Counterterrorism Caucus Announces Oklahoma Chapter of CAIR Ties to Terror-Supporting Imam

Now what will they do about it? via Oklahoma House of Representatives – News Story. h/t @zTruth (follow her on twitter)

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Counterterrorism Caucus of the state Legislature announced today evidence collected against the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its ties with an Imam who has supported terrorists in the past.

At its recent annual banquet, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, Outreach Director of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., delivered the keynote address at CAIR’s banquet. The Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center was identified in the 9-11 Commission Report as the mosque frequented by several of the 9-11 hijackers.

James Lafferty, chairman of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force, had this to say about Abdul-Malik: “In his public statements, Abdul-Malik demonstrates regularly his contempt for the rule of law and his support for terrorist acts against America … and praises those who have attacked our country and attempted to kill the President of the United States. No American should honor this man or his disgraceful words and behavior.”

A letter from VAST included links to newspaper articles which cited several incidents from Abdul-Malik’s past:

- He defended Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a Dar Al Hijrah, member who is serving a life sentence in a federal prison for nine counts of terrorism including a plot to assassinate President George W. Bush, kill members of Congress and bomb restaurants, nightclubs and other public places across America.

- He also defended Ali Al Timimi, a Muslim cleric of Fairfax, Va., who was convicted in April, 2005, and is serving a life sentence in a federal prison for counseling others to wage war against the United States and use firearms and explosives in furtherance of violent crimes.

- He was often cited as the spokesman for the Dar Al Hijrah mosque and he used his position there to defend numerous convicted terrorists and question the judicial system in the United States.

Past newspaper reports show Abdul-Malik’s extreme positions.

“Our whole community is under siege,” Abdul-Malik told the New York Times on Feb. 27, 2005. “They don’t see this as a case of criminality. They see it as a civil rights case, as a frontal attack on their community. The feeling I get here on a daily basis must be what it was like to be a member of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church following the case of Rosa Parks. People always ask: ‘What is the latest from the courthouse?’”

And on April 27, 2005, he told the New York Times Muslims aren’t free to speak their minds in the United States.

“There is a view many Muslims have when they come to America that you could not be arrested for something you say,” Abdul-Malik said. “But now they have discovered they are not free to speak their minds. And if our opinions are out of vogue in the current climate, we feel we are all at risk.”

State Rep. John Bennett, Counterterrorist Caucus chairman, said CAIR and other groups like it have been identified as front organizations for terrorist groups.

“In the case of U.S. vs. The Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorist-financing trial in the history of the U.S., CAIR was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization and an unindicted co-conspirator,” said Rep. Bennett-R, Sallisaw. “In fact, CAIR and several others petitioned the federal court to have their names removed from the co-conspirator list.

“But U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis denied their motion in a Memorandum Opinion issued on July 1, 2009. In doing so, Solis wrote: ‘The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Islamic Trust, the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association of Palestine and Hamas.’”

Rep. Bennett added that the caucus had discovered a letter from the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office in which Special Agent in Charge James Finch says that the FBI cannot participate in a planned Muslim Community Outreach Program because of the “planned participation by the Oklahoma Chapter of CAIR.”

“As we have said repeatedly, we believe that the vast majority of Muslims in Oklahoma are peace-loving, productive members of society,” Rep. Bennett said. “We support wholeheartedly their constitutional right to practice their religion in peace.

“The stated, two-fold goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, however, is to establish global Muslim rule, or a ‘caliphate,’ and to replace our constitution with Sharia law. To say, as some have suggested, that CAIR is a Muslim civil rights group is simply inconsistent with the evidence. The theme of CAIR’s annual banquet this year was Upholding our Constitution, Defending our Faith. One has to wonder whose constitution they’re talking about.”

OTBR reading for Oklahoma politicians: Muslim Leader Declares That Oklahoma Tornadoes Are Allah’s Punishment for Killing Muslims

Florida: FBI agent kills Chechen during Boston bombing interrogation (updated)

via FBI agent shoots Orlando man questioned in Boston bombing probe – FOX 35 News Orlando.

