Yet another anti-Shariah conference threatened

Doubletree Hotel, Annapolis, Md.

The venues for two events presenting the advancement of Islamic law in the U.S. and the Western world already have backed out in just the past week, and now a conference in Maryland faces cancellation if a former Democratic state lawmaker and the many Islamic advocacy groups that support him have their way.

Saqib Ali, a former member of the Maryland state legislature, has published an open letter charging that the speakers for a conference to be hosted by the Maryland Conservative Action on Saturday in Annapolis, Md., include “the nation’s leading Islamophobes,” the Daily Caller reported.

Ali’s letter, which also criticized Republican lawmakers who have agreed to address the conference, has been officially endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of Annapolis, CASA de Maryland and Equality Maryland, a group that promotes same-sex marriage.

“Unfortunately, instead of inviting legitimate conservative speakers, MDCAN has instead chosen speakers who are well-known conspiracy theorists, McCarthyites, racists and anti-Muslim fanatics,” Ali wrote, according to the Daily Caller.

Get your autographed copy of Pamela Geller’s “Stop the Islamization of America” directly from WND.

Meanwhile, as WND reported yesterday, amid threats of violence, the corporate office of a Nashville hotel canceled an agreement to host the Shariah Action Network’s Preserving Freedom Conference, scheduled for Nov. 11. Two of the speakers lined up for the Nashville event – Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and former actor and congressman Fred Gandy and his wife Catherine – are also scheduled to speak at the Maryland event, at the Doubletree Hotel in Annapolis.

Ali’s open letter, the Daily Caller reported, criticized Gaffney, a defense official in the Reagan administration, and the Grandys for “actively promot[ing] the idea that American Muslims are trying to secretly subvert the Constitution by implementing ‘Creeping Shariah.'”

In addition, WND reported that the Hyatt Place Hotel in Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston, canceled a tea party event Oct. 18 featuring Geller after complaints reportedly by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

Another speaker planned for the Maryland conference is former FBI executive John Guandolo, who leads training classes in Islamic law for state and local law enforcement officials.

The Nashville conference, which is co-sponsored by WND, features Robert Spencer, author of 10 books about Islam and director of Jihad Watch, and Pamela Geller, a WND columnist, editor of the blog Atlas Shrugs and author of the book “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.”

Stephen Eckley, senior vice president of hotels for Amerimar Enterprises in Denver – the Hutton Hotel in Nashville’s managing corporation, told WND it was his decision to cancel the Nashville event, citing “veiled threats that there were going to be protests that could easily erupt into violence.”

Grandy already has encountered opposition for his assertion that the U.S. is threatened by the spread of radical Islamic law at home. He claims WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., forced him and his wife to quit their morning talk show because of controversial remarks about Islam.

The Daily Caller reported Ali tried to shut down a similar event hosted by the Chevy Chase, Md., Republican Women’s Club at which Grandy and his wife spoke last month. The sold-out event went ahead as planned, however, and none of the promised picketers showed up.

Hutton Hotel in Nashville

Gaffney called Ali’s actions “standard operating procedure for CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups.”

“They are trying to impose what are known as Shariah blasphemy laws, whereby anyone who says anything critical about Islam, no matter how true, is to be silenced,” he told the Daily Caller. “It is actually a capital offense.”

Ali charged that the Maryland conference is “just exactly the same as if the Ku Klux Klan is coming to town and the Doubletree Hotel decided to host them.”

“To say that Muslim-Americans are trying to subvert the U.S. constitution through Sharia law is ridiculous and is just a way to set up anti-Muslim bigotry,” he said.

Claims that CAIR, MPAC and other Muslim groups are promoting Islamic law in America are “absolutely false,” he declared. “There is no evidence of that whatsoever.”

Gaffney, however, insisted that there is ample evidence that the U.S. government “is acceding increasingly to such demands.”

“This is becoming an epidemic of Shariah blasphemy enforcement by hotel chains. It’s all the more reason why this conference must go forward. It is indeed the time to call out Shariah promoters, and I hope to do it myself.”

CAIR has sued the co-author of a WND Books expose, “Muslim Mafia,” which uses primary source material to document its founding as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Hamas.

CAIR founder Nihad Ahmad reportedly told a group of Muslims in Northern California in 1998 that they are in America not to assimilate, but to help assert Islam’s rule over the country.

