MUSLIM SPIES IN THE WEST
When a bewildered Iraqi woman named Sajida al-Rishawi confessed on Jordanian state television last week that she had been part of the team that tried to blow up the Radisson Hotel in Amman, she showed that Iraq has become a base from which al Qaeda launches attacks against its enemies and that suicide terrorism may be the one area in Mid-East culture where fundamentalist Muslim women are finally gaining equality with men.
Wearing her defused bomb belt, which failed to detonate when the three other members of her team blew themselves up along with members of a Jordanian wedding party, al-Rishawi called into question the idea that Muslim women are little more than veiled victims of a brutal misogynistic culture and that their only connection to terror is as bystanders. While no female Muslims here in the U.S. have blown up passenger jets as they have in Russia, or strapped on belts packed with TNT and ball bearings to blow up American hotels, as an older Iraqi woman has confessed to doing in Jordan, law enforcement has uncovered a disturbing number of cases in which they have helped Muslim men with terrorist plots or have planned to attack fellow Americans themselves.
Here are a few examples, some of which have never been revealed:
Earlier this year, the FBI arrested two teenage Muslim girls in Manhattan on suspicion they planned to attack U.S. targets as suicide bombers. The 16-year-old girls wore veils and regularly attended mosques.
Last year, a Pakistani woman who worked for years at EPA headquarters as a toxicologist was arrested after authorities learned she not only lied about being a U.S. citizen, but also ran a charitable front for al Qaeda back in Peshawar, Pakistan. A mother of four, Waheeda Tehseen lived comfortably in the same leafy neighborhood as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to law enforcement documents I've obtained. She was "very devout," but fellow EPA scientists found her religious beliefs quaint and completely nonthreatening, and even unwittingly helped her raise money for Osama bin Laden.
Authorities are still looking for another Pakistani woman who they believe to be a "fixer" for al-Qaida in the U.S. MIT-educated Aafia Siddiqui is said to have been involved in a plot to blow up underground gas tanks around Baltimore. The mother of three is known as a "good sister" who has memorized her Quran and is willing to help al Qaeda out when they need her. She was a hard-line Muslim activist on the MIT campus, where she wore head-to-toe traditional black gown and matching headscarf while raising money for jihadists around the world. The Bostonians she ran into outside that circle of hate, however, knew her only as a soft-spoken "philanthropist."
Two months ago, federal agents in Dallas accused three Muslim women of lying to the government to conceal their involvement in their husbands' criminal support of outlawed terrorists. Fay Elashi, for one, allegedly tried to hide from investigators checks and financial records bearing the names of the terrorists.
Last year, authorities in Baltimore spotted the wife of suspected Hamas operative Ismail Elbarasse videotaping the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from an SUV they were driving. The couple was taken into custody and their camcorder tape seized as evidence. On it, authorities found close-up shots of cables and supports "integral to the structural integrity of the bridge," according to court documents. Six other tapes found in their car contained footage of four other bridges and other structures they believed to be targets. Authorities concluded Elbarasse's wife was helping conduct "reconnaissance and surveillance" for a possible terrorist attack during rush hour.
They are not the only potential targets Muslim women have been casing in the Washington area. Not long after it set up headquarters in Crystal City, Va., not far from the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security asked the Secret Service to conduct countersurveillance of suspicious Muslim women who were videotaping the building on a regular basis.
Prolonged static surveillance using operatives who look harmless and don't attract police scrutiny is the hallmark of al Qaeda, which does painstaking pre-attack planning. Through its websites, al Qaeda regularly encourages the faithful who are "far from the fields of jihad" to research the soft spots and weaknesses "of the American infidel crusaders" and report back locations and images of vulnerable structures -- from bridges and pipelines to military installations and financial buildings -- which might be suitable for attack.
According to the Quran, jihad is not something a Muslim can opt out of. It demands able-bodied believers to join the fight. Those unable -- largely women and the elderly -- are not exempt; they must give "aid and asylum" to those who do fight the unbelievers in the cause of Allah. Such facilitators are promised the same reward of Paradise, although not the same status as jihadists who give their pound of flesh to Allah. And those who die in his cause -- the shaheeds, or martyrs -- are reserved the highest place in the Paradise hierarchy.
Increasingly, however, Muslim women are taking on the role of martyr, though no one is rethinking the profile just yet. To be sure, Muslim women are a long way from fitting the profile of the suicide bomber, which is still predominantly young, Muslim and male.
But the Department of Homeland Security issued warnings to law enforcement to be on the lookout for suspicious Muslim women after Chechen terrorists used young Muslim women as suicide bombers to attack Russian targets a couple of years ago. And they are on alert again after al Qaeda, in an effort to lower its male profile and bypass security, apparently enlisted an older Muslim woman to help carry out the recent bloody attacks on American hotels in Jordan.
According to Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, who has interviewed bin Laden, there is a ready supply of female jihadists in his country alone who would be thrilled to help al Qaeda.
"Our women are more extremist than the men," he said in a recent magazine interview. "There are hundreds here."