ORLANDO, Fla. – An FBI agent in Orlando shot dead a man questioned in the Boston bombing investigation whom the agency says turned violent during an interview early Wednesday.

The suspect was identified by the FBI as Ibragim Todashev, 27, of Orlando.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said the agent involved in the shooting on Peregrine Avenue near Kirkman and Vineland roads, near Universal Orlando, acted on an imminent threat and shot Todashev during an interview. The FBI agent was “conducting official duties” when Todashev initiated a “violent confrontation” and was shot, agent Dave Couvertier said in a statement.

The agent was with two Massachusetts State Police troopers and other law enforcement personnel at the time, Couvertier said.

“I heard a couple loud bangs, I saw a couple cop cars riding by,” said Jared Morse, who lives in the area. “They wouldn’t let anyone out to see anything or anything like that, so they made us go back inside.”

A source told FOX 25 News in Boston that Todashev was being questioned by an FBI agent from Boston about an unsolved triple murder in Waltham, Mass. The source said Todashev became violent during the interview and was shot by the agent.

Khusen Taramov, a man at the scene of the Peregrine Avenue shooting who identified himself as a friend of Todashev’s, said Wednesday that Todashev knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother suspected in the April 15 bombings that killed three and injured more than 260.

Taramov said he and Todashev had no connection with the Boston bombings, but the FBI had been questioning them since then. Taramov said Todashev had lived in Boston at one point, and Todashev and Tsarnaev were not friends, just acquaintances through mixed-martial-arts fighting.

“He used to talk on the phone with him [Tsarnaev],” Taramov said of Todashev. “They talked last time a month ago. After the bombing, I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Public records indicate that Todashev lived in Watertown, Mass., until just last year.  Taramov said ever since the bombings, he and Todashev had been questioned and followed by the FBI.

“The FBI kept asking, ‘What’s the connection?’ But there is no connection… no connection.”

Even before his encounter with the FBI, Todashev had a recent run-in with law enforcement.

He was arrested earlier this month on a charge of aggravated battery after getting into a fight over a parking spot with a 54-year-old man and his 35-year-old son at Orlando’s Premium Outlets mall. The 35-year-old man was hospitalized with a split upper lip and several teeth knocked out, according to a report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

Taramov said Todashev had planned to return to Chechnya but canceled his tickets.

“Me and him and my friends, we knew this was going to happen. That’s why he wanted to leave the country,” Taramov said. “But he canceled the tickets. The FBI’s been pushing him, ‘Don’t leave, don’t leave.’ So he decided to stay,” he said.

Taramov said the FBI had questioned him earlier Tuesday, but he was allowed to leave. When Taramov returned, he said he found out Todashev had been shot dead, he said.

The FBI agent involved was transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The FBI has sent a team from Washington, D.C., to review the incident. The team should arrive in Orlando within 24 hours, it said.

“The FBI knows what happened,” Taramov said.

More via CBS.

A friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev implicated himself and Tsarnaev in an unsolved triple homicide before authorities say he instigated a violent confrontation that resulted in his death early Wednesday morning, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reported.

But sources say during questioning Tuesday night, Todashev implicated himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the killings. As investigators pushed at him towards a confession, he snapped, reported Orr.

Law enforcement officials say the 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter made a move that threatened the investigators. The FBI agent, who suffered cuts in the altercation, shot and killed Todashev.

The FBI became interested in him after phone records suggested a connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Over several weeks agents kept tabs on Todashev and questioned him a handful of times. The FBI found nothing connecting Todashev to the Boston attacks.

So multiple FBI agents and Massachusetts state police/martial law officers (in Florida) went to interview this a guy who was friends with two Muslim terrorists who killed four and wounded 200 and eluded an entire police force for a day and they didn’t secure the suspect or the area during the interview? They didn’t video tape the interview? The suspect then implicated himself in a triple murder, wasn’t placed under arrest or secured at that point, made a threatening move and was subsequently shot dead. Case closed?

