a stiff sentence, said Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who won the convictions of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 11 others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and for planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks.

“There’s no more important offense that we prosecute than terrorism,” he said, “and if you’re not going to give terrorists the top of the [penalty] range, who should get the top of the range?”

“If I were the government, I’d be arguing, look, under the guidelines these guys should be getting life. We’ve already given them a bargain by topping them out at 30 years. The thought that they should now be sliced down to 15 should be something that isn’t even considered,” he said.

Advising prosecutors as they prepare for the sentencing are Barry A. Katz, a Livingston psychologist, and Raymond F. Patterson, a Washington-based psychiatrist.

Patterson has testified as a government witness in its efforts to block the release from a mental hospital of John W. Hinckley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1981 shooting of President Ronald Reagan and three others. He also evaluated Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th terrorist, who was arrested less than a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attack and later pleaded guilty for his role in the plot.

Alessa — an American citizen of Palestinian descent who was born in Jersey City — and Almonte — a naturalized U.S. citizen from the Dominican Republic who converted to Islam — have admitted that when they were arrested, they had intended to travel to Somalia. There, they said, they would fight with Al Shabaab, an armed insurgent group affiliated with al-Qaida that has recruited more than 20 Americans in recent years.

During the investigation, the two men were secretly recorded by an undercover officer talking about beheading Americans and sending them home in body bags. Alessa said he would start killing non-believers of Islam at home if he were unable to do so abroad.

Their arrests focused a spotlight on the problem of homegrown terrorism just a month after a failed car-bombing attempt in Times Square and seven months after a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in which 13 people were killed and 29 wounded.

“I’ll do twice what he did,” Alessa boasted, referring to the carnage left by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent and an Army psychiatrist who has been charged with gunning down soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood in November 2009.

“My soul cannot rest until I shed blood,” Alessa said, according to government transcripts. “I wanna, like, be the world’s known terrorist.”

Defense attorneys also have tapped Yasir Qadhi, an American Muslim cleric, to shed light on the pressures exerted on young Muslim men and the ways in which they are targeted with jihadist propaganda.

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Read it all. And thanks to the reader who commented on the imam which prompted us to take a second look at just who the imam is. It turns out the defense’s imam is on the U.S. terror watch list!

Qadhi’s Ilmquest media company had been selling more than a dozen audio CD sets by al-Qaeda cleric Aulaqi, even after the cleric had been tied to the Ft. Hood shootings (the post included a screen shot of Ilmquest’s Aulaqi products — all since removed from the Ilmquest website). Aulaqi’s sermons have also recently been sold at Al Maghrib seminars. These sales of Aulaqi’s sermons continued while Qadhi criticized Aulaqi on his MuslimMatters website.

Additionally, Qadhi has been one of the most outspoken advocates for convicted “Virginia jihad network leader” Abu Al-Tamimi, and his MuslimMatters website openly champions the cause of captured al-Qaeda operative Aafia Siddiqui.

Qadhi has not reserved his special brand of hate just for infidels. In 2006, Qadhi took to the AlMaghrib online forum to denounce prominent Sunni Islamic scholar Sheikh Alawi al-Maliki as a polytheist (and thus deserving of condemnation to hell). After Muslim bloggers began calling for a boycott of AlMaghrib in response to Qadhi’s takfiri ideology, the post quickly disappeared from the AlMaghrib forum.

And just last April, the UK-based Islamic group Quilliam Foundation issued an alert noting Qadhi’s anti-Jewish tirade, and also noting statements he had made attacking Shia Islam as “the most lying sect of Islam,” including: “The Shias are allowed to lie and it is their religion to lie.”

He’s also anti-democracy, anti-secularism, and anti pretty much everything that is not ruled by Islamic sharia as we noted in Texas-based AlMaghrib Institute advocates sharia law to students:

Yasir Qadhi, the institute’s dean of academics, said that the tradition from Islam’s prophet could be seen in the events of Egypt and the coming reckoning for inhuman, non-Muslim states.