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant,” a local reporter paraphrased him as saying. “The Quran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

Ahmad insists he was misquoted. However, the reporter stands by her story, and an FBI wiretap transcript quotes Ahmad agreeing with terrorist suspects gathered at the secret Philadelphia meeting to “camouflage” their true intentions.

He compared it to the head fake in basketball.

“This is like one who plays basketball: He makes a player believe that he is doing this, while he does something else,” Ahmad said. “I agree with you. Like they say, politics is a completion of war.”

Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director, also has expressed a desire to overturn the U.S. system of government in favor of an Islamic state.

“I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future,” Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education.”

Rogues gallery of terror-tied CAIR leaders

As former FBI agent Mike Rolf acknowledges in “Muslim Mafia,” “CAIR has had a number of people in positions of power within the organization that have been directly connected to terrorism and have either been prosecuted or thrown out of the country.” According to another FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials, “Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters.”

A review of the public record, including federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election Commission records detailing donor occupations, reveals that CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations. The list is long and includes:

FBI agents arresting CAIR founding director Ghassan Elashi in 2002.

• Ghassan Elashi: One of CAIR’s founding directors, he was convicted in 2004 of illegally shipping high-tech goods to terror state Syria and is serving 80 months in prison. He was also convicted of providing material support to Hamas in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial. He was chairman of the charity, which provided seed capital to CAIR. Elashi is related to Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook.
• Muthanna al-Hanooti: The CAIR director’s home was raided in 2006 by FBI agents in connection with an active terrorism investigation. Agents also searched the offices of his advocacy group, Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International Relations, which al-Hanooti operates out of Dearborn, Mich., and Washington, D.C.

  Al-Hanooti, who emigrated to the U.S. from Iraq, formerly helped run a suspected Hamas terror front called LIFE for Relief and Development. Its Michigan offices also were raided in September 2006. In 2004, LIFE’s Baghdad office was raided by U.S. troops, who seized files and computers. Al-Hanooti is related to Sheik Mohammed al-Hanooti, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

  Muthanna al-Hanooti, wearing traditional headgarb

  “Al-Hanooti collected over $6 million for support of Hamas,” according to a 2001 FBI report, and was present with CAIR and Holy Land officials at a secret Hamas fundraising summit held in 1993 at a Philadelphia hotel. Prosecutors added his name to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.

  Although Al-Hanooti denies supporting Hamas, he has praised Palestinian suicide bombers as “martyrs” who are “alive in the eyes of Allah.”

• Abdurahman Alamoudi: Another CAIR director, he is serving 23 years in federal prison for plotting terrorism. Alamoudi, who was caught on tape complaining that bin Laden hadn’t killed enough Americans in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, was one of al-Qaida’s top fundraisers in America, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
• Siraj Wahhaj: A member of CAIR’s board of advisers, Wahhaj was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The radical Brooklyn imam was close to convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and defended him during his trial.

  Imam Siraj Wahhaj

  “Muslim Mafia,” citing co-author’s Sperry’s previous book “Infiltration” as well as terror expert Steven Emerson’s research, reports that Wahhaj, a black convert to Islam, is converting gang members to Islam and holding “jihad camps” for them. With a combination of Islam and Uzis, he has said, the street thugs will be a powerful force for Islam the day America “will crumble.”

  Wahhaj was a key speaker at CAIR’s 15th annual fund-raising banquet in Arlington, Va., in 2009.

• Randall “Ismail” Royer: The former CAIR communications specialist and civil-rights coordinator is serving 20 years in prison in connection with the Virginia Jihad Network, which he led while employed by CAIR at its Washington headquarters. The group trained to kill U.S. soldiers overseas, cased the FBI headquarters and cheered the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Al-Qaida operative Ahmed Abu Ali, convicted of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush, was among those who trained with Royer’s Northern Virginia cell.
• Bassam Khafagi: Another CAIR official, Khafagi was arrested in 2003 while serving as CAIR’s director of community affairs. He pleaded guilty to charges of bank and visa fraud stemming from a federal counter-terror probe of his leadership role in the Islamic Assembly of North America, which has supported al-Qaida and advocated suicide attacks on America. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison and deported to his native Egypt.
• Laura Jaghlit: A civil-rights coordinator for CAIR, her Washington-area home was raided by federal agents after 9/11 as part of an investigation into terrorist financing, money laundering and tax fraud. Her husband Mohammed Jaghlit, a key leader in the Saudi-backed SAAR network, is a target of the still-active probe.

