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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > CAIRing for Anwar al-Awlaki and other Targets of Interest

CAIRing for Anwar al-Awlaki and other Targets of Interest

February 2, 2011

CAIRing for Anwar al-Awlaki and other Targets of Interest

By Joe Kaufman

Last month, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) advertised on its website an event it was having calling on its followers to refuse to speak with the FBI. This action – a blatant attempt to hinder federal government investigative efforts – warrants a closer look into who's running the chapter and their motives for committing such an offense, including their support for and involvement with terrorists.

On January 17, 2011, CAIR Spokesman and Legislative Director Corey Saylor appeared as a guest on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor to discuss how one of CAIR's local chapters had placed on its website a graphic calling on its followers to refuse to talk with the FBI, an idea that CAIR has been promoting for at least the last three years (See ‘CAIR's Anti-Law Jihad').

The ad featured a shadowy figure, labeled "F.B.I.," walking down the street, whilst doors of homes are slamming shut. The headlines on it read, "BUILD A WALL OF RESISTANCE" and "DON'T TALK TO THE F.B.I." It was hastily pulled from CAIR-SFBA's site, following a public uproar.

The ad was for an event to be taking place on February 9th, entitled ‘FBI Raids and Grand Jury Subpoenas: Know Your Rights and Defend Our Communities.' Reportedly, the keynote speaker for the event will be Hatem Abudayyeh, a Chicago-based activist, who has been linked to a number of Palestinian terrorist organizations and whose residence was raided by federal agents last September.

Towards the end of the Fox News segment, the host of the show, Bill O'Reilly, asked Saylor if he could shut down CAIR's San Francisco operation and suggested that this action does damage to the entire CAIR organization. O'Reilly stated that there are some "branches of CAIR" that are "more militant than others."

In Saylor's answer, he quickly caught himself, after he appeared to mention a female associated with the anti-FBI offense. He stated, "Y'know, it was already done, Bill. It was a minor mistake on her part – on the part of the chapter."

Question: Was the mention of a "her" simply an error in speech or was there something more to it?

CAIR-SFBA is run by a her, a young Muslima who goes by the name Zahra Billoo. Billoo is the Executive Director of the group and epitomizes its radical agenda.

Both within and outside her capacity as CAIR representative, Billoo has accumulated a tremendous list of extremist statements and activities, as has been well documented on CAIR Watch. They include:

  • January 2009 – Billoo wrote on her personal blog, Cwzy Muslima, that "one amazing reason to get married" is to "raise fighters" (children) to attack the nation of Israel.
  • December 2008 – Billoo posted on her blog that she considered starting a website to recruit volunteers to attack Israel.
  • October 2008 – Billoo posted an article on her blog stating that to celebrate Columbus Day was "the same as having Jews celebrate Hitler and the Holocaust."
  • March 2008 – Billoo refered to the United States troops as "scum."
  • June 2007 – Billoo proudly announced on her blog that her younger brother Ahmed was quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal – an article that discusses in length about how her brother supports suicide bombings.
  • March 2007 – Billoo attended a fundraiser for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader, Sami al-Arian, and accused the United States government of "persecuting" him.
  • February 2007 – Billoo instructed her blog readers to listen to speeches given at a conference, at least one of which contained praise for Hamas.
  • January 2007 – Billoo wrote that she had thoughts of committing suicide, after she had viewed a pro-Israel advertisement on a San Francisco train.

As well, in March 2007, Billoo and a couple of other CAIR operatives launched a blog, entitled Muslamics. Within the links section of the blog was placed a link to the official website of al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki has been associated with a number of terrorists, including Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.

Billoo is still associated with Muslamics, as is her CAIR colleague Affad Shaikh, and the link to al-Awlaki's official site still remains.

Billoo is not the only leader of CAIR-SFBA with an extremist past. Omar Ahmad, the former National Chairman and co-founder of CAIR, is an Executive Committee Member of CAIR-SFBA.

From May 2007 through November 2008, Ahmad, along with the national CAIR organization, was named by the United States Justice Department a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. In the end, all of the defendants, which included five leaders of the American Hamas financing arm, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), were found guilty of all charges.

Prior to becoming National Chairman of CAIR, Ahmad was the President of the American propaganda wing of Hamas and CAIR's parent organization, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP).

On wiretaps recorded by the FBI in 1993, Ahmad was heard professing his loyalty to Hamas and Hamas' founder and spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin.

CAIR's connection to extremism and terrorism has understandably caught the attention of the FBI. The court trials and wiretaps are mere highlights of this attention, and following the guilty verdicts of the HLF trial, the FBI severed all formal ties with the group.

When Zahra Billoo and CAIR-SFBA posted the advertisement on their website telling their followers not to speak to the FBI, they did so with an overt animosity towards the government agency.

CAIR has claimed that it does not appreciate the FBI's investigations regarding the American Muslim community. What CAIR really does not appreciate is the FBI's investigations regarding CAIR.

Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch. He has been responsible for the closure of at least one terror-related charity and has convinced a number of government officials to shun the Hamas front group, CAIR. In June 2009, he won a lawsuit brought against him by seven Dallas-area radical Muslim organizations

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/02/cairing-for-anwar-al-awlaki-and-other-targets-of-interest/2/

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