…

As part of a TV series named the “Fundamentals of Faith,” which was broadcast on the popular British Muslim TV ‘Islam Channel,’ Qadhi showed his contempt for all other systems of thought besides Islam.

“This type of thinking is clear kufr, clear disbelief, to believe that you know better, or any system of government knows better, any democracy, or any… whether it be communism or socialism, any type of philosophy is better than Islam, or it is allowed legitimately, it is allowed to follow this system, this is a profession of the fact that you believe that Allah is not All-Knowledgeable,” Qadhi told TV viewers. “To believe that it is permissible to follow a way of life, to follow a system of laws other than the Shariah, negates one’s testimony of Islam.”

“No supreme court, no system of government, no democracy where they vote. Can you believe it, a group of people coming together and voting, and the majority vote will then be the law of the land? What gives you the right to prohibit something or allow something?” Qadhi said.

Muslim group: Illegal Latina immigrants flocking to Islam, taking it south

via Latina Immigrants: The New Ambassadors of Islam – New America Media.

SOMERSET, N.J. — Tucked away in a quiet rural neighborhood in Somerset, New Jersey is an old brownstone that houses the New Jersey Chapter of the Islamic Center of North America’s (ICNA) WhyIslam Project. Within its confines, in a second floor office decorated with rose-colored walls, sits the administrative assistant and only female employee of the department, Nahela Morales.

In a long black garment and gray headscarf, Morales sits in front of a computer entering notes and taking phone calls from the program’s hotline, 1-877-WhyIslam, a resource for individuals hoping to learn more about the religion. A Mexican immigrant and recent convert, Morales is the national Spanish-language outreach coordinator for the program, part of ICNA’s mission to disseminate information about Islam nationwide.

But Morales’ efforts go beyond U.S. borders: the 37-year-old recently led a trip to bring Islamic literature, food and clothing to her native Mexico.

Morales, who was born in Mexico City but later moved to California and then New York, is part of a growing population of immigrant Muslim converts from Latin America – many of them women — now helping to bring the religion back to their home countries.

“Many immigrants are here by themselves,” says Morales, noting that Latina immigrant women are drawn to Islam because of the sense of “belonging” they find within the Muslim community. “When they come into the mosque and see smiling faces, they feel welcome.”

According to WhyIslam’s 2012 annual report, 19 percent of the some 3,000 converts it assisted in 2011 were Latinos, and more than half of those (55 percent) were women. The 2011 U.S. Mosque Survey, which interviewed leaders at 524 mosques across the country, found the number of new female converts to Islam had increased 8 percent since 2000, and that Latinos accounted for 12 percent of all new converts in the United States in 2011.

Experts attribute the phenomenon to recent migration trends.

Morales found her own place in Islam after a turbulent past.

In 1979, Morales’ mother risked crossing the border into the United States illegally and alone, leaving her infant daughter behind in Mexico under her grandmother’s care. When Morales was 5 years old, she was finally reunited with her mother, who by that time had settled in Los Angeles. Mother and daughter gained amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. However, even as a U.S. citizen, Morales recalls feeling out of place.

During one of her visits to the NHIEC mosque in 2009, a WhyIslam worker overheard Morales speaking Spanish and asked if she would be interested in a bilingual position with the company.

“I asked [God] to please send me a job where I would be able to worship and wear my veil. I knew right then my prayer was being answered,” recalls Morales.

She has now been working with NHIEC for more than three years, and recently led a campaign to deliver Islamic literature and audio, clothing, and toiletries to a needy Muslim community in Mexico City.

During that trip Morales met with her own family members in Mexico, who are mostly Catholic. She says that initially they were not accepting of her decision to practice Islam or of her modest style of dress. They accused her of turning her back on her culture. But on her most recent trip to her hometown of Cuernavaca, she took the opportunity to talk to them more about her religion.

“It is obvious that Islam is still very strange in Mexico,” admits Morales, who says that since her last visit her own family has become more receptive. “But it is also very clear that people want to learn about it.”

