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FTR #439 Update on 9/11

Lis­ten:
MP3 Side 1 [1] | Side 2 [2]
RealAu­dio [3]

As the title of the pro­gram indi­cates, this broad­cast brings up to date a num­ber of the impor­tant ele­ments fig­ur­ing in the inquiry into the analy­sis of 9/11 and relat­ed mat­ters. Although the chair­man of the “inde­pen­dent” com­mis­sion inves­ti­gat­ing 9/11 has indi­cat­ed that the attacks could have been pre­vent­ed, there are a num­ber of devel­op­ments that indi­cate that the inves­ti­ga­tion is being atten­u­at­ed. A major focal point of the dis­cus­sion con­cerns the con­tin­ued activ­i­ties of Al Taqwa’s Youssef Nada and Ahmed Idris Nasred­din. The activ­i­ties of both have con­tin­ued apace, despite the fact that inter­na­tion­al sanc­tions have been lev­eled against them. In addi­tion, the pro­gram reviews con­nec­tions between the SAAR net­work, Bank Al Taqwa, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the GOP’s eth­nic out­reach orga­ni­za­tion.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The 9/11 inves­ti­gat­ing com­mis­sion’s agree­ment to allow the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to cen­sor the doc­u­ments it gives to their inquiry; a Fed­er­al judge’s rul­ing that Princes Sul­tan and Tur­ki of Sau­di Ara­bia could not be sued in con­nec­tion with 9/11; the activ­i­ties of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s Tariq Ramadan [4] and his broth­er Hani in Europe; Al Taqwa per­son­age Yusef al-Qaradawi [5]’s activ­i­ties in con­nec­tion with African-Amer­i­can Mus­lims; the con­nec­tion of Abdu­rah­man Alam­ou­di [6] to a Boston mosque; the rise of anti-Semi­tism in Europe.

1. The broad­cast begins with analy­sis of a state­ment by the chair­man of the com­mis­sion that has been inves­ti­gat­ing 9/11. Chair­man Thomas Kean stat­ed that the attacks could have been pre­vent­ed.

“For the first time, the chair­man of the inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion inves­ti­gat­ing the Sept. 11 attacks is say­ing pub­licly that 9/11 could have and should have been pre­vent­ed, reports CBS News cor­re­spon­dent Ran­dall Pinkston. ‘This is a very, very impor­tant part of his­to­ry and we’ve got to tell it right,’ said Thomas Kean. ‘As you read the report, you’re going to have a pret­ty clear idea what was­n’t done and what should have been done,’ he said. ‘This was not some­thing that had to hap­pen.’ Appoint­ed by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, Kean, a for­mer Repub­li­can gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey, is now point­ing fin­gers inside the admin­is­tra­tion and lay­ing blame. ‘There are peo­ple that, if I were doing the job, would cer­tain­ly not be in the posi­tion they were in at that time because they failed. They sim­ply failed,’ Kean said.”

(“9/11 Chair: Attack was Pre­ventable” from CBS cor­re­spon­dent Ran­dall Pinkston; CBSNews; 12/17/2003.)

2.

“To find out who failed and why, the com­mis­sion has nav­i­gat­ed a polit­i­cal land­mine, threat­en­ing a sub­poe­na to gain access to the pres­i­den­t’s top-secret dai­ly briefs. Those doc­u­ments may shed light on one of the most con­tro­ver­sial asser­tions of the Bush administration—that there was nev­er any thought giv­en to the idea that ter­ror­ists might fly an air­plane into a build­ing.”

(Idem.)

3.

“ ‘I don’t think any­body could have pre­dict­ed that they would try to use an air­plane as a mis­sile, a hijacked air­plane as a mis­sile,’ said nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er Con­doleeza Rice on May 16, 2002. ‘How is it pos­si­ble we have a nation­al secu­ri­ty advi­sor com­ing out and say­ing we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stat­ing that this is a pos­si­bil­i­ty,’ said Kris­ten Bre­itweis­er, one of four New Jer­sey wid­ows who lob­bied Con­gress and the pres­i­dent to appoint the com­mis­sion. The wid­ows want to know why var­i­ous gov­ern­ment agen­cies did­n’t con­nect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warn­ings from FBI offices in Min­neso­ta and Ari­zona about sus­pi­cious stu­dent pilots. . . .”

