ASSAULT/BATTERY AT BROOKLYN MOSQUE

Last night, Paul Williams, Bos Smith and a couple of other great Americans met me at a watering hole to tell me what happened when they returned to the mosque where they had been previously restrained (originally reported here April 19th at Atlas). According to Paul Williams and Bos Smith,  the following events  occurred:

Bos Smith                                                          Paul Williams (right)

Here is their harrowing account:

An
irate member of al-Taqwa, a controversial mosque in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, assaulted a reporter and
attempted to break his camera.

“You
can’t take my picture,” the Muslim screamed as he lurched at the
reporter, pushed him into the street, and attempted to seize his
camera. A swarm of Muslim men in Islamic garb emerged from the mosque
to restrain their fellow congregant and to lead him away to a nearby
exotic oil shop before blood was spilled.

This
latest incident at Masjid al-Taqwa took place on Saturday, May
31, at 3:15 p.m. Several calls
were made to the New York Police
Department but the officer in charge of the on-going investigation of
the Brooklyn mosque had not responded at the time of this article’s
release.

Majid
al-Taqwa, located at 1226 Bedford Street, is a concrete and brick
building that once served as a clothing store. The interior is
divided into spacious, windowless rooms that have been painted green
and beige.

Before
the outburst, the team of investigators was accosted by a street
sentry named Muhammad, who watches over the entrance to the Islamic
house of worship. Remembering the team from a previous incident, he
yelled out, “You’re liars! Liars! Why are you putting out lies
about us?’

Muhammad
was referring to a story called “Escape from a Brooklyn Mosque”
that was posted on Atlas Shrugs and ended up being carried by a host
of leading news sources throughout the country, including National
Review, The Weekly Standard, and Canada Free Press.

 That
story dealt with an incident that took place at the same mosque on
April 19. On that occasion, the reporters were accosted by Mohammed
and hauled off to the basement of the mosque for an interrogation by
Ali Karim, the head of security at Masjid al-Taqwa.

“It
was a hostile encounter,” Patrick Walsh, one of the members of the
team recalls. “Karim was surrounded by a small army of Muslims in
Ninja uniforms and they demanded answers to their questions before we
were released.”

On
this latest occasion, Mohammed pointed to the four security cameras
at the entrance to the mosque and said: “We have everything on
film. We are filming you right now.”

Along
with the stationary cameras, four or five Muslim men appeared from
the building with digital video cameras in hand. When one of our
reporters responded by snapping his own pictures, the assailant – a
pot-bellied man with a pony-tail and foreign accent – rushed toward
him while yelling: “You can’t take my picture! You have no right
to take my picture.”

The
New York police have confirmed that several members of the Brooklyn
mosque, including Ali Karim, are “bad actors” and “convicted
felons.” Karim is a small, muscular man with a wispy black beard
that has been dyed red with henna. He holds a 7^th degree
black belt in karate. At the mosque, Karim teaches classes in such
subjects as Commando Warfare, Gun Techniques, Urban Survival Skills
and Tactical Law Enforcement Techniques. Reports have surfaced
that Karim and his associates represent a small guerilla army in the
midst of the Brooklyn ghetto

The
latest episode raises new concerns about the Masjid al-Taqwa
and its imam Siraj Wahaj – concerns that have been intensified by
confirmation from the NYPD that the mosque is “a subject of serious
interest.”

The
place has played host to a number of notorious exponents of radical
Islam, including Clement Rodney Hampton-El (Dr. Rashid), a key player
in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Mr. Hampton-El is
presently cooling his heels in a federal slammer since he was found
guilty of seditious conspiracy. Wahaj appeared as a character witness
for Hampton El at the trial.

Blind
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman visited Masjid At-Taqwa on many
occasions while
serving as the imam of the nearby Masjid al-Farooq
at 554 Atlantic Avenue, several blocks from Masjid At-Taqwi.
On the second floor of Rahman’s mosque, al Qaeda had opened an
office under the name of the al-Kifah Refugee Center. It
became a favorite haunt for members of Wahaj’s congregation.

In
one of his sermons to the congregants at al-Taqwi, the fiery sheikh
suggested that Muslims should rob banks to benefit Islam.