…
“I felt that Muslims in the states are already part of the fabric of the society,” Anaya explains. “But here [in Colombia], we are in the baby steps. If I want something, I have to create it. If I want Islamic classes for my children, I have to create them.”

Anaya and her husband are now in the process of establishing an Islamic school for the Muslims of Barranquilla. Both say that given their commitment to the work, return to the United States is unlikely.

 Lot’s more propaganda from the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. newspaper (Muslim Link). Oh, and as we’ve posted many times:

ICNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum as one of the Brotherhood’s likeminded “organizations of our friends” who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation.

On numerous occasions, ICNA has explicitly excluded non-Muslims from its public gatherings. In September 2004, for example, ICNA sparked widespread controversy when, in cooperation with the management of the Great Adventure Theme Park in New Jersey, it organized a “Great Muslim Adventure Day” that barred non-Muslims from the park on that day. This annual tradition is still observed. Source

Previous posts on the continuous stream of Islamic dawah infiltrating the United States including this info:

ICNA executive and original Director of the Why Islam campaign – Sabeel Ahmed has written:

“…showing happiness and joy on Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Good Friday is like shaking hands with Satan and telling him to carry on the good work. Indeed Islam came to tear down the pillars of kufr and replace them with the pillars of Islam”

New Jersey Papa John’s robbed by hijabis

No calls yet for banning Islamic headgear in NJ and elsewhere in the liberal wastelands of America. via Four charged in armed robbery of East Rutherford Papa John’s | NJ.com.

Four people have been arrested and charged with robbing a Papa John’s restaurant on Paterson Avenue last week, police said Monday.

East Rutherford Police charged Whendy Laurencio-Blanco, 21, and boyfriend Michael Gomez-Polanco, 20, in connection to the case, Chief Larry Minda said in a statement. Two juveniles were also charged.

Employees at the Papa John’s told police that one man and three women robbed the restaurant on Dec. 12. Two of the women wore hijabs, Muslim head scarves, to hide their faces, Minda said.

Gomez-Polanco forced the manager to open the register and took $585 in cash, Minda said.

The two other alleged robbers are 16- and 17-year-old girls, Minda said. Juvenile complaints are pending for both girls.

Laurencio-Blanco and Gomez-Polanco are being held at Bergen County Jail on $132,500 bail. Their first court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.

Why do criminals don Islamic garb to commit their crimes? Because groups like CAIR and ACLU have established favored status for Muslims and Americans have been cowered into submission to even look at a person in Islamic garb suspiciously for fear of legal retribution by Muslims or the Dept of Jihad inJustice.

NJ: Security guard who lost job over hijabi files lawsuit

via Man who lost mall guard job at Bridgewater Commons after asking Muslim woman to remove hijab sues | MyCentralJersey.com

BRIDGEWATER — A Raritan Borough man is suing the company that manages the Bridgewater Commons mall claiming it wrongfully removed him from his security guard job after he mistakenly asked a Muslim woman to remove her head scarf.

Marc Krause, 40, had been an exemplary employee at the General Growth Properties-owned mall since 2003, according to the discrimination lawsuit filed Monday in state Superior Court in Somerville.

But on May 19, Krause made the mistake of trying to enforce the mall’s “no mask” policy against a woman wearing a hijab, a veiling of the hair and face used by some women of the Muslim faith.

The incident sparked outcry in the media, resulting in the mall publicly apologizing to the woman. The woman filed a civilian harassment complaint in Bridgewater Municipal Court, but the charge later was dropped.

Krause, who suffers from a mild learning disability, or borderline intellectual functioning, made an innocent mistake but was severely punished by his employers, according to the lawsuit filed by attorney Brian Cige of Somerville.

The lawsuit names General Growth Properties and the security firm IPC International Corp. as defendants.

The lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified damages and the reinstatement of Krause in his previous post at $11.77 an hour with benefits, said Krause was unaware of exceptions to the “no mask” rule and received cultural training after the incident.

