Former Director of Missouri-Based Charity Pleads Guilty: Charity Was Part of Network Funneling Money to Jihadists
Mubarak Hamed, the former director of the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA, pleaded guilty to sending more than $1 million to Iraq in violation of U.S. Sanctions, conspiracy, a tax violation for misusing the charity's tax exempt status, and lying to the Internal Revenue Service. He admitted after 9+ years of denial that the charity was part of an international organization headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan, that had frequent contact with the “worst players in international terrorism.” In addition, U.S. congressman Mark Deli Siljande is accused of taking $75,000 from IARA to help the charity have its name removed from a U.S. Senate Finance Committee list of organizations that allegedly supported terrorism.
The former director of a Missouri Islamic charity admitted in federal court Friday that he sent more than $1 million to Iraq in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Mubarak Hamed, 53, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and a tax violation for misusing the charity's tax exempt status and lying to the Internal Revenue Service.
Hamed served as executive director of the now-defunct Islamic American Relief Agency-USA from 1991 until October 2004, when federal agents raided the charity's Columbia, Mo., offices and carted off truckloads of documents and computers.
The government of Pakistan's Punjab province has given more than $1 million to institutions run by Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD), the charity wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Among many other terror attacks, LeT was behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed. JuD was put on the U.N. terrorism blacklist in December 2008 and is considered a front for LeT.
The government of Pakistan's Punjab province has given more than $1 million to institutions run by an Islamic charity that is on a U.N. terrorism blacklist and affiliated with a group the U.S. considers a foreign terrorist organization.
Budget documents presented in the Punjab assembly last week revealed this financial assistance to a mosque, a hospital and schools (known as madrassas) operated by Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD), the charity wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The U.S. and India say LeT was behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed, and the State Department has designated LeT a foreign terrorist group.
Pakistani officials deny any money has been given to JuD.
The Martyrs Foundation is yet another terror organization funding groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad through charity. The U.S. Treasury designated a Dearborn, Michigan charity known as the “Goodwill Charitable Organization” as the U.S. financial branch office of the Martyrs Foundation.
Hezbollah is funded in large part by the Shia khums tax. Iranian imams shakedown their parishioners for khums and transfer it to Hezbollah to pay shahids to kill Jews.
Hezbollah is also funded by affiliates around the world such as the Martyrs Foundation. Matthew Levitt of the The Washington Institute for Near East Policy told Congress in 2007:
The “Martyr’s Organization” (Martyr Foundation, Bonyad-e Shahid), headed by Mohammad Hasan Rahimiyan, admittedly supplies charitable funds for the family of suicide bombers.
Five Wahabbists in Kosovo were arrested for “criminal activities.” They were all involved with an Islamic charity called “Iskrenost,” or “Sincerity.” Upon their arrest, police confiscated many weapons, including automatic rifles, pistols, ammunition, and uniforms. “Wahabi ideology preaches religious intolerance towards other religious groups, including moderate Muslims.” Since the Bosnian war, Shariah-driven groups have received a great deal of funding through zakat (or charity) by posing as humanitarian organizations.
Kosovo police have arrested five members of the fundamentalist Wahabi Islamic movement who are suspected of "criminal activities, "police spokesman Hazir Berisa said on Saturday. He did not specify if those arrested were suspected of recruiting terrorists or plotting attacks.
Berisa said the five suspects were associated with a humanitarian organisation called Iskrenost (Sincerity).
The arrests took place late on Friday in the southwest city of Prizren in an operation in which 120 police officers were deployed. Berisa said police confiscated a large quantity of weapons during the operation, including automatic rifles, pistols, ammunition and uniforms.
The Wahabi movement originated in Saudi Arabia in the 17th century. Wahabi ideology preaches a 'pure' form of Islam. It was brought to the Balkans by Arab 'mujahadeen' fighters who fought on the side of local Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.
Many former 'mujahadeen' remained in the region after the war indoctrinating local youths and even operating terrorist training camps, according to foreign intelligence sources.
Tensions between Wahabis and mainstream Muslims have been simmering in the Balkans for some years as the Wahabi ideology preaches religious intolerance towards other religious groups, including moderate Muslims.
Wahabis have sought to gain influence in Bosnia-Heregovina and also in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.
Since the Bosnian war, radical Islamists have often operated under the guise of humanitarian organisations from Islamic countries and several such charities have been banned in Bosnia.
In an October 2009 article, Islam Online quoted al Qawadari who stated that Zakah must be used in part to fund Jihad.
Sheik Yusuf al Qawadari is considered the most influential and powerful Shariah Finance scholar today. He is the former chairman and current member of the AAOIFI, the global regulatory body for Shariah Finance, to which firms like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, AIG, HSBC and Citibank defer to when it comes to Shariah Compliance. Qawadari is also banned from entering the US and UK due to his ties to terrorism. IslamOnline (the most popular Muslim website) features his response to the question of whether or not Zakah can be used for Jihad. His answer is yes, and he goes further to say that it is an obligation for Muslims to use Zakah to fund Jihad.
Is a Muslim allowed to spend some of the money of Zakah (obligatory charity) on his journey to take part in Jihad in the Cause of Allah?
Answer:
Wa `alaykum as-salam warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
First of all, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you have in us. We hope our efforts meet your expectations.
It is the duty of every Muslim to support all his fellow Muslims in all times especially at times of calamities as all Muslims constitute one body when an organ of it aches, all the other organs feel ill as a result. In his Hadith, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stated: "A Muslim is a brother of a Muslim. He must not wrong him, nor fail him, nor hand him over (to enemies)." Muslim scholars state that there is nothing wrong in paying the Zakah as well as sadaqah to oppressed Muslims in Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Burma and in every part of the world.
