Preaching Terror in the U.S. Military's Chaplain Corps and American Prison Systems
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. Oct. 14, 2003
When Senator Jon Kyl opens a hearing of his Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism this morning, the subject will be the penetration of the U.S. military's chaplain corps and American prison systems by radical Muslims (also known as Islamists).
Unfortunately, a man as responsible as anybody for the recruitment,
training and certification of Muslim military chaplains - Abdurahman
Alamoudi - will not be there. He is currently in jail, awaiting
prosecution on charges of illegal ties to terrorist-sponsoring Libya.
Alamoudi's indictment late last month came amidst a flurry of arrests of
servicepersonnel connected to the detention center for Taliban and al
Qaeda operatives in Guantanamo, Cuba. Prominent among these was one of
Alamoudi's chaplain selectees, U.S. Army Captain James Yee, who is being
held in a military brig on suspicion of espionage and other crimes.
These incidents put into sharp relief an issue with which Senator Kyl and
other legislators (notably, Senators Charles Schumer, Arlen Specter, Susan
Collins, Richard Shelby and Diane Feinstein) have become increasingly
concerned in recent months:
Have Islamists - many of whom are backed by
Saudi Arabia - successfully established beachheads in such places as the
Pentagon's chaplain corps and America's prisons, mosques and colleges with
a view to dominating moderate Muslims and creating a potential terrorist
"Fifth Column" within the United States?
It is regrettable that Alamoudi is unavailable to be cross-examined today
by Senator Kyl and his colleagues since few people are more familiar than
Alamoudi with the reasons for these concerns.
He has, after all, been
among the most industrious and best-connected of a small number of Muslim
activists in this country who have championed Islamist organizations -
including some officially designated as terrorist operations - and their
causes.
According to an Islamic web site, islamonline, he was also the first
endorsing agent for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military. Even today, an
organization Alamoudi founded, the American Muslim Armed Forces and
Veterans Affairs Council, is one of only three approved by the Pentagon to
certify Islamic chaplains like Captain Yee.
The other two, the Islamic
Society of North America and its Graduate School of Islamic Social
Sciences, share a similar outlook and Saudi ties. Alamoudi was at one time
"Regional Representative" for ISNA's Washington, D.C. chapter.
If Abdurahman Alamoudi were willing to cooperate and reveal all he knows,
his testimony could shed invaluable light on the ways in which countries
like Saudi Arabia and Libya have provided vast sums and direction to
purportedly "mainstream" Muslim organizations in the United States for
ominous purposes.
For example, while Alamoudi's indictment focuses on his
alleged prohibited travel to and expenditures in Libya, its most
illuminating part may be the section detailing his admissions about
activities in which he has evidently been engaged for years.
The indictment recounts that Alamoudi was detained in Britain in August
2003 when he was discovered to be leaving that country for Syria with
$340,000 in sequentially numbered $100 bills.
He told British authorities
that he had been given the money by "someone with a Libyan accent." He
also declared that "he is the president of the American Muslim Foundation
and that financing the organization's work is a constant struggle.
He further stated that, in order to alleviate the problem, he approached the
Libyan Ambassador to the United Nations in 1997."
Alamoudi acknowledged having made without Washington's official permission "at least" ten trips to Libya - a crime under U.S. law - and that "he finally negotiated funding for his organization through the [World] Islamic Call Society." As the indictment goes on to point out, the World Islamic Call Society is a well-known and long-standing Libyan-controlled funding vehicle for terrorism.
Alamoudi reportedly told officers of the U.K.'s Special Branch that he
"intended to deposit the [$340,000] in banks located in Saudi Arabia, from
where he would feed it back in smaller amounts into accounts in the United
States."
During his first interview on August 16th, "he was adamant that
this was the only such transaction in which he had been involved." The
next day, however, Alamoudi "conceded that he has been involved in other,
similar cash transactions involving amounts in the range of $10,000 to
$20,000."
In other words, an individual responsible for certifying Muslim chaplains
for the U.S. military, one of whom is now under arrest on suspicion of
aiding America's Islamist foes, has acknowledged taking hundreds of
thousands of dollars from a state-sponsor of terror and laundering it
through accounts in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of supporting an Islamic
organization he runs in the United States.
The question occurs: Since
Alamoudi is now or has been associated with over a dozen such
organizations in this country, has he (or others with whom he has closely
worked) used a similar modus operandi covertly to provide funding for
purposes inimical to American national security?
To be sure, Abdurahman Alamoudi insists he is innocent of the charges now pending against him, which he claims to be "part of a politically motivated prosecution." And, despite myriad public statements he has made in support of officially designated terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, his lawyer, Kamal Nawash, says: [Al]Amoudi has no links whatsoever to violence or terrorism."
The problem for Alamoudi and his associates is that the available facts - including some he has provided himself - seem strongly to suggest otherwise. If so, his prosecution may prove exceedingly embarrassing, or worse, to those who enabled Alamoudi and his ilk to certify U.S. chaplains and to misrepresent themselves as "mainstream" Muslims who are "with us" in the war on terror.
2003, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr
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