In 1995, Sheikh Rahman was
hauled into federal court as the alleged architect of the 1993
bombing of the World Trade Center and for planning to blow up the
United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George
Washington Bridge, and buildings throughout Manhattan. At his side
was his good friend Siraj Wahaj who provided testimony of the
sheikh’s good character.

In
a Feb. 2, 1995, letter to defense lawyers in the landmarks-bombing
case, then-U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named about 170 people as
"un-indicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators."
Imam Wahaj was on the list.

Other
infamous characters reportedly made their way to the Bedford Street
mosque, including Imam Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, whose son Adnan has
been singled out by the Justice Department as “the next Muhammad
Atta.” Gulshair, it turns out, served a stint as imam at another
radical Brooklyn mosque – – the now defunct Masjid Nur a-Islam,
at 21 Church Street.

Another
visitor, according to informed sources, was Sheikh Gilani, the
founder of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, who served as the imam of yet
another Brooklyn mosque – – the Yasin Masjid at 777 Saratoga
Avenue, which served as a recruiting center for paramilitary Islamic
compounds that remain in existence throughout the country. One such
compound dubbed Islamberg is located in a rural area outside of
Hancock, New York.

Since
the time of its inception, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been
responsible for more terror attacks on American soil (30 and
counting) than all other terrorist groups combined. Members of
ul-Fuqra, which maintains headquarters in Pakistan, have been
convicted in US courts of such crimes as homicide, conspiracy to
commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, grand theft,
counterfeiting, and workers’ compensation fraud. Others remain
leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including
ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings. Some of the
better-known adherents of ul-Fuqra are Richard Reid, the shoe
bomber, and John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway sniper. 

But
what of Wahaj? Is he an exponent of radical Islam – – a man who poses
a threat to millions of Americans?

He
is a well-known and welcome figure in Washington DC. He was the first
Muslim cleric to offer the invocation at the opening session of
Congress. He has dined with former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and serves on the boards of no less than five major Muslim
organizations. He has received commendations from the Brooklyn police
for eradicating crime from the Bedford-Stuyvesant area. In 2003,
Siraj Wahaj Day was celebrated in Brooklyn in recognition of what one
borough official called a “lifetime of outstanding and meaningful
achievement.”

But
tell-tale proof that Wahaj is neither a moderate Muslim nor model
citizen has been unearthed from the imam’s association with known
terrorists and from his own sermons and statements

In
sermon, Wahaj proclaimed that the "real terrorists" are the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.
In another, he said, "In time, this so-called democracy will
crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will
remain will be Islam." He proclaimed that a society governed by
strict Islamic law, in which adulterers are stoned to death and
apostates beheaded, would be vastly superior to American democracy.

To
a Muslim audience in New Jersey, Wahaj advocated the idea of Muslims
forming a coup to take control of the federal government. “If we
are united and strong,” he said, “we’d elect our own emir
[leader] and give allegiance to him. Take my word for it, if six to
eight million Muslims united in America, the country will come to
us.”

His
so-called “moderate” interpretation of the Qu’ran became
clear by this remark: "If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it
is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If
Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then
you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his
messenger — nothing personal."

Wahaj
informed an audience of black women wearing Muslim head coverings in
Orlando, Fla., that Islam condones a man’s marrying up to four wives,
and that this rule, when introduced in the seventh century, served as
a restriction on arrangements involving even more wives per husband.

And
there are the national organizations to which Wahaj remains
affiliated. He served as emir (president) of the Islamic Society of
North America (ISNA), which has been charged with funneling millions
to terror groups, and as an advisory board member of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been labeled by author
and counter-terrorism expert Steven Emerson as a “radical
fundamentalist front group for Hamas.”

Such
extremist statements and affiliations remain secondary to the fact
that the mosque retains a small army of guards (some with
questionable backgrounds), a multitude of security cameras, and a
host of sentries who remain on the look-out for kafirs
(non-Muslims), cops, and reporters intent upon uncovering the truth
about radical Islam on American soil.

(Bos
Smith holds a law degree from Wake Forest University. He serves in
the securities division of a major Wall Street investment bank. The
research for this article was conducted in preparation of Within the
Belly of the Beast: Jihad in America. Questions and comments may be
directed to [email protected]).

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