Tag Archive for: Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center

Why is Boston the Hub of Violent Islamic Extremism?

/in , , , , /by
Boston terror hub Hi Res jpeg

For a larger view click on the image.

When we posted on ISIS-Inspired terrorism in Boston and vicinity, we wrote:

Two news stories have suddenly brought attention to ISIS-inspired terrorism in Boston and vicinity. One involved ISIS –inspired suspects plotting to behead police officers resulting in one killed in a shooting incident and two others arrested by Boston area police. The second involves the death of an American citizen in an air attack in Iraq’s Anbar province who was technically educated and radicalized at Mosques in the Boston area. He fled the US to ultimately become one of the top leaders in ISIS running their highly effective social media propaganda arm.

The second story demonstrated why, in the opinion of colleague Ilya Feoktistov of Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), the Boston area has nurtured dangerous Jihadis fomenting violent “Islamic” extremism.  We included in our post a YouTube video with APT Research Director Feoktistov interviewed on these emerging story on New England Cable News (NECN) with particular attention to the late  ISIS top social media expert, Ahmad Abousamra, a dual Syrian American citizen and educated computer science professional who fled to join the Islamic State.  Feoktistov connected the dots between Ahmad’s father, Dr. Abdulbadi Abousamra, an endocrinologist, who established a network of Muslim Brotherhood controlled mosques radiating from the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, including the Islamic Center of New England in suburban Sharon, Massachusetts.  We noted the father recruiting Mohammed Hafiz Masood, a Pakistani Imam with radical extremist vie to become the Imam at ICNE. Masood had family connections to the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba  that perpetrated the 2008 Mumbai Massacre. The Imam may have been responsible for radicalization of Islamic State top social media expert, the late Ahmad Abousamra.  Masood, who graduated from Boston University with a degree in Economics, was subsequently deported to Pakistan for immigration visa violations.

Watch the NECN interview with APT Research Director Feoktistov:

During the NECN interview, a poster of a dozen Muslim Brotherhood (MB) extremists connected with both the ISBCC, its affiliated Cambridge Mosque was flashed on screen to make a point of “connecting the dots”.  The APT graphic displays those members and trustees of the ISBCC and ICNE who were trustees or Members of the MB and ISIS, convicted or killed or still at large.  The Cambridge Mosque, affiliated with ISBCC, was attended by convicted terrorism felons including Pakistani Al Qaeda bio warfare expert, Aafia Siddiqui, Tarek Mehanna and the Chechen refugee Tsarneav Brothers who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing.

 Our colleague, Jonna Bianco of the Tennessee Task Force on National and Homeland Security (TTFNHS) sent our post on the Boston web of violent Islamic extremism via email to every member of the Tennessee Assembly with this   statement:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The incident yesterday is its own Security Brief.  If measures are not currently being taken to deal with these kinds of “connect the dots” dangers, we will be experiencing the same sorts of incidents right here in our state.  These same organizations exist in Tennessee connected to some of these same people. You should read this article and note how the people who lead and protect bad actors are not poor people just needing a job.  The father of the ISIS leader killed recently overseas is an Endocrinologist.  The ISIS leader himself had a degree in Computer Science.  These folks do not need jobs.  They need deportation papers, if not prison for material support of terrorism in the United States.  We have some of the same people right here in our state.

If you think this is much ado about nothing, then please contact the Task Force for a personal Security Briefing.  We’ll show you a lot of ‘nothing.’

Ms. Bianco and colleagues at the TTFHNS found the evidence of violent extremist jihadism spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood mosque network in Boston, with evidence of connections to the Islamic State, compelling enough to notify all state legislators in Tennessee.  Other likeminded groups should consider sending this post to every legislator in their respective home states.  FBI Director James Comey should task every Joint Terrorism Task Force across the country to investigate extremist Mosques and Imams.  Especially Muslim Brotherhood controlled Mosques indoctrinating American Muslim youths to join up and fight with the Islamic State, only to return and wreak havoc in our midst.

RELATED VIDEO:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Islamic State Inspired Terrorism in Boston

/in , , /by

Two news stories have suddenly brought attention to ISIS-inspired terrorism in Boston and vicinity. One involved  ISIS –inspired suspects plotting to behead police officers resulting in one killed in a shooting incident and two others arrested by Boston area police. The second involves the death of an American citizen in an air attack in Iraq’s Anbar province who was technically educated and radicalized at Mosques in the Boston area.   He  fled the US to ultimately become one of the top leaders in ISIS running their highly effective social media propaganda arm.

