Before Boston Marathon bombing, bomber posed with black flag of jihad at local mosque

Remember: former “FBI Director Robert Mueller has also said that although the FBI visited the [Tsarnaev’s] mosque in the past — as part of its ‘outreach’ to the Muslim community — he was unaware of the Islamist leanings of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), which runs the Boston bombers’ house of worship. But the FBI was warned nearly four years prior to the bombings that the ISB was a nest of Islamic radicalism.” And it looks as if they missed more signals as well.

“Before Boston Attack, Alleged Bomber Posed With Black Flag of Jihad at Local Mosque,” by Michelle McPhee, ABC News, July 3, 2014 (thanks to A.M.H.):

Months before the 2013 terror attack on the Boston Marathon, accused bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev posed in front of a black flag often associated with jihad with a fellow worshiper at a Boston-area mosque, according to an FBI report obtained by ABC News.

The FBI report, which did not include the photo, describes Tsarnaev and his friend Khairullozhon Matanov as “seated in front of a black flag with a sword and a shadada phrase,” referring to the Muslim statement of faith, and adds that the photo was taken “at the mosque.” Similar flags have become symbols of jihad, used by al Qaeda and al Qaeda-linked extremist groups.

The FBI had been warned by Russian intelligence in 2011 that Tsarnaev may have become radicalized, but the bureau dropped its inquiry months before the photo was taken because it said it “did not find any terrorism activity.”

The black flag picture is part of the evidence prosecutors said Matanov deleted from his computer to obstruct the investigation into the bombings, which in turn led to the arrest of the Kyrgyzstani national last month on federal charges. He has pleaded not guilty and is currently being held without bail.

The FBI report says the alarming photograph was taken on Eid-Al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, the highest of Muslim holidays, but does not say exactly when. A source familiar with the investigation told ABC News it was taken during the August 2012 celebration. The FBI report does not identify the mosque where the photograph was taken.

Tsarnaev and Matanov prayed at a mosque in Cambridge, Mass., the FBI report says, but Yusufi Vali, the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of Boston that opened the mosque told ABC News there were no reports of the black flag of jihad being at the 2012 Eid holiday, or at any other time. Tsarnaev had been asked to leave the Cambridge mosque after he disrupted services later that same year.

“Without doubt there is no symbol of violence or terrorism at the [Cambridge] center,” said Vali. “I can confidently say that we preach moderation in line with more American values.”

Yes, completely in line with American values, such as when the Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston called secularism a “lunatic ideology.”

…The Islamic Society of Boston was founded by Abdulrahman Alamoudi, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to charges related to his “activities… with nations and organizations that have ties to terrorism” — including a link to an assassination plot targeting Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdilaziz, according to the Department of Justice. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison. To this day the FBI lists Alamoudi’s prosecution as a “Major Terrorism Case” on its website.

Tarek Mehanna, 31, was a pharmaceutical student at a Massachusetts college where his father worked as a professor, and lived with his parents in upscale Sudbury where his mother ran a state-licensed day care center out of her home. He was convicted in 2012 of supporting al Qaeda and conspiring to kill Americans. Before that, Mehanna had visited the Cambridge center for prayers and lectures, in addition to visiting mosques in other parts of the state, Vali said.

After the Boston bombing, investigators found a Tarek Mehanna prayer card tucked into a Russian dictionary in Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Cambridge apartment, according to court documents.

Who printed those cards? What did they say? Where were they distributed, and by whom?

Mehanna’s alleged accomplice, Ahmad Abousamra, also occasionally prayed at the Cambridge mosque. He had graduated from the prestigious Catholic high school Xavier with honors and his father, Dr. Abdul Abousamra, was a respected endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to Detroit and was the President of The Islamic Center of New England, according to The Boston Globe.

After being interviewed by agents from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, Abousamra was able to slip out of the country in 2006, according to the bureau. He was indicted in 2009 and last December he was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List with a $50,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

Perhaps most controversial of the group, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui also prayed at the Prospect Street mosque while she earned a scientific doctorate degree at MIT. She eventually moved overseas with her husband and two children. She was detained in 2008 after Afghan officials found her in possession of handwritten notes that referred to a “mass casualty attack” along with a specific list of targets like the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.

As military intelligence officials and FBI agents questioned her at a police compound in Afghanistan, prosecutors said, she grabbed an assault rifle from a U.S. serviceman and opened fire on her interrogators while saying “Death to America,” according to the reported testimony of witnesses. No one was killed in the sudden attack. Siddiqui was convicted in 2010 on federal terrorism charges and sentenced to 86 years in prison.

Director Vali insisted that all were “infrequent” worshippers at the Cambridge center, as were the Tsarnaev brothers, and they also worshipped at other mosques. Their affiliation with the Islamic Society of Boston should not cast aspersions on either the Cambridge center or the larger Roxbury mosque, where some 1,200 worship every week, Vali said.

“When the [Boston] bombings happened initially, like most Bostonians, we were all traumatized and scared. We were devastated that these people were part of city and part of our mosque,” he said….

Is that why, in the wake of the Boston jihad bombing, the Islamic Society of Boston sent out an email to members telling them to contact the ACLU if the FBI wanted to talk with them?

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