Color us skeptical. If this was Iraq and it was an Army Ranger acting in self defense, he’d end up in jail serving 25 years.

Update: Officials: it’s no longer clear what happened in the moments before the fatal shooting

Initially, FBI officials said Todashev, 27, became violent and lunged at an agent with a knife while he was being questioned about Tsarnaev and an unsolved 2011 triple murder in the Boston suburb of Waltham. The agent, acting on an “imminent threat,” then shot Todashev, they said.

However, later in the day, some of those officials had backed off that preliminary account, and it’s no longer clear what happened in the moments before the fatal shooting, The Associated Press reported.

Update 2: Unrelated, or not? Can things get any more surreal in this administration? FBI: Agents died in fall from helicopter off Va. coast

Two members of the FBI’s elite counterterrorism unit died Friday while practicing how to quickly drop from a helicopter to a ship using a rope, the FBI announced Monday in a statement.

Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

NYC: 15 ‘Palestinians’ arrested in cigarette-smuggling ring linked to Islamic militants

via New York says breaks cigarette-smuggling ring linked to militants.

(Reuters) – Fifteen men of Palestinian origin have been arrested on charges of running a multi-million-dollar cigarette smuggling ring in New York, and New York authorities who announced the arrests on Thursday said several of the suspects have ties to Hamas and other Islamist militant groups.

The men are accused of smuggling more than a million cartons of untaxed cigarettes from Virginia to be sold in grocery stores across New York, with $55 million in sales uncovered so far, Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, and Ray Kelly, the New York City police commissioner, said at a press conference.

“We don’t know where all of that money went, but what we do know is deeply troubling,” Schneiderman said. “We know that some members of this group have ties to very dangerous people, we know they were arrested with weapons, we know that they made tens of millions of dollars but so far we have found only a fraction of that.”

Investigators are still tracking where much of the money ended up, but they noted similar rings in the past have funneled money to Hamas, the Islamist government in Gaza, and Hezbollah, the militant Shi’ite group based in Lebanon, both of which are considered to be terrorist organizations by the United States.

All 15 men remained in custody on Thursday and could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately clear if they had retained lawyers.

A 16th man accused of taking part in the ring, Ribhi Awadeh, 39, from Guttenberg, New Jersey, remained at large after flying to Jordan several weeks ago, Schneiderman said.

In a 224-count indictment, the men are charged with enterprise corruption, money laundering and other tax crimes, for which each defendant faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. In addition to costing New York State and New York City an estimated $80 million in lost sales tax revenue, the ring generated at least $10 million in profit, Schneiderman and Kelly said.

None of the men lived extravagantly, Schneiderman said, adding that this supported the idea the money was being funneled elsewhere.

“This is not the lifestyles of the rich and famous,” Schneiderman said. “We are very concerned about where the money went.”

Kelly said that Youssef Odeh, 52, of Staten Island, who is accused of being a distributor for the ring, received an investment for an illegal baby formula distribution business in the 1990s from Omar Abdel Rahman, often dubbed the “blind sheik,” who is imprisoned for helping plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Muaffaq Askar, 46, of Brooklyn, who is accused of being one of the ring’s resellers, was a confidant of Rashid Baz, Kelly said. Baz, a Lebanese immigrant, is serving a 141-year prison sentence after being convicted in the 1994 shooting of Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old yeshiva student in Brooklyn, which Baz said was in retaliation for the killing of Muslim worshippers in the West Bank by a Jewish settler from Brooklyn.

Mohannad Seif, 39, of Brooklyn, another accused reseller, had been under police surveillance in part because he had lived in the same three-story Brooklyn building as a former secretary to Moussa Abu Marzouk, a deputy leader of Hamas.