(Idem.)

4. Next, the pro­gram notes that the com­mis­sion is not real­ly all that “independent”—the White House has the option of block­ing the release of infor­ma­tion from view­ing by the com­mit­tee.

“The com­mis­sion inves­ti­gat­ing the Sept. 11 ter­ror attacks said Thurs­day that its deal with the White House for access to high­ly clas­si­fied intel­li­gence reports would let the White House edit the doc­u­ments before they were released to the com­mis­sion’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives.”

(“White House to Edit Files 9/11 Pan­el Seeks” [New York Times]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 11/14/2003; p. A16.)

5.

“The agree­ment, announced Wednes­day, has led to the first pub­lic split on the com­mis­sion. Two Democ­rats on the 10-mem­ber pan­el say that the com­mis­sion should have demand­ed full access to the intel­li­gence sum­maries, known as the Pres­i­den­t’s Dai­ly Brief, and that the White House should not be allowed to deter­mine what is rel­e­vant to the inves­ti­ga­tion.”

(Idem.)

6.

“An umbrel­la group of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies joined the crit­i­cism, say­ing the terms of the accord should be pub­lic. While pan­el spokes­men refused again to pro­vide the terms, its exec­u­tive direc­tor acknowl­edged that the White House would be able to remove infor­ma­tion from the reports unre­lat­ed to Al Qae­da and to the Sept. 11 attacks.”

(Idem.)

7. Yet anoth­er indi­ca­tion that the inves­ti­ga­tion of 9/11 is not pro­ceed­ing well is a rul­ing by a judge that nei­ther the Sau­di defense min­is­ter, Prince Sul­tan, nor Prince Tur­ki al-Faisal, the for­mer intel­li­gence chief can be sued by the sur­vivors of the vic­tims of 9/11. (Prince Sul­tan, it should be not­ed, is being rep­re­sent­ed by Bak­er Botts, the law firm of for­mer Sec­re­tary of State James Baker—the same firm that han­dles the legal work for the Car­lyle Group [7].)

“Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s defense min­is­ter and its for­mer intel­li­gence chief, who have denied alle­ga­tions in a $1 tril­lion law­suit tying them to the Sept. 11 attacks, are beyond the reach of U.S. courts, a fed­er­al judge ruled. The suit, filed by vic­tims and sur­vivors of the 2001 attacks, accused the Saud­is of hav­ing long, per­son­al rela­tion­ships with Osama bin Laden and offi­cials of the Afghan Tal­iban mili­tia. The offi­cials are the defense min­is­ter, Prince Sul­tan, and Prince Tur­ki al-Faisal, for­mer direc­tor of gen­er­al intel­li­gence and now the Sau­di ambas­sador in Britain. The suit also alleged that Sul­tan had donat­ed mil­lions of dol­lars to Sau­di char­i­ties that sub­se­quent­ly for­ward­ed the mon­ey to bin Laden’s al Qae­da net­work and oth­er ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions. In an order issued Fri­day, U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Robert­son ruled that his court lacked juris­dic­tion under both inter­na­tion­al and U.S. law and dis­missed all claims against the two Sau­di offi­cials.”

(“Sau­di Offi­cials Ruled Out­side Reach of U.S.”; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 11/16/2003; p. A3.)

8. Fol­low­ing up on a point of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in FTR#435, the pro­gram notes that attempts at inter­dict­ing the flow of mon­ey to Al Qae­da and relat­ed groups are fal­ter­ing. In par­tic­u­lar, the efforts and assets of Al Taqwa founders Youssef Nada and Ahmed Idris Nasred­din are appar­ent­ly remain­ing large­ly unaf­fect­ed.