Nevertheless, the mall sought to transfer Krause to a new job in West Windsor, which Krause found stressful because of the longer commute and the fact that he would have to work alone. He was forced to collect unemployment benefits, the suit says.

Krause was hired by the mall through Alternatives, a Raritan Borough-based nonprofit that provides support services for people with disabilities.

Mall officials could not be reached for comment Friday.

Bridgewater is an area of NJ we’ve posted on several times due to multiple million dollar mosques being built in residential neighborhoods, and a jihadi we never heard about again.

NJ attorney general panders at another mosque

Adhimmi General Jeffrey Chiesa.

Apparently this is a different “outreach” committee than the one Gov Christie put Hamas-linked imam facing deportation and 3 other Islamists on.

via NJ’s attorney general visits mosque as part of outreach after NYPD surveillance flap – The Washington Post.

NEWARK, N.J. — New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa quietly visited a Newark mosque Friday that had been listed in a secret report by the New York Police Department, and he reassured worshippers that New Jersey officials do not believe certain groups of citizens have lesser rights than others.

Chiesa attended prayer services at Masjid Ibrahim, a modest, single-story mosque set up inside a ramshackle former commercial space in Newark. The mosque was among several in the report by the NYPD, which conducted surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey and elsewhere.

“It is not tolerable here in New Jersey for us to have people treated differently in this state — period,” Chiesa said.

Speaking of tolerable, El Amin sells a sermon on his website entitled, “Allah says the ‘Believers will be the Winners’.” Note to Chiesa, El Amin and all Muslims consider you a non-believer, despite your dhimmitude, and all that comes with that.

The attorney general’s visit was part of an ongoing effort by his office to repair relations between Muslims and New Jersey law enforcement after The Associated Press uncovered the NYPD spying. The NYPD has said its actions were legal and it has the right to travel to other cities in carrying out its duties.

Explaining to mosque-goers that he had only been in office about a month when the NYPD spying came to light, Chiesa said he was there to listen and answer questions from the community. He said he understood how badly he and his family would feel if they had been subjected to spying at their church or made to feel they could not freely practice their religion.

The mosque’s imam, Mustafa El-Amin, is a member of the Muslim outreach committee formed by Chiesa’s office in the wake of the NYPD revelations. He has gained a following for oratory that translates the teachings of the Quran into modern-day parables, relevant to his largely poor and working-class African-American congregants.

El-Amin’s sermon on Friday was somewhat tailored to his visitors. He emphasized that Islam is a religion of peace and explained the significance of Friday prayers.

“It’s not a conspiracy session. It’s not a session where we plot anything bad,” El-Amin said of Friday prayers. “All are welcome. Our doors are always open. We have nothing to hide.”

If the doors are open, then what’s the problem?

When Christie was AG, he spent his time pandering at Newark mosques too.

Muslim judge now presides in Lindbergh ‘Crime of the Century’ court

How things change. Eighty years ago, Flemington, New Jersey’s courthouse (mothballed) and system was the scene of the Lindbergh kidnapping trial. Where will the country be eighty years from now? via Alimony reformers distance themselves from ‘anti-Muslim’ attack on Family Court judge | MyCentralJersey.com

Flemington – Calling comments about a Muslim state judge radical and extreme, several alimony reform activists on Saturday distanced themselves from a fathers’ rights advocate who accused a Family Court judge of imposing Sharia, or Islamic law, on alimony cases.

Bruce Eden, civil rights director of the state chapter of Dads Against Discrimination, said this week that Judge Hany Mawla, sitting in Flemington, is leading a “’jihad’ against men in general and fathers specifically.”

Eden called for “a ‘crusade’ to remove this vermin from the bench.”

The attack on Mawla, the state Superior Court’s first Muslim judge, was first reported Friday on MyCentralJersey.com and Saturday in the Courier News.

Eden issued his statement in response to the case of John Waldorf, who has been in Hunterdon County Jail since Oct. 17 for failing to make $8,000 monthly alimony payments to his former wife, a Califon resident. The alimony was set based on Waldorf’s previous job, which paid a higher salary than what he currently earns.