By Paul Sperry
FrontPageMagazine.com
Paul Sperry, formerly Washington bureau chief of Investor's Business Daily, is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" (Nelson Current, 2005).
Florida Neighbors' Impressions of Terror Suspect
Federal prosecutors have charged physician Rafiq Abdus Sabir and a New York man with conspiring to help Al Qaeda.
By John-Thor
Dahlburg and Walter F. Roche Jr.
Times Staff Writers
May 31, 2005
MIAMI — The doctor kept mostly to himself, neighbors remembered Monday. He lived
in a gated South Florida community west of the exclusive town of Boca Raton with
a woman and two children. The couple drove a black SUV and a white two-door
sedan, and fixed up the garage of their rented villa to serve as the youngsters'
rumpus room.
Dan Kozan, an advertising consultant, had one encounter with his neighbor across
the street when he moved into Villa San Remo three years ago, but it was enough.
Kozan, 51, said he asked the doctor to move the cars of people visiting so Kozan
could back out of his driveway more easily. The doctor, he said, ignored him.
"I'm friendly with most of the neighbors around here," Kozan said. "Not him."
Early Saturday, the FBI arrested the physician, Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 50, as an
alleged participant in a terrorist plot. Along with Tarik Shah, 42, a
self-described martial arts expert who had been arrested the previous day in New
York, Sabir was accused of conspiring to provide material support to Al Qaeda.
According to federal prosecutors, Shah had agreed to train Islamic holy warriors
in hand-to-hand combat techniques, and Sabir had agreed to treat their wounds at
a military base in Saudi Arabia.
The men were scheduled to be arraigned in separate federal court appearances
today, according to a statement from U.S. Atty. David N. Kelley in New York.
Judy Orihuela, spokeswoman for the FBI's Miami office, said Monday that Sabir
was being held in Palm Beach County Jail until his arraignment in Fort Pierce,
Fla.
The federal complaint — the result of a two-year sting operation — said Shah and
Sabir, both U.S. citizens, took an oath of loyalty to Al Qaeda, the shadowy
Islamic terrorist network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks and some of the
violence against the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
Federal prosecutors said Shah had searched for locations suitable for secret
weapons training, at one point inspecting a warehouse on Long Island, and had
agreed to provide a curriculum for hand-to-hand combat training.
The two men may have known each other for more than a decade. Records show they
shared a common address on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. in Harlem, where in
1993, Shah set up a business called the Expansion of Knowledge Center. Sabir
listed the same address as his residence in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
If found guilty of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist
organization, each man could be sentenced to as much as 15 years in prison and
fined up to $250,000.
Sabir's arrest was not a complete surprise to some residents of Villa San Remo,
a quiet Palm Beach County community of 381 villas, condominiums and coach homes
with red tile roofs and off-white exteriors. Because the community is gated, the
FBI had to alert security guards before conducting a surveillance operation,
said Otto Freund, president of the homeowners association.
"Some of us knew there was activity going on in here," Freund said.
About a month ago, said resident Sally Schneider, a friend of hers asked two men
who were in a car parked in a cul-de-sac why they were there. The men said they
were watching somebody, said Schneider, 73.
Sabir had lived on her block for four years, Schneider said Monday. The doctor
and his female companion, she said, "didn't bother anyone. They were real
quiet."
Daniel McBride, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, told Associated
Press that Sabir had been living with Arleen Morgan, a registered nurse, and
their two young sons. Neighbors told reporters that Sabir and the other
occupants of the home on Via Giulia left for extended periods, and that when the
physician wasn't in doctor's attire, he sometimes wore what appeared to be
traditional Muslim dress.
The criminal complaint filed by Kelley's office said Sabir had planned to depart
for Saudi Arabia on Thursday.
Freund, though, noted that no crime had been proved. "I'm glad to see the FBI
and our law enforcement people are in fact continuing to ensure our safety," the
retired telecommunications worker said. "As always, for me, you're not guilty
till [authorities] prove it. We know that many times, mistakes get made."
Court and other records indicate that Sabir came to Florida with a string of
debts and a failed marriage behind him in the New York area. A bank initiated
foreclosure proceedings against him and his then-wife, Ingrid, for a property on
Long Island. He was hit with federal and state tax liens for failure to pay
assessments of about $56,000. And he was sued by Columbia University for $2,420
in 1997.
He obtained a physician's license in Pennsylvania in 1996, records show, but it
expired two years later and was not renewed. The state medical board's website
showed no record of any complaint against him.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported Monday that Ingrid Doyle, 47,
of New York said she had been married to Sabir from 1981 to 1992 and had two
children by him.
Doyle, the newspaper reported, said that Sabir was born into a large Roman
Catholic family in New York and converted to Islam in high school. His father
left the family when Sabir was young, and the boy was placed in a group home,
she reportedly said. He went on to earn a medical degree from Columbia, she
reportedly said.
"When we were married he was a lovely father and husband and nothing if not a
hardworking man," the newspaper quoted Sabir's ex-wife as saying.