Militant Islam Monitor > Weblog > Wife of Sami Al Arian was founder/director/secretary of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise - Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror front Wife of Sami Al Arian was founder/director/secretary of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise - Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror frontJune 9, 2005 Militant Islam Monitor Press Release
5/8/05 The wife of Sami Al Arian is registered as the co founding director and secretary of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise front for the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Nahla Al Arian should have been indicted along with her husband for helping him set up the PIJ terrorist network which is accused of carrying out suicide bombings and attacks which killed 100 people and maimed numerous others. Nahla Al Arian is also the sister of Mazen Al Najjer, who was deported from the United States as unindicted co conspirator number 12 in the leadership of Islamic Jihad. Al Najjer was also a director of WISE . The PIJ terrorist network which was set up by Al Arian, his wife Nahla, her brother Mazen Al Najjar, and ex USF professor turned Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, continues to fundraise and orchestrate terrorist attacks both in the US and worldwide . At the start of the Iraq war Ramadan Shallah was quoted in the New York Post calling for his followers to carry out suicide attacks on US and coalition soldiers. http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=985 Former USF professor Ramadan Abdallah Shallah was accused of being behind a recent Tel Aviv suicide bombing . http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/477 Nahla Al Arian's designation as secretary and founder/ director on the incorporation papers of WISE shows that she assisted her husband's terrorist activities from WISE's inception. Her role in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad network, and culpability in the attacks carried out by the group must be investigated and revealed by the media. Nahla Al Arian's position as co founder, director, and secretary, of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise proves that she helped to found a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation and must be held accountable. It is in the public and national interest that Nahla Al Arian's claims of her husband's innocence be challenged and scrutinized both inside and outside the courthouse in Tampa.
A June 8th 2005 account of the trial by counterterrorism Steve Emerson and other members of his Investigative Project notes that : "The prosecution appeared to be attempting to show that Sami al-Arian and Sameeh Hammoudeh perjured themselves by not listing their affiliations with the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), and PIJ on their immigration forms. Likewise, Zitek focused on the fact that Sami al-Arian was the signatory on all the immigration forms and visa sponsorships, as the Chairman of WISE, for Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah and Bashir Nafi. " http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/06/steven_emerson__1.html#more ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Al Arian's daughter, Laila Al Arian, was a student at USF and used to run the Muslim Student Organisation on campus. While a student at Georgetown University Laila Al Arian used the school to raise money for her father's defense. http://www.thehoya.com/news/041503/news6.cfm The Sunbiz incorporation papers lists Nahla Al Arian as the founder/co director/ secretary of WISE . According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times in 2001 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/561248/posts "....In 1995, after a suicide bombing operation carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad killed 21 Israeli soldiers, University of South Florida computer science professor Sami Al-Arian wrote a fund-raising letter in which he "call(s) upon you to try to extend true support to the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue." Many of Al-Arian's past statements and associations have raised suspicions that he was involved with terrorist organizations based in the Middle East. However, the fund-raising letter signed by al-Arian, shown during the Oct. 28 telecast of NBC's Dateline, is direct evidence of his active support for terrorism. As usual, Al-Arian dismissed the story as old news and impugned the integrity of his critics. The videotapes and letters speak for themselves. When Al-Arian is seen and heard saying "let us damn America" and calling Jews "monkeys and pigs," no one needs to rely on his critics to interpret his remarks. And when he puts his signature on a letter soliciting funds for terrorist operations, his involvement isn't subject to misunderstanding. Al-Arian claims he only "raised funds for the orphans" of suicide bombers. Please. It's no wonder he thinks he can get away with insulting people's intelligence. He has been playing his American hosts for fools for years, presenting a benign face to the general public while spewing the most hateful sort of venom in the company of fellow Islamic extremists. The facade should have been stripped away years ago. Al-Arian founded the World and Islam Studies Enterprise at USF a decade ago. WISE sponsored events at USF and at other sites around the country, some of which featured radical Islamic speakers such as Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, later convicted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. WISE was shut down in 1995 after one of Al-Arian's WISE associates, Ramadan Shallah, left USF and popped up in Syria as the new leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- the same terrorist organization for which Al-Arian was soliciting funds that year. Al-Arian claimed at the time to be shocked to learn of Shallah's association with PIJ..." In a prepared Statement to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, And Government Information , on February 24, 1998 by Steven Emerson stated that " Ramadan Abdullah Shallah the former head of WISE is now the head of Syrian Islamic Jihad . "...The public links between the ICP and WISE and the true fabric of the Islamic Jihad's command echelon remained covert until finally exposed following the assassination, on October 26, 1995, of Islamic Jihad leader Dr. Fathi Shikaki in Malta. Shikaki, the organization's operations chief in Damascus, had run terrorist cells in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. and had issued tactical directives, often forwarded from Tampa, to his forces in the field. On Monday October 30, 1995, an Arabic-language newspaper published in Jerusalem confirmed that while in the United States, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah had, indeed, acted as the deputy leader of Islamic Jihad, serving as the No. 2 man in the organization. Most troubling to U.S. law enforcement officials was the fact that Shallah has been the terrorist group's second-in-command for an incredible five years before succeeded Fathi Shikaki in October 1995. It was during that time period, as Islamic Jihad deputy commander, that Shallah taught at the University of South Florida and served as director for WISE..." http://www.geocities.com/johnathanrgalt/emerson.html http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/595
The crucible in the elaborate web of networks, fronts and operational guises was Sami Al-Arian, an engineering professor who came to the University of South Florida in 1986 to teach computer science and engineering. One of AI-Arian's first tasks was founding the Islamic Committee for Palestine, or ICP (it was also known as the Islamic Concern Project), a religious charity group that served, ostensibly, as a clearing house of thought and knowledge to promote Islamic thinking. It also served as the secret front group for the Islamic Jihad. AI-Arian also served as the administrative director for the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), an alleged and self- described think-tank on Islamic thought and politics that had been affiliated with the University of South Florida for several years. In fact, the affiliation was a full-fledged working relationship, with the USF co-hosting forums, training WISE-sponsored graduate students, and sharing university resources and libraries. AI-Arian was also the leader of the Masjid AI-Qassam Mosque, located in North Tampa, named for Izzadin AI-Qassam, a martyr to Palestinian nationalism who was killed in 193 5 by British forces in Palestine. In fact, the name Izzadin A1-Qassam is used by Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, as the title for its murderous military brigade responsible for scores of suicide attacks inside Israel. Located near the University of South Florida, the mosque had no official name until 1989, two years after Al-Arian's arrival in south Florida. In an internal power struggle between the traditional leaders of the mosque, and zealous newcomers (such as A1Arian and another Palestinian and another WISE director, Mazen AI-Najjar) turned violent and involved an investigation by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's department. In interviews to local newspapers, A1-Arian declined any link between the name of the AI-Qassam and the Hamas terrorists, though he did say that "AI Qassam was a historical figure that people admired who became a symbol in Palestine of the first to resist and fight for freedom. He was strengthened by religion and devotion to God." While, Islamic studies experts agree, the name "AI-Qassam" is rare among mosques, the AI-Qassam mosque in Gaza is a known epicenter for terrorist activity...http://www.geocities.com/johnathanrgalt/emerson.html |