“Gov­ern­ments around the world are not enforc­ing glob­al sanc­tions designed to stem the flow of mon­ey to Al-Qai­da and impede the busi­ness activ­i­ty of the orga­ni­za­tion’s financiers, allow­ing the ter­ror­ist net­work to retain for­mi­da­ble finan­cial resources, say U.S., Euro­pean and U.N. inves­ti­ga­tors. Sev­er­al busi­ness­men des­ig­nat­ed by the Unit­ed Nations as ter­ror­ist financiers, whose assets were sup­posed to have been frozen more than two years ago, con­tin­ue to run vast busi­ness empires and trav­el freely because most nations are unaware of the sanc­tions and oth­ers don’t enforce them, the inves­ti­ga­tors said. Sev­er­al char­i­ties based in Sau­di Ara­bia and Pak­istan that were report­ed­ly shut down by the gov­ern­ments there because of the groups’ alleged finan­cial ties to Osama bin Laden also con­tin­ue to oper­ate freely, they said.”

(“Ter­ror­ist Funds Still Flow­ing Despite Glob­al Sanc­tions” by Dou­glas Farah [Wash­ing­ton Post]; San Jose Mer­cury News; 12/14/2003; pp. 1A-10A.)

9.

“As a result, Al-Qai­da con­tin­ues to receive ample fund­ing not only to car­ry out its own plots but also to finance affil­i­at­ed ter­ror­ist groups and to seek new weapons, the inves­ti­ga­tors and ter­ror­ism experts said. A report released this month by a U.N. pan­el of experts doc­u­ment­ed the con­tin­ued flow of money—including drug money—to ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and warned that Al-Qai­da ‘has already tak­en the deci­sion to use chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons in their forth­com­ing attacks. The only con­straint they are fac­ing is the tech­ni­cal com­plex­i­ty to oper­ate them prop­er­ly and effectively’—rather than a lack of means to acquire them. . . .”

(Ibid.; p. 10A.)

10.

” . . . Illus­trat­ing the inef­fec­tive­ness of the sanc­tions regime, U.S. and U.N. offi­cials said, are the joint busi­ness empires of Yousef Nada and Idris Nasred­din, which sprawl across Europe and Africa and are worth hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars. Nada, an Egypt­ian nation­al who lives in Switzer­land, was des­ig­nat­ed a ter­ror­ist financier by the Unit­ed Nations on Nov. 9, 2001, and was pub­licly accused by U.S. and U.N. offi­cials of pro­vid­ing direct aid to Al-Qai­da. Nasred­din, an Eritre­an who lives in Italy, was des­ig­nat­ed a ter­ror­ist sup­port­er on April 24, 2002. At that time, the assets of more than a dozen of their joint enter­pris­es were sup­posed to have been frozen, and a trav­el ban was imposed on the pair. . . .”

(Idem.)

11.

” . . . U.S. offi­cials and the Unit­ed Nations report said that many of the pair’s busi­ness­es, includ­ing a lux­u­ry hotel in Milan, con­tin­ue to oper­ate and that both men vio­late the trav­el ban with impuni­ty. . . .”

(Idem.)

12. Next, the broad­cast turns to the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002. The insti­tu­tions raid­ed on that day over­lap the milieu of al Taqwa, as well as the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s eth­nic out­reach orga­ni­za­tion and the Bush admin­is­tra­tion.

“A secre­tive group of tight­ly con­nect­ed Mus­lim char­i­ties, think tanks and busi­ness­es based in North­ern Vir­ginia were used to fun­nel mil­lions of dol­lars to ter­ror­ists and laun­der mil­lions more, accord­ing to court records unsealed yes­ter­day. An affi­davit from Home­land Secu­ri­ty agent David Kane said that the Safa Group, also known as the SAAR net­work, in Hern­don had sent more than $26 mil­lion in untrace­able mon­ey over­seas and that lead­ers of the orga­ni­za­tion ‘have com­mit­ted and con­spired to . . . pro­vide mate­r­i­al sup­port to for­eign ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions.’ ”

(“Ter­ror Probe Points to Va. Mus­lims” by Dou­glas Farah; Wash­ing­ton Post; 10/18/2003; p. A6.)

