Analyst's note: Hard for many to believe, but true. Thought you'd like to know.
This is a short blast from the past. It is a test, had you forgotten this information or were you ever made aware of it my our "standard" media?
When five young Muslim-American men were captured in Pakistan in December 2009 attempting to join up with a terrorist group, it was no surprise that they were quickly linked to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia.
Newsweek reported that at least one of the men attended Dar al-Hijrah, while another recent report indicated that the others attended an associated spin-off mosque in Alexandria. They were also all leaders of Muslim Student Association chapters in the Washington, D.C., area (I have reported on the MSA’s extensive terror ties here at PJM).
No sooner had the men been arrested than did the usual terror apologists (CAIR, et al.) hold a press conference — covered by all the establishment media — expressing shock and amazement at the plot. Speaking at the press conference that day was Dar al-Hijrah Director of Outreach Imam Johari Abdul Malik, who feigned ignorance at how these young men had been recruited for jihad right under their own noses.
If Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, really wants to get to the bottom of radicalization in the American Muslim community — as he has promised upcoming congressional hearings on the issue — he doesn’t have far to look. A long line of terrorists and terrorist supporters from Dar al-Hijrah have regularly popped up in the news since 9/11. But Dar al-Hijrah is not some small strip-mall mosque; it is one of the largest Islamic centers in the eastern United States
The Pakistan Five case was not Johari Abdul-Malik’s first go-around with this sort of thing. After Dar al-Hijrah attendee Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was arrested in Saudi Arabia and confessed to being part of an al-Qaeda cell that was planning to assassinate President George W. Bush, in an interview with the New York Times Abdul-Malik compared Abu Ali to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
But Abu Ali was hardly a marginal figure at Dar al-Hijrah. He not only was a youth leader at the mosque and regularly delivered prayers there, he taught Islamic studies at the center and was a camp counselor for their youth summer day camp. During his trial, current Dar al-Hijrah senior Imam Shaker el-Sayed served as the Abu Ali family spokesman and chauffeur. Abu Ali was convicted on a range of terrorism charges and sentenced to a 30-year prison term. A federal appeals court overturned the sentencing, and ordered the district judge to impose a life sentence in accordance with federal sentencing guidelines.
The Dar al-Hijrah star pupil made news last year when his request for copies of Barack Obama’s books — Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope — was denied by federal prison authorities on grounds that the books were “potentially detrimental to national security.”
Even more notorious than Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is former Dar al-Hijrah Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, the wanted al-Qaeda cleric currently subject to a presidential kill-or-capture order. Awlaki was the imam for Dar al-Hijrah in 2001 and 2002, during which time he was spiritual leader to at least three of the 9/11 hijackers. Two of them, Nawaf Alhazmi and Hani Hanjour, followed the imam from San Diego to Virginia and attended the mosque. Click here to continue: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dar-al-hijrah-dc-s-own-terror-factory/
Pajamas Media
Patrick Poole
March 3, 2011