Tom Leustek, president N.J. Alimony Reform, said he understands “the frustration felt by Bruce and others who are the victims of these rulings,” but said that his group does not “endorse any expressions of bias based on religion, race, gender, sexual preference, or personal opinion.”

“We are not attacking an individual judge. It’s a system that needs to be changed,” Leustek said Saturday.

Debbie Frank, Waldorf’s girlfriend who has demonstrated several times outside the Hunterdon County Courthouse to protest the Family Court’s alimony rulings, also distanced herself from Eden, who informed her about his statement before releasing it.

“I don’t want to come off as a radical anti-Muslim. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to bring that into this. It’s a little scary,” she said Saturday. “I’m merely trying to get John out of jail and trying to get John some help.”

Eden’s comments were described on Friday as a slanderous “anti-Muslim rant” by Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

But Eden shrugged off criticism and doubled down on his belief that Mawla is following the Sharia practice of throwing private debtors in jail.

“I’ve been called a deadbeat, a woman hater, a wife beater, you name it. I don’t care if they want to accuse me of being racist,” he said Saturday.

“You can’t tell me (Mawla’s) religious beliefs are not influencing what he is doing here,” he added.

Reached at home on Saturday, Mawla declined to comment.

At 36, Mawla was one of the youngest nominees, and the first Muslim appointed, to state Superior Court in 2010.

He was born in New Jersey and lived in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with his parents when he was 8 to 15 years old, according to published profiles and interviews.

“The Arab-American community has traditionally encountered negative stereotypes,” he told a Rutgers alumni magazine in 2009. “I think my upbringing — both here and abroad — gave me a strong appreciation for different cultures.”

Mawla was appointed in 2008 by then-Gov. Jon S. Corzine to chair the state’s first Arab-American Heritage Commission and served on the Arab and Muslim Advisory Committee in the state Attorney General’s Office of Bias Crime and Community Relations.

Before becoming a judge, he was a partner in the Woodbridge law firm Greenbaum, Row, Smith and Davis and provided legal assistance to abused women at Women Against Family Abuse, or WAFA House, which was started to help women of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent.

Leustek said alimony rulings are based on antiquated case law determined by the state Supreme Court instead of lawmakers.

Legislators in Trenton have proposed creating a blue ribbon committee to study alimony. Another proposal being considered would allow judges to modify child support and alimony payments based on a parent’s change in employment and income.

“This is not a unique situation within Hunterdon,” he said. “It’s not a particular judge; it’s the law that needs to be changed to give judges clear guidelines about how they should handle divorce and post-divorce cases.”

Another article notes the defendant is required to pay more in alimony than he actually takes home after taxes. Wouldn’t a well-educated, multi-cultural, compassionate judge recognize that?

While this drama may be more about Eden getting his case media attention, and it’s working, Mawla has ties that should be known and has avidly pushed Islam and sharia in NJ:

Mawla said he and Davis devised the “Islamic Law and Jurisprudence” course at the University after Sept. 11, 2001, with the help of Abed Awad, an attorney who teaches at Rutgers School of Law-Newark.

Mawla said his involvement in Arab, Muslim and minority concerns is important to him because Arabs have called New Jersey home since 1870, and yet, in his view, they are not featured as prominently in the conversation in the state. He said law is a good way to give his community a voice.

“For me, it was an opportunity to make sure Arabs and Muslims are more a part of the political and civic discourse that occurs in the state,” Mawla said.

The attorney with whom Mawla devised the “Islamic Law and Jurisprudence” course – Abed Awad – defended a Hamas-supporting, terror-website-running, convicted tax-cheating imam among other clientele.

Gov Christie puts Hamas-linked imam facing deportation, 3 more Islamists, on outreach committee

This will surely promote him to the top of the list of 2016 presidential candidates possibly as a Democrat. via Four Islamists on Gov. Christie’s Muslim Outreach Committee

A RadicalIslam.org investigation has discovered that at least four Islamists sit on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Muslim outreach committee, which was formed after Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa concluded in May that NYPD intelligence-gathering operations in New Jersey did not break any laws.