13.

“The probe of the Hern­don groups is the largest fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion of ter­ror­ism financ­ing in the world, author­i­ties have said. And the unseal­ing of Kane’s report marks the first time the gov­ern­ment has alleged the main pur­pose of the Vir­ginia orga­ni­za­tions, set up pri­mar­i­ly with dona­tions from a wealthy Sau­di fam­i­ly, was to fund ter­ror­ism and hide mil­lions of dol­lars. Kane said the con­vo­lut­ed nature of the myr­i­ad finan­cial trans­ac­tions and the fact that much of the mon­ey was sent to tax havens with bank secre­cy laws make it impos­si­ble to trace the final des­ti­na­tion of much of the mon­ey. But he said the pat­tern of the mon­ey’s move­ment, cou­pled with the asso­ci­a­tion of lead­ers of the Safa Group with sus­pect­ed ter­ror­ists, were strong indi­ca­tors the group was financ­ing ter­ror­ism.”

(Idem.)

14.

“ ‘There appears to be no inno­cent expla­na­tion for the use of lay­ers and lay­ers of trans­ac­tions between Safa Group com­pa­nies and char­i­ties oth­er than to throw law enforce­ment author­i­ties off the trail,’ Kane wrote. In march 2002 fed­er­al agents raid­ed the orga­ni­za­tion’s offices on Grove Street in Hern­don as well as the homes of eight lead­ers of the group. . . .The 101-page affi­davit was released yes­ter­day at the request of the Wall Street Jour­nal. The doc­u­ment, which also includes sev­er­al lengthy attach­ments, lays out the gov­ern­ment case in detail for the first time, includ­ing alleged finan­cial ties going back almost two decades between the Safa Group and groups under inves­ti­ga­tion for ter­ror­ist ties in Flori­da and Dal­las. . . .”

(Idem.)

15.

“The affi­davit charges that over­lap­ping com­pa­nies in the Safa Group were delib­er­ate­ly set up to ‘lay­er’ or obscure the final des­ti­na­tion of mil­lions of dol­lars that moved in com­pli­cat­ed trans­ac­tions among orga­ni­za­tions led by the same small group of peo­ple. It details how, from 1996 to 2000, char­i­ties in the Safa Group raised $54 mil­lion and that $26 mil­lion was sent to the Isle of Man, a known tax haven where bank secre­cy laws make it impos­si­ble to trace the final des­ti­na­tion of the mon­ey. About $20 mil­lion went to Safa Group char­i­ties and $8 mil­lion went to peo­ple and groups out­side the orga­ni­za­tion, accord­ing to the group’s out­side the orga­ni­za­tion, accord­ing to the group’s own Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice fil­ings.”

(Idem.)

16. Of par­tic­u­lar note in con­nec­tion with the Green Quest raids is Ibrahim Has­s­a­bal­la, who hand-car­ried the seed mon­ey for the Safa Group from Sau­di Ara­bia.

“The pur­pose of all the trans­ac­tions, Kane said, is ‘to route mon­ey through hid­den paths to ter­ror­ists, and to defraud the Unit­ed States by imped­ing, impair­ing, obstruct­ing and defeat­ing the law­ful gov­ern­ment func­tions of the IRS.’ In a five-year peri­od, four groups in the net­work sent more than $26 mil­lion to the Isle of Man. The ini­tial mon­ey to set up the Safa Group, was $3.4 mil­lion hand-car­ried in 1980 from Sau­di Ara­bia by Ibrahim Has­s­a­bal­la, Kane said. The heart of the net­work in the ear­ly years was the SAAR foun­da­tion, named for Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Rajhi. . . .”

