Calvin’s Commentary: Tamerlan Tsarnaev was allegedly one of a number of young Muslim men who were feared to have become radicalized at one of the city’s mosques. The Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), the Cambridge mosque, Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended, gave money to two terrorist charities which the U. S. government shut down! Will the media publish that??? Also, Glenn Beck, on his TV program yesterday, Monday, April 23, 2013, named at least two important extremist Muslims and showed their pictures who were on the Board of Directors of the Islamic Society of Boston, the mosque Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhokhar, had both attended. Those two leaders of the ISB Mosque Beck referred to are connected to radical hate-filled terrorist groups and have expressed extremist, anti-American, anti-west, militant, terrorist views. Have you heard that anywhere in the U.S. media? Why not? Is it because, like Beck ascertains, that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) controls the U.S. Big Mainstream Media with threats, fear mongering and intimidation and the media cowards concede just to make nice to say off the Muslim’s fatwa list? ▬ Donna Calvin ▬ Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Item #1 of 2

Russian government was concerned over Tamerlan’s ties to “radical Islam”

By Philip Sherwell, and Nick Allen in Boston and Patrick Sawer – 7:04PM BST 20 Apr 2013

As the hunt for the bombers culminated in a dramatic shoot-out, it emerged that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been interviewed by US officials in 2011 because the Russian government was concerned over his ties to “radical Islam”.

[He was] ready to travel to the Caucasus to join “underground groups”.

The FBI was facing urgent questions last night over the extent of its knowledge of the two brothers, immigrants from the Caucuses. Their mother and father both claimed yesterday that US federal agents had kept the brothers under watch for at least three years. Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said FBI agents had told her they feared her son Tamerlan was an “extremist leader”.

The FBI confirmed yesterday it had interviewed Tamerlan in 2011, at the request of an unidentified foreign government — later reported to be Russia — over suspected ties to an extremist group.

The FBI said in a statement: “The request stated that it was based on information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.”

The matter was not pursued further, however, because interviews with Tamerlan and family members “did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign”.

Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said: “It’s new information to me and it’s very disturbing that he’s on the FBI radar screen.”

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said: “They [the FBI] used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me. They were telling me that he [Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites.

However, further questions were raised when it was reported that Tamerlan left the US in January 2012 to travel to Russia, returning in mid-July.

The suspects’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev, who lives in the Russian republic of Dagestan, also said the FBI had been watching his family and visited the brothers’ home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, five times, most recently 18 months ago, looking for Tamerlan. “They said there were doing preventive work. They were afraid there might be some explosions on the streets of Boston,” he said.

Tamerlan was allegedly one of a number of young Muslim men who were feared to have become radicalised at one of the city’s mosques.

On Saturday night, FBI agents led a woman wearing a hijab away from the apartment where the brothers had lived in Boston. One television channel said the woman was Tamerlan’s wife, although a neighbour said it was another relation.

Item #2 of 2

Imagine That: Mosque Tamerlan Tsarnaev Attended Gave Money to Two Terrorist Charities Which Govt. Shut Down

[Will] anyone in the media will notice the terror-connected history of the ISB? It’s right there for anyone who cares to look for it.

A autumn 2007 City Journal article (“A SLAPP Against Freedom”) by Judith Miller recounts the history of the mosque’s attempts to silence its critics, otherwise known as SLAPPs (“strategic litigation against public participation suits, which aim not at winning in court, but at intimidating into silence a group or a publication raising issues of public concern”), and how they backfired (bolds are mine throughout this post):

… Over the last few years, Islamists have tried silencing reporters, scholars, and citizens by suing them for defamation, often successfully. But recent legal cases in California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota suggest that the tactic may finally be backfiring, at least in the United States, if not in Britain, where libel laws overwhelmingly favor plaintiffs. The American lawsuits’ outcomes—poorly covered by the media—represent victories for the free expression and public participation that the First Amendment guarantees.

