Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Joe Kaufman: Tar Heel Terror

Joe Kaufman
http://www.FrontPageMag.com
March 7, 2006

On Friday, Iranian-born Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a 22 year-old UNC graduate, tore through a lunchtime crowd at one of the university’s popular gathering spots with a Jeep Grand Cherokee, hitting nine people of which six were hospitalized with injuries.

Taheri-azar was arrested and charged with nine counts, each of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. According to Derech Poarch, the chief of the university police department, the attacker told investigators that he wanted to “avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world.” Upon entering his apartment, a paperback copy of the Quran was found in Taheri-azar’s room, along with a book calling for the United States to “confront state sponsors of terrorism.” He was shown, on news video footage, handcuffed and being led into a car sporting a giant grin.

At the court hearing on Monday, that same smile was ingrained on his face. Like Zacarias Moussaoui, whose trial coincided with Taheri-azar’s hearing, Taheri-azar stated that he wanted to represent himself. And like Moussaoui, who proudly proclaimed, “I’m Al-Qaeda,” Taheri-azar used the courtroom forum to voice his Islamist ideology. Clad in orange jumpsuit and leg shackles, he stated, “I am thankful you are going to hear this trial to learn more about the will of Allah, the creator.” And in response to a reporter’s question, he confirmed that, “Yes,” it was his intention to murder those he hit with the SUV he had just rented. In the 911 call he had made after the attack, he told the operator that he did this “to punish the government of the United States.”

The question of whether or not he was acting alone has been raised. To this effect, eyes have been focused on the university’s Muslim Students Association (MSA), which was recently involved in a protest of the UNC campus newspaper’s publishing of a Mohammed cartoon. After the incident, the MSA quickly issued a press release distancing itself from Taheri-azar and condemning what it called a “hit and run incident.” Later, MSA’s President, Uzma Khan, declined to comment.

In the release, the MSA admitted that Taheri-azar had made a “few appearances” with its group but said that he was not a member. As such, the MSA likened him to “one disturbed individual from the beliefs of the Muslim community as a whole.”

According to the MSA press release, the appearances Taheri-azar made with the group were done in an on-campus “prayer room,” reserved by the MSA. Yet, this bit of information is contradicted on the group’s website. Under the heading “Quick Facts [FAQ],” the UNC-MSA homepage answers the question, “Where is the prayer room located?” The link doesn’t lead one to information about an on-campus entity, but instead, it takes one to the homepage of the Islamic Center of Raleigh, also known as the Islamic Association of Raleigh (IAR).

IAR was established in 1985 by members of the MSA and the Islamic Association of North Carolina (IANC), with seed money from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. That same year, upon invitation by the MSA of N.C. State (where Sami al-Arian was at the time), Mohammed Bajanonie, a Syrian-born teacher, became IAR’s “full time” imam, as he still is today.

Numerous speeches made by Bajanonie are found on IAR’s website. Included in these speeches are his views about Jews, Christians, and jihad. He states the following:

* “Imam Muslim reported that the prophet (S.A.W.) said: ‘The first person, whose case will be adjudicated on the Day of Judgment, will be a martyr…He will say: I carried on Jihad (fighting) in the cause till I was martyred….’” (from ‘How the Judgment is Established in the Day of Judgment’)

* “From the transgression, the oppression, and the corruption of the Jews was hindering many from Allah’s Way and dealing with riba [usury/interest] while it is forbidden.” (from ‘Dealing with Riba is one of the Major Sins’)

* “This meaning is emphasized by the saying of the prophet (S.A.W.) when he said, ‘By whom my soul is in His hand, if one, Jew or Christian, heard of me, then died and he/she did not believe in that which I was sent with, then they are from the dwellers of Hell fire.’” (from ‘Definition of the Word Deen & the Word Islam’)

* “And also as Allah (S.W.T.) says…‘You who believe, take not the Jews and the Christians as Auliya’ [friends], they are but Auliya’ to each other. And he amongst you takes them as Auliya’ then surely he is one of them. Verily Allah guides not a people unjust.’” (from ‘Iman is the Tie in the Muslim Society’)

* “And it is not allowed at all for any Muslim to say to them [Jews and Christians] that you have the truthful Deen [authority], and you are like us; both of us belong to Ibrahim [Abrahamic religions], because in doing this, he will be rejecting the words of Allah to them (‘You have nothing’), and he will be rejecting Allah.” (from ‘The Truth Has to Be Conveyed Completely’)
While the North Carolina MSA’s association with IAR is troubling, the problem with the group goes much further.

On October 12, 2005, the MSA brought Radwan Masmoudi, the founder and President of the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID), to the UNC campus. The event was titled, “The Future of Democracy in the Muslim World.” The CSID was created by leaders from the American Muslim Council (AMC). AMC leaders have been known to praise Hamas and Hezbollah. Masmoudi’s leadership made Kamran Bokhari, the U.S. representative for the defunct British extremist organization Al-Muhajiroun, a fellow at CSID. (The BBC announced Al-Muhajiroun“wants this country to become an Islamic state.”)

On February 23-24, the MSA invited two of the most radical Islamic speakers in the United States to address its “Special Friday Youth Session” and “Saturday Marriage Session.”

Mohamed Rida Beshir was featured in the first event. Beshir is an advisor for Islam Online, a website that showcases live interviews with leaders of Hamas. He is a member of the editorial board and a contributing writer for MAS’s magazine, The American Muslim, which has written that Palestinian “[m]artyr operations are not suicide and should not be deemed as unjustifiable.” He has held various positions with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) (including writing for ISNA’s bi-monthly publication, Islamic Horizons) and the Muslim American Society (MAS), two groups connected to the virulent Muslim Brotherhood. Beshir, as well, has authored articles for The Message International, a publication put out by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a group that scholars state has ties to Pakistan’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Featured in the second event was Amir Abdul Malik Ali. The following are quotes attributed to him (as compiled by Discover the Network):

* “Stay conscious and ask Allah to raise the Muslims and give us victory over the disbeliever.”

* “When it's all over, the only one standing is gonna be us.”

* “We must implement Islam as a totality,” in which “Allah controls every place – the home, the classroom, the science lab, the halls of Congress.”

* “The enemies of Islam know that when we come back to power we're gonna check 'em.”

* “Sooner or later, today's Muslim students will be the parents of Muslim children. And they should be militants.”

* “[T]he Israelis were ‘in-control’ of 9-11,” which “was staged to give an excuse to wage war against Muslims around the world.”

* “You [Jews] are walking into all the traps we want you to walk into. You hijacked American foreign policy.”

* “Neo-cons are all Zionist Jews.”

* Zionism is a mixture of “chosen people-ness and white supremacy.”

* Israelis ought to return “to Germany, to Poland, to Russia. The Germans should hook y'all up. You [Israelis] should go back to Germany.”

On February 16th, the MSA, in coordination with UNC faculty and Campus Y, a left wing group that features anti-Israel speakers, hosted a vigil and educational dialogue event on university grounds. According to the MSA, the affair was held to shed light on the controversy surrounding the Danish cartoons. The vigil and dialogue event put on by the MSA was entitled “Extinguishing Ignorance with Knowledge.” Could this have been the event that put Taheri-azar over the edge?

Either way, it becomes clear that the MSA in general, and the UNC chapter in particular, appear to have deep and troubling ties to extremist Islam. UNC college students may have suffered the consequences last Friday.

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Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the host of The Politics of Terrorism radio show.

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