Authorities said the ring was headed by two brothers, Basel Ramadan, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 40, both of Ocean City, Maryland, who ran a couple of local Subway restaurant franchises. Investigators said they found $1.4 million stashed in Basel Ramadan’s home, some of it stuffed in black plastic trash bags, and three handguns following his arrest on Thursday.

The ring bought cigarettes from a wholesaler in Virginia and kept them in a storage facility in Delaware, Schneiderman said.

A co-conspirator, Adel Abuzahrieh, 42, of Brooklyn, was accused of driving from New York to Delaware several times a week to exchange cash for cigarettes, and then return with the illicit goods for resale.

Two of the accused men are in the United States illegally, according to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Others, including the Ramadan brothers, are naturalized citizens, while the rest are legal permanent residents.

Minnesota: Two Muslim women sentenced in terror funding case

The future of Minnesota

At least a dozen Muslims have been arrested or sentenced in just the last week. via 2 Minnesota women sentenced in Somali terror case – Yahoo! News.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Two Minnesota women convicted of conspiring to send money to al-Shabab in Somalia were given prison sentences in federal court Thursday, ending a week of punishments tied to long-running investigations into recruiting and financing for the terrorist group.

Amina Farah Ali, 36, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on 13 terrorism-related counts, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 66, received a 10-year term on one terror-related count and two counts of lying to the FBI.

Ali insisted during her 3½-hour hearing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis that she was only trying to help the poor in her war-torn homeland.

“Everything that I have done, I have done because I was trying to do good,” Ali said. “My intention was to alleviate the suffering of people.”

But prosecutors have said Ali and Hassan were part of a “deadly pipeline” that sent funds and fighters to al-Shabab. Authorities said they went door-to-door in the name of charity and held religious teleconferences to solicit donations, which they then routed to the fighters.

Defense attorneys painted the women as humanitarians who gave money to orphans and the poor, as well as to a group fighting to rid Somalia of foreign troops. At the time, Ethiopian troops brought into Somalia by its weak U.N.-backed government were viewed by many Somalis as invaders.

Ali’s attorney, Dan Scott, told the court Ali learned that she needed to work with those in power if her money was going to reach its destination.

“This was not a choice between good and evil. This was a choice between evils,” the lawyer said.

He added: “It’s not terrorism. She backed the wrong horse.”

Minnesota: Four More Muslims Jailed for Aiding Somali Jihad

via Four Jailed In US For Aiding Somalia’s Islamist Group.

A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday sentenced three men to three years in prison and handed down a 12-year prison term to a fourth for aiding in the recruitment of fighters for al-Shabaab, an outlawed Somali Islamist militant group.

Abdifatah Isse, Salah Ahmed and Ahmed Mahamud were each given three-year prison terms by Judge Michael Davis of the Minneapolis Federal Court after they pleaded guilty to providing material support to al-Shabab.

Isse and Ahmed had earlier admitted to traveling to Somalia in December 2007 for attending an al-Shabaab training camp. They spent a week at the camp, but left the East African state in the spring of 2008 after having second thoughts.

Mahamud, on the other hand, admitted that he had raised money for other recruits to travel to Somalia. Although he as well as Isse and Ahmed faced a maximum of 15 years in prison, prosecutors recommended lesser sentences for the trio due to their cooperation with investigators.

The fourth person sentenced on Tuesday in the same case was 28-year-old Omer Abdi Mohamed, who received a 12-year prison term. He had pleaded guilty in July 2011 to one count of conspiring to provide material support to co-conspirators who intended to murder, kidnap, or maim Ethiopian and Somali government troops.

“These defendants, by providing material support to a designated terrorist organization, broke both the law and the hearts of family members across the Twin Cities,” Todd Jones, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, said in a statement after the sentencing.

Al-Shabaab is Somalia’s most prominent and influential Islamist militant unit. The al-Qaeda aligned outfit has been branded as a terrorist organization by the United States and most of the international community. It is the military wing of the Islamist movement ousted by Ethiopia-backed Somali forces in 2006.