(Idem.)

17.

” . . . The affi­davit alleges lead­ers of the Safa Group know­ing­ly sup­port­ed the Islam­ic Resis­tance Move­ment, or Hamas, and the Pales­tin­ian Islam­ic Jihad (PIJ), both des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist enti­ties by the Unit­ed States in 1995. Senior inves­ti­ga­tors said lead­ers of the Safa Group also put mil­lions of dol­lars into banks and com­pa­nies that financed Osama bin Laden’s al Qae­da orga­ni­za­tion. In the past month, two indi­vid­u­als with ties to the Safa Group have been in fed­er­al court.”

(Idem.)

18. Both Soli­man S. Bihairi and Abdu­rah­man Alam­ou­di were heav­i­ly involved with Nada and Nasred­din [8].

“On Oct. 9, Soli­man S. Bihairi, who han­dled invest­ments for some of the lead­ers of the Safa Group, was con­vict­ed on two counts of immi­gra­tion fraud. He awaits sen­tenc­ing, and pros­e­cu­tors have request­ed he receive 10 years in prison because of alle­ga­tions that Biheir­i’s com­pa­ny was used to fund ter­ror­ism. Abdu­rah­man Alam­ou­di, a well-known leader of the Amer­i­can Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty who also led sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions in the Safa Group, was arrest­ed ear­li­er this month on charges of ille­gal­ly trav­el­ing to Libya.”

(Idem.)

19. Note that the above-men­tioned Ibrahim Has­s­a­bal­la also played a role in set­ting up Bank al Taqwa. Has­s­a­bal­la was one of many prin­ci­pals involved in the al Taqwa oper­a­tions and the SAAR net­work.

” . . . Inves­ti­ga­tors also say they have uncov­ered numer­ous ties between SAAR enti­ties and Bank al Taqwa. Samir Salah—a founder of Safa Trust, SAAR’s suc­ces­sor, and an offi­cer of oth­er SAAR companies—helped estab­lish Bank al Taqwa in the Bahamas in the 1980’s, accord­ing to a Trea­sury doc­u­ment. . . . Ibrahim Has­s­a­bal­la, anoth­er offi­cer of some SAAR relat­ed com­pa­nies, also helped set up Bank al Taqwa in the Bahamas. . . .”

(“U.S. Trails Va. Mon­ey, Ties” by Dou­glas Farah and John Mintz; Wash­ing­ton Post; 10/7/2002; pp. 3–4.)

20. Under­scor­ing the con­nec­tions between the Third Reich and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (the par­ent orga­ni­za­tion of Al Taqwa), the broad­cast reviews the alle­ga­tion that Youssef Nada helped the Grand Mufti escape from Ger­many at the end of World War II.

“Anoth­er val­ued World War II Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor was Youssef Nada, cur­rent board chair­man of al-Taqwa (Nada Man­age­ment), the Lugano, Switzer­land, Liecht­en­stein, and Bahamas-based finan­cial ser­vices out­fit accused by the US Trea­sury Depart­ment of mon­ey laun­der­ing for and financ­ing of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qae­da. As a young man, he had joined the armed branch of the secret appa­ra­tus’ (al-jihaz al-sir­ri) of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and then was recruit­ed by Ger­man mil­i­tary intel­li­gence. When Grand Mufti el-Hus­sei­ni had to flee Ger­many in 1945 as the Nazi defeat loomed, Nada report­ed­ly was instru­men­tal in arrang­ing the escape via Switzer­land back to Egypt and even­tu­al­ly Pales­tine, where el-Hus­sei­ni resur­faced in 1946.)”

(“Islamism, Fas­cism and Ter­ror­ism (Part II)” by Marc Erik­son; Asia Times; 11/5/2002; p. 2.) [9]

21. Next, the broad­cast focus­es on the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, an Islam­ic fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion that was allied with the axis dur­ing World War II and which under­lies the major­i­ty of Islam­ic ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions.