Steven Emerson, is an American journalist and author, who writes about national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism. He is the author of six books, and co-author of two more. His television documentary Jihad in America won the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary, and top prize for best investigative reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors. He is also the Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a data-gathering center on Islamist groups.[1][2] Emerson frequently testifies before Congressional committees on al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.[3] – Wikipedia. Check out his web site at www.steveemerson.com

… Last May, the Islamic Society of Boston dropped its suit against the Boston Herald, a local Fox news channel, journalist Steven Emerson, and 14 others. The Society had accused the defendants of libel and of infringing its civil rights by claiming that it had funded terrorist organizations, received money from Saudi Arabia, and bought land for a mosque below market value from the City of Boston.Though Massachusetts’s anti-SLAPP law does not cover media firms, ten of the non-media defendants filed a motion to quash the Society’s suit. When a state judge rejected the motion, a legal discovery process got under way while the defendants appealed. Bank records and other documents revealed that, contrary to its claims, the Society had raised over $7 million from Saudi and other Middle Eastern sources and had funded two groups that the Bush administration has designated terrorist entities: the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Benevolence International Foundation. Records also showed that Society directors had deleted all e-mails about the Society’s land purchase. Finally, discovery revealed that the deputy director of the Boston city agency in charge of negotiating the land deal not only was a Society member whom it had paid to raise money in the Middle East, but also secretly advised the group about obtaining the land cheaply—a clear conflict of interest.On May 29, soon after the state appellate court heard arguments on the anti-SLAPP appeal, the Society abandoned the suit. Though its lawyers did not respond to requests for comment and its website tried to put a good face on the surrender, Jeff Robbins, who represented several defendants in the complex lawsuit, expressed their belief that the Society had caved, fearing the prospect of paying what could have been millions of dollars in court and legal fees.The Holy Land Foundation trial resulted in five convictions. Four of those convicted appealed to the Supreme Court, and lost their appeal in October of last year:… The appeal was declined Monday without explanation.The Texas-based Holy Land Foundation had its assets frozen by the Bush administration in December 2001. The Islamic charity and five defendants were found guilty in 2008 on charges of funneling money to Hamas.The four appellants, of the five convicted in 2008, were Shukri Abu Baker, sentenced to 65 years in prison; Ghassan Elashi, sentenced to 65 years; Mufid Abdulqader, sentenced to 20 years; Abdulrahman Odeh, sentenced to 15 years.The charity’s organizers had appealed their convictions, objecting to federal prosecutors’ use of anonymous Israeli witnesses, among other things.The U.S. Treasury Department’s designation of the Benevolence International Foundation is quoted at the web site of investigativeproject.org as follows (full document is here; paragraph breaks added by me):

November 19, 2002

The Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) began operating in the United States in the early 1990s. Founded in Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s as Lajnat al-Birr al-Islamiah (LBI), it was renamed upon incorporation in the United States.

Sheik Abedl Abdul Galil Batterjee, a wealthy Saudi Arabian, founded LBI. BIF provided support for the Mujahadeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, as well as to facilitate the immigration of Jihadists into the conflict zone. After the war in Afghanistan ended, BIF helped al Qaeda establish its presence in the Sudan, Bosnia and Chechnya, providing support for the Mujahadeen in those conflicts as well.

BIF was shut down By the U.S. Government in December of 2001, as part of a crackdown on terrorist financing after the September 11th attack by al Qaeda. The United States Treasury Department designated BIF as a financier of terrorism on November 19, 2002, along with two closely linked but separately incorporated entities Benevolence International Fund (Canada), Bosanska Idealna Futura (Bosnia), and their branch offices.

BIF worked with the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that had its assets frozen by the U.S. government for its alleged support of Hamas.

It’s reasonable to believe that the nature of ISB’s past financial involvement in funding the Holy Land Foundation and BIF, which in turn funded terrorist groups, would be something in which the bombings’ victims, their families, and the public in general would be keenly interested — especially since Tamerlan’s uncle blames unidentified “mentors” for radicalizing him. Did some of these alleged radicalizers “just so happen” to be ISB members?

Cross-posted at BizztBlog.com.

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