Your mainstream media will be reporting this any day now. Not.

North Carolina: 3 Muslims sentenced in plot to behead terror witnesses

Pair gets just three years for plotting to behead witnesses. via Trio sentenced in plot to behead terror witnesses | abc7chicago.com.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A judge gave four life sentences Friday to a man already facing decades in federal prison for his role in a North Carolina terror plot.

Hysen Sherifi lectured federal Judge Earl Britt about Islamic teachings and warned the judge he faced damnation at his sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors say Sherifi conspired with his brother and a female friend to kill witnesses who testified against him about a plot with five other men in the Raleigh – Johnston County area to attack the U.S. Marine base at Quantico and targets overseas. In 2012, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the original case.

After Sherifi was convicted, prosecutors say he convinced his brother Shkumbin and former special education teacher Nevine Aly Elshiekh to help behead three confidential informants from his trial. He also wanted a fourth man killed who he said had defrauded his family out of more than $30,000.

The FBI learned of the plot through a jail informant and staged a fake hit on one of the witnesses. They even created bogus photos of the beheaded man to show to Hysen in his jail cell.

At sentencing Friday, Judge Britt said Hysen destroyed the lives of his brother and Elshiekh.

They were also sentenced Friday after pleading guilty last year to conspiracy to commit murder for hire at Hysen’s urging. Shkumbin Sherifi was given 36 months in prison and 36 months probation. Nevine Aly Elshiekh was sentenced to 42 months in prison and 36 months probation.

Prosecutors offered Elshiekh and Shkumbin plea deals, agreeing to drop eight other counts in exchange for testimony against Hysen.

More: Man sentenced in N.C. plot to behead terror witness

Before Hysen Sherifi was sentenced, he lectured the judge about Islamic teachings.

“The Koran is the truth that invalidates all other religions,” said Sherifi, who declined a court-appointed lawyer and represented himself at trial. “If you do not submit, he will severely judge you, and on the day of judgment you will enter hellfire.”

How Islamic organizations skirt terrorism financing laws (video)

From the award-winning documentary “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception,” a new film by Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The 70-minute film focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood and its penetration in the United States.

Yet Muslim lawyers whine about scrutiny of such groups.

DHS guidelines advise deference to pro-shariah Muslim supremacists

Just like the IRS.

via The Daily Caller, Homeland Security: Respect pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists. (as if there were anti-sharia Muslim supremacists)

The Department of Homeland Security, which under Secretary Janet Napolitano has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists, according to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Shariah Muslim supremacists.

Political Islamists? Are there non-political Islamists? More redundancy and linguistic gymnastics to describe followers of Islam.

In a checklist obtained by The Daily Caller entitled “Countering Violent Extremism Dos and Don’ts” the DHS’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notifies local and national law enforcement officials that it is Obama administration policy to consider specifically Islamic criticism of the American system of government legitimate.

This policy stands in stark contrast to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis’ 2009 memo “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” [pdf], which warned of the dangers posed by pro-life advocates, critics of same-sex marriage and groups concerned with abiding by the U.S. Constitution, among others.

DHS CRCL CVE Training – Dos and Donts

…

The checklist also advised against using moderate Muslim “trainers who are self-professed ‘Muslim reformers’” because they “may further an interest group agenda instead of delivering generally accepted, unbiased information.”

The Homeland Security document also seems to discount evidence unearthed by the Justice Department about the aims of some mainstream Muslim organizations, warning law enforcement not to rely on “unsubstantiated theories” and “conspiracies,” such as the belief that “many mainstream Muslim organizations have terrorist ties” or are “fronts for Islamic political organizations whose true desire is to establish Sharia law in America.”

The manual advises trainees not to assume Muslim Americans are “using democratic processes, like litigation and free speech, to subvert democracy and install Sharia law.”