Note that Tariq Ramadan is the son of Said Ramadan and the son-in-law of Has­san Al-Ban­na, the founder of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.

“Of all the Mus­lim lead­ers in Europe, per­haps none has more visibility—and more faces—than Tariq Ramadan. To many experts on Islam, Ramadan, a 41-year-old Swiss-born phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor, is a respectable schol­ar who pro­motes a mod­ern, tol­er­ant ver­sion of Islam from his head­quar­ters in Gene­va and in his lec­tures around the world.”

(“For Mus­lim Leader, Devo­tion and Sus­pi­cion” by Elaine Sci­oli­no [New York Times]; Inter­na­tion­al Her­ald Tri­bune; 11/17/2003; p. 1.)

22.

“To his Mus­lim fol­low­ers in the rough sub­urbs of France, he is a spir­i­tu­al guide whose pas­sion­ate speech­es and cas­sette tapes inspire them to throw them­selves and their beliefs into West­ern soci­ety like a ‘bomb,’ as he says on one cas­sette tape, even as he tells them to become mod­el, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. To a num­ber of French intel­lec­tu­als, he is a dan­ger­ous dem­a­gogue whose words have mul­ti­ple mean­ings and are laced with anger and anti-Semi­tism.”

(Idem.)

23.

“ ‘So Who is Tariq Ramadan?’ read the front-page head­line in the dai­ly tabloid Le Parisien on Fri­day. Below the head­line, there was a col­or pho­to of a pen­sive Ramadan, a hand on his beard­ed chin. Ask Ramadan the ques­tion and he will say that he is a mis­un­der­stood man. In an inter­view on Thurs­day in an office he keeps in this work­ing-class Paris sub­urb, he fierce­ly denied that he was anti-Semit­ic and attrib­uted the cam­paign against him to his pop­u­lar­i­ty.”

(Idem.)

24. In assess­ing Tariq Ramadan, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant to note the influ­ence he has through his con­nec­tions with acad­e­mia and the media. (This influ­ence should be eval­u­at­ed in the con­text of the Ser­pen­t’s Walk [10] scenario—in which the “opin­ion-form­ing media” are the cat­alyz­ing agent for the trans­for­ma­tion of soci­ety into a fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion. Ramadan may be viewed as con­sti­tut­ing an Islam­o­fas­cist man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Ser­pen­t’s Walk sit­u­a­tion.)

“ ‘I have so many stu­dents and fol­low­ers in the States,’ he said, not­ing that his writ­ings are used in Amer­i­can cours­es on Islam and that he is invit­ed to lec­ture all over the world. ‘Look at my new book,’ he said, cit­ing the Inter­net ver­sion of a book titled ‘West­ern Mus­lims and the Future of Islam’, soon to be pub­lished by Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press. ‘It’s the prod­uct of 15 years of work.’ ”

(Idem.)

25.

” . . . In 1928, his grand­fa­ther Has­san al-Ban­na found­ed the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Egypt, an Islam­ic revival move­ment that preached a return to Mus­lim val­ues as part of the strug­gle against West­ern colo­nial­ism and deca­dence. (The group is now banned in Egypt.) In the 1950’s, the fam­i­ly was sent into exile by the Egypt­ian leader Gamal Abdel Nass­er, and Ramadan’s father, Said Ramadan, moved with his rel­a­tives to Switzer­land. There he cre­at­ed an Islam­ic cen­ter that became a place of pil­grim­age for fig­ures like Mal­com X. Ramadan’s broth­er Hani won noto­ri­ety in France and was sus­pend­ed from his job as a high school French teacher in Gene­va after he wrote an essay for Le Monde last year that jus­ti­fied ston­ing women as pun­ish­ment for adul­tery. . . .”

(Idem.)

26.