  Jaghlit sent two letters accompanying donations – one for $10,000, the other for $5,000 – from the SAAR Foundation to Sami al-Arian, now a convicted terrorist. In each letter, according to a federal affidavit, “Jaghlit instructed al-Arian not to disclose the contribution publicly or to the media.”

  Investigators suspect the funds were intended for Palestinian terrorists via a U.S. front called WISE, which at the time employed an official who personally delivered a satellite phone battery to Osama bin Laden. The same official also worked for Jaghlit’s group.

  In addition, Jaghlit donated a total of $37,200 to the Holy Land Foundation, which prosecutors say is a Hamas front. Jaghlit subsequently was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

  Nihad Awad

• Nihad Awad: Wiretap evidence from the Holy Land case puts CAIR’s executive director at the Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in 1993 that was secretly recorded by the FBI. Participants hatched a plot to disguise payments to Hamas terrorists as charitable giving.

  During the meeting, according to FBI transcripts, Awad was recorded discussing the propaganda effort. He mentions Ghassan Dahduli, whom he worked with at the time at the Islamic Association for Palestine, another Hamas front. Both were IAP officers. Dahduli’s name also was listed in the address book of bin Laden’s personal secretary, Wadi al-Hage, who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the U.S. embassy bombings. Dahduli, an ethnic-Palestinian like Awad, was deported to Jordan after 9/11 for refusing to cooperate in the terror investigation. (An April 28, 2009, letter from FBI assistant director Richard C. Powers to Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. – which singles out CAIR chief Awad for suspicion – explains how the group’s many Hamas connections caused the FBI to sever ties with CAIR.)

  Awad’s and Dahduli’s phone numbers are listed in a Muslim Brotherhood document seized by federal investigators revealing “important phone numbers” for the “Palestine Section” of the Brotherhood in America. The court exhibit showed Hamas fugitive Mousa Abu Marzook listed on the same page with Awad.

  Omar Ahmad

• Omar Ahmad: U.S. prosecutors also named CAIR’s founder and chairman emeritus as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Ahmad, too, was placed at the Philadelphia meeting, FBI special agent Lara Burns testified at the trial. Prosecutors also designated him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee” in America. Ahmad, like his CAIR partner Awad, is ethnic-Palestinian.

  (Though both Ahmad and Awad were senior leaders of IAP, the Hamas front, neither of their biographical sketches posted on CAIR’s website mentions their IAP past.)

  Nabil Sadoun

• Nabil Sadoun: A CAIR board member, Sadoun has served on the board of the United Association for Studies and Research, which investigators believe to be a key Hamas front in America. In fact, Sadoun co-founded UASR with Hamas leader Marzook. The Justice Department added UASR to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case. UPDATE: In 2010, Sadoun was ordered deported to his native Jordan. An immigration judge referenced Sadoun’s relationship with Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation during a deportation hearing.
• Mohamed Nimer: CAIR’s research director also served as a board director for UASR, the strategic arm for Hamas in the U.S. CAIR neglects to mention Nimer’s and Sadoun’s roles in UASR in their bios.

  Mohamed Nimer

• Rafeeq Jaber: A founding director of CAIR, Jaber was the long-time president of the Islamic Association for Palestine. In 2002, a federal judge found that “the Islamic Association for Palestine has acted in support of Hamas.” In his capacity as IAP chief, Jaber praised Hezbollah attacks on Israel. He also served on the board of a radical mosque in the Chicago area.
• Rabith Hadid: The CAIR fundraiser was a founder of the Global Relief Foundation, which after 9/11 was blacklisted by the Treasury Department for financing al-Qaida and other terror groups. Its assets were frozen in December 2001. Hadid was arrested on terror-related charges and deported to Lebanon in 2003.
• Hamza Yusuf: The FBI investigated the CAIR board member after 9/11, because just two days before the attacks, he made an ominous prediction to a Muslim audience.

  “This country is facing a terrible fate, and the reason for that is because this country stands condemned,” Yusuf warned. “It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did. And lest people forget, Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands.”

The CAIR legal attack on WND’s author is far from over. WND needs your help in supporting the defense of “Muslim Mafia” co-author P. David Gaubatz, as well as his investigator son Chris, against CAIR’s lawsuit. The book’s revelations have led to formal congressional demands for three different federal investigations of CAIR. In the meantime, however, someone has to defend these two courageous investigators who have, at great personal risk, revealed so much about this dangerous group. Although WND has procured the best First Amendment attorneys in the country for their defense, we can’t do it without your help. Please donate to WND’s Legal Defense Fund now.