In fact, the Justice Department proved that some very prominent Muslim organizations do have terror ties in a 2009 case and that they share the Muslim Brotherhood’s goal of Shariah law. “The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations], ISNA [Islamic Society of North America], NAIT [North American Islamic Trust], with the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas,” U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis said in the July 1, 2009 ruling.

Tim Clemente, a former FBI agent who hunted Anwar Al-Awlaki and who has worked with Muslims to help stop terrorist plots, told The Daily Caller the government overdoes its sensitivity. Clemente says that the Muslim community “needs a realization, not necessarily a reformation,” that only it can stop terrorist attacks.

Read it all and closely examine the DHS memo linked at Daily Caller.

Keen eyes will immediately note some of the absurd recommendations, particularly the don’ts such as:

Of course not, why would anyone who wants to counter violent extremism want to “venture too deep into the weeds of religious doctrine and history” particularly when Muslim jihadists – the impetus for creating DHS – cite religious doctrine as their justification.

And agree with him or not, Zudhi Jasser seems to be on to something when he tweets:

Maybe he looked at the links at the bottom of the memo:

The LA Sheriff’s Dept (if anyone, TrentoVision?, can get that video we’d love to see and post it). See LA Sheriff Lee Baca’s multiple Muslim Outreach programs

The MPAC. See Salam Al- Marayati Head Of Terror Supporting MPAC To Be Panelist At DHS Conference

The Homeland Security Advisory Council. See DHS: Napolitano Swears in Freedom and Justice Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Elibiary to Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Muslim Brotherhood also uses the Freedom and Justice name.

It becomes quite clear why the government cannot protect its citizens: it doesn’t want to.

Idaho: Muslim refugee from Uzbekistan charged in terror plot

via Idaho man charged in Uzbekistan terrorism plot.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — He was a Russian-speaking truck driver who came to Idaho nearly four years ago to join hundreds of other Uzbekistan refugees for whom the state has become a sanctuary from violence in their home country.

But federal officials say in an indictment that Fazliddin Kurbanov also was teaching people to build bombs that would target public transportation.

It’s unclear whether those alleged targets were domestic or abroad — or how far Kurbanov would have gone. Prosecutors said Friday only that they believe he no longer is a threat.

Kurbanov, 30, was arrested Thursday during a raid of his small apartment south of Boise’s downtown.

Prosecutors charged him with felonies in Idaho and Utah after an extensive investigation into his activities late last year and this year. They allege those activities included assisting a militant group in his native Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country with a southern border with Afghanistan.

“Given his arrest, we believe any potential threat he posed has been contained,” U.S Attorney Wendy Olson said. She noted the investigation is ongoing but declined to say whether federal agents are pursuing additional arrests.

Kurbanov said little Friday during his first court appearance, where he pleaded not guilty with help from an interpreter and a federally appointed defense attorney. Kurbanov wore a jail jumpsuit and had dark hair and a beard that was much shorter than the one pictured in his Idaho driver’s license.

Kurbanov lists Uzbek as his first language and Russian as his second in court documents. Federal officials said they will enlist the help of an interpreter again Tuesday when he appears for his detention hearing.

Until then, Kurbanov will be held in the Ada County Jail. His trial on the three counts filed in Idaho is scheduled for July 2.

His lawyer, Richard Rubin, declined to comment.

Kurbanov is among about 650 Uzbeks living in Idaho. He was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee in August 2009, the same month he moved to Boise, said Jan Reeves, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees, citing immigration records. Kurbanov was here legally, federal officials said.

Uzbeks began coming to Idaho’s two refugee settlement centers, in Boise and Twin Falls, in 2003, Reeves said. The centers connect refugees with services such as language classes and help finding work.

About 90 percent of Uzbeks in their home country are Muslim.