All of the information about the Islamist backgrounds of these four committee members is publicly available, yet the Christie Administration picked them to serve as liaisons to the Muslim community of the state. As a result, they are having private meetings with N.J.’s top security officials. This is just the latest example of Christie’s embrace of Islamists that should be shunned, not exalted.

The discovery that the Islamists were on the committee was made when RadicalIslam.org obtained a previously unreleased list of committee members present at a September 5, 2012 meeting at the Leroy Smith Building in Newark.

The four committee members of concern are:

• Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whose deportation is sought by the Department of Homeland Security for not disclosing on his green card application that he was arrested and convicted by Israel in 1993 for his involvement with Hamas;
• Ahmed Shedeed, a fervent supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and President of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, a mosque with a history of Islamist leadership. Its website currently contains disturbing statements about jihad, the West, wife beating and polygamy;
• Mohammed Younes, the President of the American Muslim Union, a group with Islamist leadership and close ties to Qatanani’s mosque, which was founded by a Hamas fundraiser; and
• Imam Abdul Basit of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded by a radical cleric. In July, it held a Brotherhood-linked seminar featuring multiple extremist speakers.

Addressing the committee were: Attorney General Chiesa, NJ State Police Superintendent Colonel Rick Fuentes and the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Director Edward Dickson. These addresses were followed by dialogue with committee members.

Other NJ officials that were present at the meeting were: First Assistant Attorney General Calcagni, Special Assistant Christopher Iu, Special Assistant Paul Salvatoriello, State Police Major Gerald Lewis and Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Community Affairs Chief John Paige.

Excerpts from the full post below, read it all at the link above.

Profiles of the Four Islamist Committee Members

Imam Mohammad Qatanani

Imam Mohammad QatananiThe most notorious of the committee members is Mohammad Qatanani. He was arrested in Israel in 1993 because of his links to Hamas, including the fact that his brother-in-law was a Hamas official in the West Bank. Qatanani told the Israelis that he had been a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood but left in 1991 because he had limited time for this project. The Israeli government says he admitted to being a Hamas member and was convicted, but he was released as part of a plea bargain. The Department of Homeland Security is seeking his deportation for failing to disclose this on his green card application.

In 1994, Qatanani moved to NJ to lead the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, a mosque founded in 1989 by Hamas fundraiser Mohammed El-Mezain. In November 1994, El-Mezain stated that ICPC was collecting money for Hamas, according to an FBI report. The two men jointly led the ICPC and lived together as El-Mezain raised money for terrorism until he stepped down in 1999. In July 2006, the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against Qatanani.

The DHS says Qatanani “engaged in terrorist activity” and is guilty of “material misrepresentation” and “engaging in unauthorized employment … by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.” It also describes a “highly dubious” transfer of thousands of dollars to the West Bank.

Ahmed Shedeed

Ahmed Shedeed (front with gray hair) at a rally for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi that he posted on Facebook.Muslim Brotherhood supporter Ahmed Shedeed is the president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, an Islamist mosque. His Facebook page has a photo of him at a rally in New York City for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi. He also “likes” the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and three Arabic pages that have Morsi as their main photo, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Circle of North America. Shedeed repeatedly shares Brotherhood-themed photos on his page.

 

Imam Abdul Basit

Qari Abdul Basit is the imam of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded in 1987 by the Islamist cleric Zaid Shakir, who continues to be a guest lecturer. In 2006, the New York Times reported that Shakir said “he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law.”

 Read it all Radical Islam.

Previous posts on imam Christie:

• NJ imam supported by Gov. Christie wants to replace First Amendment with sharia law

  NJ Gov Christie hosts Ramadan dinner, reaffirms support for Hamas-linked imam (video)

• NJ Gov Christie praised Hamas-linked imam as “man of great good will”

• Governor Christie’s Dirty Islamist Ties

• US Attorney opens dialogue with Muslim community