Fox News reported the shooting death early Tuesday of 26 year old Usaama Rahim, an assailant, who threatened Boston Police officers with an 8 inch knife in an attempted beheading plot. It is believed to be ISIS-inspired terrorism. Rahim and two others were under surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI  in Boston.  Fox Newsreported that Rahim was hired in 2013 as a security guard at the Islamic Cultural Center of Boston (ISBCC) controlled by an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim American Society.   The Cambridge Mosque affiliated with ISBCC was attended by convicted terrorism felons including Pakistani Al Qaeda bio warfare expert, Aafia Siddiqui, Tarek Mehanna and the Chechen refugee Tsarneav Brothers who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Fox News noted the other suspects involved in the plot to behead police officers:

Authorities arrested another suspect, David Wright, in connection with the case, police said.

“We believe the intent was to behead a police officer,” one official told The Boston Globe. “We knew the plot had to be stopped. They were planning to take action Tuesday.”

Rahim, Wright and an unidentified third person met Sunday on a Rhode Island beach to discuss plans, the affidavit, which was released Wednesday, said. Wright, who waived his Miranda rights, told the FBI the plans included an attack on a victim in another state, the court papers said. Hours prior to the shooting, Rahim told Wright he had changed plans and was going to “go after” the “boys in blue,” the court papers said.

“I’m going on vacation right here in Massachusetts. I’m just going to  go after them, those boys in blue,” Rahim said in the phone conversation, according to the affidavit. Authorities believe the word “vacation” stood for violent jihad in their conversations. Wright encouraged him to delete any information on his cell phone or computers, the affidavit said. Wright is accused of conspiring with Rahim to impede the investigation and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

The affidavit said one of the officers outside the CVS instructed Rahim to drop his weapon and Rahim responded, “You drop yours.”

Tuesday, the Boston Herald reported the death in Iraq  of a top ISIS social media expert on the FBI’s ten most wanted  terrorist list, 33 year old Ahmad Abousamra, a dual Syrian/American citizen from Stoughton, Massachusetts.  Abousamra wasoin the FBI’s Most Wanted Top Terrorist lists. He was killed in an air attack in Anbar province apparently along with another American national.  According to the Boston Herald report:

Abousamra was raised in Stoughton and attended Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood but left to graduate from Stoughton High school in 1999.

He studied computer science for three semesters at Northeastern University between 1999 and 2001, a school spokeswoman said. Abousamra graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston with a degree in computer science in December 2006, the school confirmed.

Abousamra, who was a co-defendant of convicted Sudbury terrorist Tarek Mehanna, had federal charges pending in Boston on conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to murder American soldiers abroad and making false statements to authorities.

Mehanna, 31, a former pharmacist, is serving a 17-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill.

Watch this Boston Herald video on the FBI hunt for Abousamra:

Abousamra’s father Abdulbadi Abousamra (Abousamra Sr.) was an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who was actively engaged in establishing a network of Mosques in the Metropolitan Boston area that brought in a number of radical extremist Imams. A Truth Revolt report in 2014 by Ilya Feoktistov of Americans for Peace and Tolerance  noted:

Abdulbadi Abousamra, Sr. served as a president or board member of several mosques, Islamic schools, and Muslim political organizations in Massachusetts from the mid-1990s. In fact, he is still the president of an Islamic elementary school in Sharon, MA. Abousamra Sr. had used his leadership position in multiple Boston Islamic institutions to import extremist and terrorist-affiliated imams to Boston. One of these imams, Hafiz Masood, appears to be the one who radicalized his son, Ahmad Abousamra (Abousamra Jr.).

Until 2007, when Abousamra Jr. was first questioned by the FBI over a plot to provide assistance to Al Qaeda in Iraq and  massacre shoppers at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleboro, MA, his father, Abousamra Sr., was vice-president of the Boston branch of the Muslim American Society (MAS Boston). According to federal authorities, the Muslim American Society was created to be “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” MAS Boston operates the largest Islamic center in the Northeast, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC). The Boston Marathon bombers attended the ISBCC’s sister mosque in Cambridge. Both mosques have a long history of Islamic extremism and terrorism.

In 1994, Abousamra Sr. joined the Islamic Center of New England (ICNE), another Muslim organization that runs two mosques in the Boston suburbs of Quincy and Sharon. By 1998, he became its president.  Abousamra Sr.’s passion lay with influencing the religious education of the Center’s youth. He personally founded two schools at the ICNE: the Islamic Academy of New England elementary school in 1999 and the Al Noor Academy secondary school in 2001 – the latter with $100,000 in seed money he received from the Islamic Society of Boston. Even though Abousamra Sr. left the country shortly after the FBI put a bounty on his son, he is still the president of the Islamic Academy of New England.