North Carolina: Muslim pleads guilty, wanted to rob & kill Americans to fund jihad

“Rios planned to fund his trip by committing violent robberies in North Carolina, leaving no witnesses alive.”

via Neighbor describes eerie feeling about terrorism-related suspect – WJHL-TV

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A 19-year-old from Fayetteville pled guilty to charges related to his plans for terrorist activities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Erwin Antonio Rios, 19, of Fayetteville, pled guilty Tuesday to a charge of possession of a stolen firearm. He was arrested in February.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that Rios wanted to take the gun overseas to carry out what he called “jihad” on non-believers in Islam, U.S. forces included. The DOJ said Rios explained jihad as various forms of violence against those he determined to be non-believers. The DOJ characterized the intentions as terrorist activities.

In a press release, the DOJ wrote that Rios planned to fund his trip by committing violent robberies in North Carolina, leaving no witnesses alive.

“Erwin Rios intended to commit violent acts against innocent people in furtherance of his extremist doctrine of hate,” said John Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Charlotte Division of the FBI.

According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affidavit, Rios was arrested on February 7. Agents believe Rios was living or had spent some time at his father’s house on Oak Knolls Drive prior to his arrest.

People who live on the street said Wednesday they remember agents raiding the Rios home a few months ago – the day of, or the day after the arrest. One neighbor who did not give his name said he saw agents take computers from the home. The neighbor also said he had only seen Rios for a few weeks prior to the raid, and he said Rios was wearing a thobe or Islamic man’s robe.

The FBI affidavit said a confidential informant first met Rios at an Islamic house of worship in Hoke County in June 2012. According to the affidavit Rios talked to the informant over several more months. The affidavit said Rios talked about a desire to be soldier for Allah, and that Muslims would rule the world, and that anyone who killed in defense of his religion would be forgiven and guaranteed a place in heaven.

His father says it was an Islamic website that led his son to jihad. Why can’t a single reporter identify the website? And why did it take nearly three months for news of his arrest to hit the air?

More via WAPO, NC man pleads guilty in terrorism plot that included talk of attacks on Fort Bragg soldiers

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina man who the FBI says spoke of killing U.S. Army soldiers as part of a personal jihad has pleaded guilty to possessing a stolen firearm.

Erwin Antonio Rios, 19, admitted guilt Tuesday in U.S. District Court as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. The terms of the agreement have not been made public, but the felony charge to which Rios pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

In an affidavit filed with the court, FBI Special Agent Frank Brostrom said Rios holds extremist Islamic views and told a government informant he would like to kill Fort Bragg soldiers.

“Rios spoke of how Islam will rule the world soon, and that non-believers are guaranteed hell fire,” Brostrom said. “Rios stated that he would have loved to have been a soldier for Allah.”

Authorities said Rios, who is from Fayetteville, also plotted to travel overseas to commit violence against non-Muslims and devised a scheme to commit armed robberies to obtain money to buy weapons. The FBI set up a sting where Rios bought what he was told was a stolen handgun and was then immediately placed under arrest.

According to the affidavit, an FBI informant first met Rios in June 2012 at a mosque in Raeford. The young Muslim told the informant he wanted to fight non-believers oppressing the faithful.

Two month later, the informant and Rios were riding in a car past the gates of Fort Bragg, the sprawling home of the 82 Airborne Division. Rios told the informant they could easily gain access to the base and that he liked to observe the soldiers and watch their movements in case he ever had to make jihad against them, according to the affidavit.

When a military helicopter flew overhead, Rios “stated that he wished he had a ‘Stinger missile’ to take it out,” according to Brostrom.

In another conversation, Rios is reported to have told the FBI informant that the “most efficient way to kill them all would be to wear an explosive vest and blow yourself up for Allah,” according to the affidavit.

In September, Rios told the informant he had been talking to someone who could get him an AK-47 assault rifle and a .357 caliber handgun for about $500. When the informant suggested that the guns might be stolen at that price, Rios responded that he knew that but it was still a good deal, according to the affidavit.

The FBI said Rios feared arrest if he tried to buy guns from a licensed dealer. State court records shows he has prior convictions for breaking and entering and possession of a stolen firearm. In 2011, Rios had applied for a passport but was denied because he was on criminal probation, according to the affidavit.