” . . . In an inter­view, [Bernard] Kouch­n­er, a for­eign aid advo­cate and a for­mer health min­is­ter of France, called Ramadan ‘absolute­ly a kook with no his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry’ and ‘a dan­ger­ous man.’ He added, ‘The way he denounced some Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­als is close to anti-Semi­tism.’ In a joint essay in the newsweek­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur three lead­ing French Social­ists accused Ramadan of com­mit­ting a ‘crime’ against the Repub­lic with his words. ‘We can­not allow peo­ple to cat­e­go­rize French cit­i­zens accord­ing to their race, their ori­gin or their reli­gion,’ they said, adding, ‘what Tariq Ramadan has done is sow hatred and racial dis­cord.’ ”

(Ibid.; p. 2.)

27. Accord­ing to the book Dol­lars for Ter­ror, the orig­i­nal move by Said Ramadan to Switzer­land was to coor­di­nate the activ­i­ties of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood with those of Nazi banker Fran­cois Genoud.

“Let us men­tion only the inci­dent of the trea­sure of the FLN, at the cen­ter of which the banker Fran­cois Genoud may be found. [Said] Ramadan and the Mus­lim Broth­ers thought that they could play a part in the Alger­ian process as they had done in Pales­tine in 1947. Said Ramadan thus left Munich to set­tle in the city of Calvin.”

(Dol­lars for Ter­ror: The Unit­ed States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copy­right 2000 [SC]; Algo­ra Pub­lish­ing; ISBN 1–892941-06–6; p. 154.) [11]

28. The pro­gram reviews an item of dis­cus­sion from FTR#352. An arti­cle in the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle con­tains an asser­tion that Fran­cois Genoud is believed to have found­ed Al Taqwa in order to fund ter­ror­ists such as Car­los the Jack­al and Bin Laden.

“Author­i­ties believe Genoud found­ed Al Taqwa Bank and allo­cat­ed its resources to sup­port inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ists such as Vladimir Ilich Ramirez, alias Car­los the Jack­al, and Bin Laden.”

(“Swiss Probe Anti‑U.S. Neo-Nazi” by Jay Bushin­sky; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 3/12/2002; p. A12.)

29. In eval­u­at­ing the tac­tics of the Mus­lim Brotherhood–the par­ent orga­ni­za­tion of al Qae­da and oth­er Islamist ter­ror groups–it is impor­tant to note that, as Tariq Ramadan’s broth­er Hani stat­ed, the free­doms afford­ed by the West­ern Democ­ra­cies offer the Broth­er­hood the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spread its Islam­o­fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy.

” ‘The advan­tage of our pres­ence in Europe’ Hani Ramadan says, ‘is that we can take advan­tage of the free­dom of the demo­c­ra­t­ic regimes.’ For exam­ple on March 11, 1995, Ramadan spoke dur­ing a gath­er­ing that was offi­cial­ly orga­nized by the Alger­ian FIS. The demon­stra­tion, in fact, brought togeth­er the Euro­pean sup­port­ers of the Armed Islam­ic Groups (GIA). And the cen­ter direct­ed by Ramadan, which has enough meet­ing space for some 20 peo­ple, is also used as a hub for the Euro­pean rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions that are under sur­veil­lance by sev­er­al Euro­pean police forces. . .”

(Ibid.; p. 155.)

30.

” . . . Like his broth­er Mr. Ramadan Tariq, Mr. Ramadan Hani is thus an impor­tant fig­ure in the Euro­pean Islamist move­ment and enter­tains close rela­tions with the Union of Islamist Orga­ni­za­tions of France (UOIF). This asso­ci­a­tion has par­tic­i­pat­ed in demon­stra­tions in favor of wear­ing the Islam­ic head­scarf and its sym­pa­thies extend to the Pales­tin­ian move­ment Hamas.’ ”

(Idem.)