Enter the Radical Imam with connections to the 2008 Mumbai Massacre terrorist group:

In 1998, Abousamra Sr. hired Mohammed Hafiz Masood to be the new Imam at the Islamic Center of New England and a teacher at the Islamic Academy of New England. At that time, Masood was in the United States illegally.

Mohammed Hafiz Masood was deported for immigration violations. After his deportation, it turned out Masood was not an ordinary radical.

Masood is the brother of Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed, who founded and runs Lashkar-e-Taibah (LeT), one of the largest and most violent terrorist groups in Pakistan, and who has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head. Saeed’s terror group is responsible for the 2008 Mumbai massacre, which targeted India over the conflict in Kashmir and left 166 people dead.

After the Mumbai massacres, The Times of India reported that Masood was using his status as Imam at the Islamic Center of New England to raise funds and recruit local Massachusetts Muslims for Lashkar-e-Taibah. Now living in Pakistan, Masood has become the spokesman of his brother’s terror group.

The radical Imam’s son turned informant leading to the  arrest of Abousamra and Tarek Mehanna:

Hafiz Masood’s son, Hassan Masood, allegedly conspired in terrorist plots with Abousamra Jr. He turned informant and testified against Abousamra Jr. and his captured co-conspirator, Tarek Mehanna. According to Muslim community members, Tarek Mehanna and Abousamra Jr. were “thick with Masood” and had been radicalized by his preaching.

The Tarek Mehanna/Abousamra Jr. partnership and Mehanna’s subsequent arrest has spawned a popular radical movement that lobbies, among other things, to free Tarek Mehanna from prison. It is called the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee – and it has a large presence in Boston. Many of its members are former students of Hafiz Masood.

Watch this NECN interview with Ilya Feoktistov  of Americans for Peace and Tolerance on the Abousamra MAS radical connections in Boston:

This is a cautionary tale to show how sophisticated members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)  immigrated to  the US to create networks of mosques. Mosques controlled by MB affiliates  to engage immigrant radical Imams to educate young  American Muslims  in  Da’wa – the call to extremist Salafist Jihad ensnaring them into a life of Islamic Terrorism.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Dr. Abdulbadi Aboulsamra and son the late Ahmad Aboulsamra, an Islamic State top leader.

Boston Jewish Leadership caught in Deception over Newton Schools Disputed Texts

/in /by

Questions on the integrity of Boston Jewish communal groups, the regional office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) and its affiliate, the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) were raised in a Boston Jewish newspaper report released this week.  The investigation was prompted by a raging dispute with Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) over the Newton, Massachusetts School Board use of controversial anti-Israel and Muslim proselytizing high school texts.

The Boston Jewish Advocate (The Advocate), the weekly Jewish community newspaper of record, has published an investigation of this latest development in an 18 month battle brought to the community’s attention by Dr. Charles Jacobs and his team at Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), “ADL, CJP Newton reaction raises questions of integrity”.  We posted on The Iconoclast about this simmering dispute in late October 2013, when Jacobs and APT took out ads in several local and regional newspapers.  These were about the troubling world history course texts used by the Newton School Board in 9th and 10th grades; “The Arab World Studies Notebook” and “A Muslim Primer”.

The Advocate’s expose was triggered by a November 15, 2013 letter signed by the heads of the regional ADL, the CJP and its affiliate, the JCRC, published in the newspaper, alleging that they had conducted their own investigation on the troubling Newton school board texts. This letter was prompted by another ad by the APT pointing out the lack of attention by the local Jewish defense and Federation groups to anti-Israel maps from the controversial texts similar to those that ran on bus kiosks and in subways of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).  The Advocate expose noted:

Controversy continues to swirl over a statement released by the ADL, CJP and JCRC claiming that charges by APT President Charles Jacobs of anti-Israel material in the Newton Public Schools were groundless.

Following that statement and ambiguity over whether a referenced ADL report even existed, the JCRC stated that it has also conducted an inquiry into alleged anti-Israel materials taught in 9th- and 10th-grade history classes in the Newton Public Schools that is separate from that of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
However, the JCRC – like the ADL before it – declined to share the details of their review with the public, prompting some in the community – including an instructor at Brandeis University in Waltham – to raise the question of transparency in local Jewish organizations.