After Rios expressed his desire to buy a gun, the informant offered to introduce him to a neighbor who broke into homes to steal weapons.

On February 7, Rios traveled with the informant to Lillington to meet with a second informant posing as an illegal gun salesman. According to the affidavit, the FBI informant offered Rios a 9mm handgun that had been stolen. Rios then paid a $100 for the gun, which had secretly had the firing pin removed, according to the FBI.

Rios then drove off with the first informant, but they were pulled over by FBI agents after traveling about a mile. Rios was taken into custody as he reached for a knife concealed in his pocket, according to the affidavit.

His guilty plea on Tuesday comes days after three Raleigh Muslims were sentenced in a plot to behead federal informants who helped the FBI foil another homegrown terror plot that involved plans to attack the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Va., and targets overseas.

 Anyone checking into the mosque, its imam, other members? The jihad-loving, article-scrubbing Fayetteville Observer is already defending the house of jihad mosque. Imams have been preaching jihad in North Carolina since at least  the 90′s.

Including the Muslim behind first accredited Islamic college in U.S. says OK for Muslims to attack Ft Bragg

A Council on American-Islamic Relations adviser and regular speaker at its events has suggested Islamic law permits Muslims to attack C-130 military transport planes carrying the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg, N.C., according to a stunning new book exposing Washington-based CAIR’s inner workings.

Radical Islamic cleric Zaid Shakir, a frequent guest speaker at CAIR events, tells his Muslim audiences: “Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad.”

“Islam doesn’t permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people,” Shakir once told a Muslim audience. However, “If you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that’s something else.”

More than 60 posts on North Carolina, click the link below to see them all.

Witness Protection Program lost two ‘known or suspected terrorists’

Muslim terrorists. via First on CNN: Witness Protection Program lost two ‘known or suspected terrorists’ – CNN.com Blogs. h/t Atlas

By Jake Tapper, CNN Chief Washington Correspondent

The U.S. Marshals Service lost two former participants in the federal Witness Security Program “identified as known or suspected terrorists,” according to the public summary of an interim Justice Department Inspector General’s report obtained by CNN.

The Marshals Service has concluded that “one individual was and the other individual was believed to be residing outside of the United States,” according to the summary.

A Justice Department official said in response to follow up questions about the matter by reporters that the pair had left the program years ago and had been accounted for.

It was not clear when or for how long the Marshals Service lost track of them.

Read the public summary here.

The report notes that while in the middle of an audit of the WITSEC program, also referred to as “WitSec,” the IG notified the Justice Department of national security vulnerabilities, and the IG’s office “developed the interim report to help ensure that the Department promptly and sufficiently addressed the deficiencies we found.”

After its audit, the IG’s office reported “the department did not definitively know how many known or suspected terrorists were admitted into the WITSEC program,” among other “significant issues concerning national security.”

As of March 2013, the Justice Department was reviewing more than 18,000 Witness Protection Program case files to determine whether more known or suspected terrorists have been admitted to the program, the summary notes. As such, the number of terrorists lost or unaccounted for “may not be complete and may continue to evolve.”

The IG summary said that although the Marshals Service was giving known or suspected terrorists who participated in the WITSEC program and their dependents new names and identity documentation, the Justice Department “was not authorizing the disclosure to the Terrorist Screening Center,” which operates the terrorist watch list that helps provide information to the Transportation Security Administration’s No-Fly and Selectee lists. “Therefore it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the summary said.

The IG’s office notified the Justice Department of these problems and in the middle of remedying them, marshals discovered they could not account for the two missing people.

Muslim terrorists are among us – only their names have change. Maybe some investigative journalist can follow up on these previous posts:

1. Muslim terrorist convicted in 2009 Times Square jihad plot nowhere to be found

2. U. S. gives half of Lackawanna Six jihadis new identities