31. Next, the pro­gram turns to analy­sis of the extent to which the Broth­er­hood has suc­cess­ful­ly pen­e­trat­ed Mus­lim cir­cles in the Unit­ed States. One of those whose efforts have pen­e­trat­ed African-Amer­i­can Mus­lim cir­cles is Dr. Yussef al-Qar­dawi, a pri­ma­ry ele­ment in the al Taqwa net­work.

“An advi­sor who insist­ed on anonymi­ty would lat­er pro­vide me with a con­fi­den­tial list of the founders of the bank and the first share­hold­ers. I thus learned that the pres­i­dent of Al Taqwa’s office of reli­gious con­trol is Dr. Yussef al-Qar­dawi. Regard­ed as the the­o­rist behind Islam­ic inter­na­tion­al finance, he is famous through­out the Arab world for the rad­i­cal ser­mons which he gives reg­u­lar­ly on the nation­al tele­vi­sion of Qatar, where he is liv­ing in exile. This con­fi­den­tial list also men­tions sev­er­al emi­nent per­son­al­i­ties of the Tunisian and Syr­i­an Mus­lim Broth­ers, as well as lead­ers of the inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion of the Fra­ter­ni­ty.”

(Ibid.; p. 139.)

32. Al-Qar­dawi has been involved with the estab­lish­ment of a mosque in Boston.

“The Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tion poised to build the largest mosque in the North­east on a site in Rox­bury has long-stand­ing ties to an Egypt­ian cler­ic who prais­es sui­cide bomb­ings and a Mus­lim activist indict­ed last week in a ter­ror­ism financ­ing probe. The Islam­ic Soci­ety of Boston, which has city approval to build a sprawl­ing $22 mil­lion Islam­ic cul­tur­al cen­ter and mosque on Mal­colm X Boule­vard, has had a long asso­ci­a­tion with Dr. Yusuf Abdul­lah al-Qaradawi, whose vocal sup­port of the Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist group Hamas prompt­ed the State Depart­ment to bar him from enter­ing the U.S. four years ago.”

(“Rad­i­cal Islam: Out­spo­ken Cler­ic, Jailed Activist Tied to New Hub Mosque” by Jonathan Wells, Jack Mey­ers, Mag­gie Mul­vi­hill and Kevin Wis­niews­ki; The Boston Her­ald; 10/28/2003.)

33. In addi­tion, Abdu­rah­man Muham­mad Alam­ou­di [6](anoth­er Al Taqwa asso­ciate) is affil­i­at­ed with this orga­ni­za­tion.

“The local reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion, now head­quar­tered on Prospect Street in Cam­bridge, was found­ed by Abdu­rah­man Muham­mad Alamoudi—a high-pro­file Wash­ing­ton, D.C. activist who has pub­licly sup­port­ed Hamas, Hezbol­lah and oth­er ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions.”

(Idem.)

34. It is inter­est­ing and sig­nif­i­cant that Europe is wit­ness­ing the rise of vir­u­lent anti-Semi­tism. The pres­ence of Islam­ic fas­cist ele­ments with­in Europe is undoubt­ed­ly one of the con­tribut­ing fac­tors, along with some of the Euro­pean fas­cist ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with them.

“On Britain’s Nation­al Holo­caust Remem­brance Day, the Inde­pen­dent news­pa­per runs a car­toon of a blood­thirsty Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Sharon devour­ing a Pales­tin­ian baby. Despite many com­plaints, it is named best car­toon of 2003 by the U.K. Polit­i­cal Car­toon Soci­ety. Anti-glob­al­iza­tion groups in Ger­many invoke old stereo­types of Jews as glob­al manip­u­la­tors by sug­gest­ing that Jews played a major role in plan­ning the Iraq war and the events of Sept. 11, 2001. A book alleg­ing that the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intel­li­gence agency con­spired to plot the attacks on New York and Wash­ing­ton sits on the Ger­man best-sell­er list for months.”

(“Fears of Anti-Semi­tism Sweep Europe” by Veronique Mis­t­i­aen, Jody K. Biehl and Eliz­a­beth Bryant; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 12/14/2003; p. A1)