by
Rachel Ehrenfeld
The TSA
public review that was released
last week reports a 16.5% (257) increase in guns discovered in 2013 over
the previous year. Checkpoints across the countrydiscovered 1,813 firearms
in carry-on bags. Of those, 1,477 (81%) were loaded, averaging nearly
fivefirearms that could have been fired at a U.S. airport on any given
day. Firearms were intercepted in 205 airports. How many guns got
by the TSA?
The report details some of the weapons
that were discovered and the methods used to try to conceal them. However,
there is nothing about the passengers who intentionally packed them. Were
they American citizens? White? Hispanics? Blacks? What was their average
age? What was their gender? How many had criminal records? What triggered
the search? And, were any of these passengers "home-grown" jihadis?
Briefing reporters earlier this month,
Deputy Coordinator of Regional Affairs and Programs in the State Department's
Bureau of Counterterrorism, Justin Siberell said that "since the Arab
uprising, dozens of terror groups having affiliation with Al-Qaeda have
emerged...Al-Qaeda is more decentralized, with like-minded groups drawing
inspiration from its ideology. ... The U.S. is concerned over the fact
that regional conflicts are fuelling these groups." Another senior
Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) official added, "Homegrown terror
suspects are difficult to find. ... It is the biggest challenge today for
intelligence and law enforcement officials."
If this is U.S. law enforcement's "biggest
challenge," why did the TSA provide "port courtesy"-a VIP
treatment that circumvents mandatory security screening to-Egyptian members
of the Muslim Brotherhood at JFK during March and April
of 2012? They were neither diplomats
nor members of a government. Only two months later did Mohamed Morsi and
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party take over the government.
This reported U.S. government treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood in the
spring of 2012 continued even after Morsi's ouster from power and the outlawing
of the Brotherhood by Egypt in the summer of 2013. While the U.S.
designates and sanctions terrorist funders who are associates with Muslim
Brotherhood linked organizations, the Brotherhood per se is left unscathed
and even welcomed by this administration.
On December 18, 2013, a close associate
of Youssef Qaradawi, the intellectual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood,
was designated as a terrorist by the Treasury Department. Abd al-Rahman
bin 'Umayr al-Nu'aymi (aka Umair Al-Nuaimi) was
sanctioned for providing financial
support to al-Qaeda, Asbat al-Ansar (the parent organization of Syria's
al Nusra), al-Qaeda in Iraq, and al-Shabaab.
It took until December 10, 2013, for the
State Department to designate the al-Nusra
Front as a foreign terrorist
organization, ostensibly for its connections with al-Qaeda. However, the
Brotherhood connection was ignored, despite Qaradawi's and the International
Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) praise of al Nusra for having "done
well." Incredibly, on June
2013, Qaradawi's deputy Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah, at the IUMS, participated
in a meeting at the White House, which was also attended by National Security
Adviser Tom Donilon.
Why this special treatment for the Brothers? By now, the U.S. government
should realize that the MB is anything but "moderate."
Instead of receiving VIP treatment, Muslim
Brothers should receive special scrutiny. After all, the State Department
designated the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch, Hamas,
a terrorist organization in 1997.
The Egyptian parent organization and its branch operate closely. As recently
as this month, both Hamas and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood activists were
reportedly
jointly planning suicide attacks against Egyptian Christians.
Statements by the Brothers also show the
danger they pose. A 1991 document
that was made public during the trials of the Holy Land Foundation (2007,
2008) name many American Muslim organizations as unindicted co-conspirators.
It also shows Mohammed Akram, who was both a director of the Muslim
Brotherhood in North America and a Hamas member, explaining the group's
goals as follows:
"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist
Process' with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their
work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying
the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house
by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated
and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."
Despite renewed attention in recent years
to Muslim-Brotherhood-affiliated groups operating in the U.S., radical
Islamic organizations disguised as "mainstream Muslims" are now
presenting their Islamist agendas to the government and appear on a regular
basis in the media. These groups include the Council on Islamic Relations
(CAIR), the Muslim Students Association (MSA), the North American Islamic
Trust (NAIT), the Muslim American Society (MAS), Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA), and the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA).
CAIR's terror ties have long been confirmed
in numerous court cases, the most recent of which is the Holy Land Foundation
(HLF) case of 2009, which exposed HLF as a Hamas fundraising front.
Evidence provided at the HLF the HLF trial,
also noted the Washington, D.C.-based International Institute of Islamic
Thought (IIIT),
which since 1981 has served as the MB's ideological center in the U.S.
Instead of inviting Muslim Brothers to
the White House and extending them VIP treatment at airports, it is time
to stop the progression of the Brotherhood's aggressive indoctrination
of Americans regarding the radical Islamic agenda, recently dressed up
as "Islamic democracy," a contradiction in terms.
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