We have reported in New English Review articles, interviews and Iconoclast posts on the local Boston regional and national investigations by the APT. In particular we have drawn attention to the nearly decade long battle to uncover the support and indoctrination in terrorism by the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) controlled by an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood,  the Muslim American Society..  The ISBCC figured prominently in the incitement of the Boston Marathon jihad bombers, the refugee Tsarneav brothers.   APT also produced a documentary on anti-Semitism in the Northeastern University faculty and its former Muslim Chaplain associated with the ISBCC.   The APT also produced the nationally acclaimed film, Losing our Sons about the first home grown Islamic terrorist action after 9/11 by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, aka, Carlos Bledsoe. He was trained by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He attacked a Little Rock, Arkansas Army Recruitment center on June 1, 2009.  Mohammed-Bledsoe, originally from Memphis, Tennessee, engaged in a jihad action that took the life of the late Army Pvt. Andy Long, seriously injuring a fellow recruiter, Army Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula.

The deception, disputed  by the ADL, CJP and JCRC in this latest development, was uncovered through investigations by Middle East watchdog group CAMERA’s  Joshua Katzen, a Brandeis University adjunct faculty member, and Russell Pergament, publisher of the Jewish News Services (JNS).

The Advocate cited ADL and JCRC’s lack of transparency:

Neither ADL nor JCRC has agreed to release its findings in order to support their joint statement in a Letter to the Editor in the Nov. 15 issue of The Advocate, where the organizations’ leaders wrote that they have done a “careful review of the materials at issue,” concluding, “We trust that this is reassuring to members of our community.”

[ADL New England Regional Director] Robert Trestan said a report of their investigation does not exist, ADL’s New England Regional Board Chair, Jeffrey Robbins,
said there is indeed such a written analysis but it is not available to the media.“It’s an internal report,” he said. “People do this stuff internally all the time. … It involves all kinds of proprietary research.”

JCRC Executive Director Jeremy Burton said … JCRC has not completed a “written report or briefing memo” of its analysis.

Katzen replied:

The failure of both organizations to release the reports that they claim to have undertaken, by nameless non-experts, indicates that no such reports were ever prepared.

While CAMERA has an expert on the subject, [Senior Research Analyst] Steve Stotsky, who made serious and professional findings, there doesn’t appear to be anyone at either ADL or JCRC with the credentials to analyze the curricula. Why on earth would they be refusing to release the reports?  Only two explanations: Either the reports are slipshod and amateur, or [they] don’t exist.

Barry Shrage, President of the CJP responded:

Implicitly acknowledging that there were in fact such materials in the Newton schools, Shrage said, “In my view the question of existence [of materials listed on APT’s advertisement] is not the issue, but rather how these materials were used.”

When asked about how the situation reflects on transparency of the Jewish community organizations, Shrage turned the attention on Jacobs’ group, saying, “What about APT? Where is their transparency?” He went on to say that APT still has not answered questions to ADL and JCRC’s inquiries.

In response to the question about his organization’s transparency, Jacobs said in an e-mail, “Our ads and our many op-eds have disclosed the basis of our concerns.”

Russell Pergament publisher of the JNS who conducted his own investigation said:

I really doubted any report existed. I pushed hard on the phone with Schrage…. I wanted facts. What is really alarming here is to see Boston’s most powerful and
well funded Jewish communal organizations train their firepower on one courageous man, Charles Jacobs, who has time and again come to the aid of Jewish high school and college students facing harassment.  These groups often did nothing and, worse yet, even tried to undercut him. That they jointly, almost conspiratorially, joined forces to try and take him down is worse than disgraceful. You have to question their fitness to retain these positions of trust.

An anonymous prominent Boston Jewish community leader observed:

Instead of releasing any report or detailed findings on which their statement is based, these organizations are asking us to blindly trust them and their general conclusion on faith. And yet, how can we do that when they are saying two inconsistent and contradictory things, at least one of which is therefore a lie? This is no longer just a story about the Newton schools, but about accountability and how our communal organizations and leadership operates.

Jacobs of the APT commented:

It seems to me that ADL has done a disservice to the Jewish community and Jewish leadership in Boston, by claiming to have done a thorough, quality investigation – which they refuse to disclose …

We do not believe ADL has any credible basis for its continuing claim that there is nothing for Boston’s Jewish community to worry about. This is very unfortunate for a community that desperately needs strong leadership at a time when Israel and its supporters are under attack in universities, in K-12, and in the media.

Once again, Jacobs and the APT team as well as independent investigators have caught the Boston Jewish community leaders in a web of deception abetting anti-Israelism in both the local schools and in the public debate.  This does not come as a surprise to us, nor is it an isolated case.  For example, we can point to our investigations of the controversial Olive Tree Initiative at UCAL Irvine funded by an affiliate of the local Orange County, California Jewish Federation.

How can we trust the Boston Jewish leaders to defend both Israel and the Jewish people?

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.