Report: Boston Suspects' Mosque Has Terror Ties

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5766

Report: Boston Suspects' Mosque Has Terror Ties

April 24, 2013

Report: Boston Suspects' Mosque has Terror Ties
Interfaith group reports that Boston suspects' mosque ‘has a curriculum that radicalizes people.' Maayana Miskin

The mosque attended by the two suspects in the Boston marathon bombings "has a curriculum that radicalizes people," according to the interfaith group Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

The mosque has reportedly been associated with other suspected terrorists and is affiliated with the controversial Muslim American Society, APT says.

Among the former attendees of the mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Massachusetts, are Aafia Siddiqui, who was arrested for planning a chemical attack on New York City and Tarek Mehanna, who conspired to aid al-Qaeda.

The mosque's first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, was jailed in 2004 for his role in a Libyan assassination plot against then-crown prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

APT reports that the Cambridge mosque's sister mosque in Boston, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, has hosted speakers who have defended terrorism. A former mosque trustee was seen on video calling on Allah to kill Zionists and Jews, the group says.

APT head Charles Jacobs says both mosques teach an anti-Western brand of Islam that includes mistrust of law enforcement and opposition to the American style of government.

APT's director of research, Ilya Feoktistov, said funding for the Boston mosque came primarily from Saudi sources.

Yusufi Vali, executive director of the Boston mosque, rejected APT's accusations. Speaking to USA Today, Vali accused APT of spreading "lies and half-truths in order to attack and marginalize much of the local Muslim community and many of its institutions."

A statement from the Cambridge mosque confirmed that the Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were "occasional visitors" but said neither expressed radical Islamic views.

"They never exhibited any violent sentiments or behaviors. Otherwise, they would have been reported," said manager Nichole Mossalam.

Board of trustees member Anwar Kazmi told USA Today that the mosque condemns the marathon bombings. "This kind of violence, terrorism, it's just completely contrary to the spirit of Islam," he said.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/167442

MIM: For an extensive expose on the ISB's terror ties see:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/23/boston-mosque-radicals/2101411/

"...Among the controversial figures associated with Islamic Society of Boston, which runs the mosque Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended:

- In March 2010, Imam Abdullah Faarooq gave a sermon praising Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT graduate who had returned to her native Pakistan in 2003 and was later exposed as courier and financier for Al Qaeda. She was eventually arrested in Afghanistan with containers of sodium cyanide and notes on making a bomb. In his sermon, Faarooq proclaimed Siddiqui's innocence and told worshippers, "You must grab on to this rope, grab on to the typewriter, grab on to the shovel, grab on to the gun and the sword, don't be afraid to step out into this world and do your job." - Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an original trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston and known as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the past, he has told followers in sermons that Jews and homosexuals should be "exterminated." The Anti-Defamation League has referred to him as a "Theologian of Terror," and he once wrote in an Arabic newspaper editorial that Jews are "the Rapists of worshippers of Allah." - Tariq Mehanna and Ahmed Abousamra were mosque members who, in 2009, were indicted by federal prosecutors for providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country. Hale cited a sermon delivered by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, in which he called Christians "spiritually filthy" and said that Muslims could not be citizens of a county where man makes law because they must follow God's law, as examples of the mosque's misguided teachings. Requests for comment from officials at the ISB were not immediately returned. But one expert on counterterrorism told FoxNews.com that if authorities establish the brothers were motivated by their faith, the role of the mosque where they worshipped should be examined. "It's very possible that he [Tamerlan] was influenced by the teachings there," said Clare Lopez, a senior fellow at The Clarion Project and a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on the Middle East. "We don't know for certain, but if you look at the way this mosque was founded and who it was founded by, you can at least suspect that he was influenced."

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5766