Author Archives: Denise Simon

No Longer Nuclear Zero

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The nuclear weapons chatter is rising by the day. The Saudis paid for much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program that included an agreement to access to weapons at a future date. The ongoing talks the P5+1 with Iran has Saudi Arabia dusting off their immediate options. The White House and John Kerry are seeing a final date slippage with regard to the June 30 deadline, but to what end?

There has been recent inquiries into Israel’s nuclear program exposing their weapons systems, something that has never been previously discussed.

Vladimir Putin has recently increased his own nuclear points and expansion of flights by his nuclear bombers that include the Ukraine, Poland and northern Europe. This has NATO expressing distress and a counter-measures strategy.

Yet Russia has had some chilling nuclear weapons program history putting the world that includes jihadi network into the equation.

Breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadists

In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.

Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union — and where all of it is today.

At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” He’s right — but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.

While some argue that the United States needs to “punish” Russia due to Moscow’s contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from “loose nukes” to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear bombs — sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.

In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.

Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side’s scientists to the other’s most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.

Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.

The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE’s action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.

Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia’s weapons-grade uranium and plutonium — a significant blow to U.S. national security.

Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world’s largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.

We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.

The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize — we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.

The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation — whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It’s worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.

All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.

*** Yet there is nuclear weapons and testing history that is important to understand and an example is the Marshall Islands and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Fascinating read is here. A declassified video is below:

 

al Qaeda, ISIS Success at Force Multiplying

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For heavy reading, the UN report on ISIS is here.

Islamist fighters drawn from half the world’s countries, says UN

Report says there are more than 25,000 ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ from 100 countries in jihadi conflicts, who pose an ‘immediate and long-term threat’

More than half the countries in the world are currently generating Islamist extremist fighters for groups such as al-Qaida and Islamic State, the UN has said.

A report by the UN security council says there are more than 25,000 “foreign terrorist fighters” currently involved in jihadi conflicts and they are “travelling from more than 100 member states”.

The number of fighters may have increased by more than 70% worldwide in the past nine months or so, the report says, adding that they “pose an “immediate and long-term [terrorist] threat”.

The sudden rise, though possibly explained by better data, will raise concern about the apparently growing appeal of extremism. The geographic spread of states touched by the phenomenon has expanded, too.

The report notes continuing problems with understanding the processes of radicalisation, but says, despite a concentration on the internet, social networks in conflict zones and western cities play a key role.

“Those who eat together and bond together can bomb together,” the report says.

The report is the first from the UN to take a global view of the problem of “foreign terrorist fighters”, and includes those in Afghanistan, Africa and other theatres as well as Syria and Iraq.

Officials described the estimate of numbers as conservative and said the true total may be more than 30,000. “The rate of flow is higher than ever and mainly focused on movement into the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq, with a growing problem also evident in Libya,” the report says.

The security council is meeting on Friday to discuss the problem of foreign terrorist fighters and potential measures to combat the threat.

The report comes amid a fierce debate over western strategies to counter Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Read more here.

The success comes from several tracks, death or solidarity, money and threats of doom to the infidel. Social media efforts by al Qaeda and ISIS wins the hearts and minds, a ground game better defined by mafia tactics. The Muslim Brotherhood invented the concept.

A Twitter account associated with the Syrian branch of al Qaeda (screenshot)

Al Qaeda in Syria ‘Tweeting Jihad to Over 200,000 Followers’

Twitter support for terror group hits high point

Al Qaeda is experiencing a resurgence on Twitter, as feeds associated with the terrorist group are reaching up to 200,000 extremist followers, according to a new report, which criticizes the social networking service for failing to crack down on radical terror groups.

As Twitter works to crack down on accounts affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, it is failing to do the same with al Qaeda-associated accounts, which are routinely “tweeting jihad and martyrdom” to a growing audience of radical followers, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which has been tracking the issue for some time.

With terrorist groups becoming increasingly sophisticated on the Internet, Twitter and other social networking services have become key tools for the dissemination of radical propaganda and recruitment.

Though al Qaeda’s ongoing operations have taken a backseat to the exploits of IS, the group founded by Osama bin Laden is thriving on Twitter, according to MEMRI.

“It should be noted that as Twitter’s removal of accounts on its platform linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) has gotten a lot of attention, accounts belonging to many other Designated Terrorist Organizations, notably to Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN), Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria that was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in December 2012, have not received any attention, and its many accounts, which have a total of over 200,000 followers, are thriving,” MEMRI wrote in a recent report.

“This is another reminder of Twitter’s failure to effectively address this issue and its lack of a true strategy for doing so,” the group concluded.

With the attention focused on IS, al Qaeda’s affiliates are freely operating online and continuing to recruit new followers.

“Despite the fact that when people focus on terrorist use of Twitter it is ISIS that comes to mind, many other jihadi groups are using it,” according to MEMRI.

The al Qaeda groups have used Twitter to post graphic footage of public floggings and executions it has performed in lawless areas of Syria under the terrorist group’s control.

MEMRI also found that these accounts have published internal JN documents about its terrorist activity, as well as “military advancements and updates, including official communications documents; and its outreach to children.”

Earlier this month, for instance, JN leader Sheikh Mostafa Mohamed held a two-day question-and-answer session with radical Twitter users in English.

“In his Q&A, [Mohamed] praises JN and its affiliation with Al-Qaeda, stating that they are genuinely Salafi-jihadi organizations, unlike ISIS, and denies that JN aims to end ties with Al-Qaeda,” according to an excerpt of the Twitter conversation published by MEMRI.

Mohamed discussed with users plans by JN and al Qaeda to assume power in Syria following the ouster by rebels of President Bashar al-Assad.

The terrorist leader also “encourages and advises jihadis in Australia” during the session.

Indoctrination is also a key goal for these groups, as Twitter allows them to reach a broad audience both in the Middle East and across the globe.

“The Twitter accounts include many photos of the group’s efforts to indoctrinate the next generation of JN—distributing sweets to children, conducting games and lessons for them and presenting them with achievement awards, providing them with military and religious training for jihad and martyrdom, and more,” according to MEMRI. “The accounts also tweet images of battles and combat situations and their aftermath, including of dead bodies, destroyed buildings, and captured prisoners.”

Twitter has come under counting pressure from advocacy groups and federal lawmakers to crack down on a flurry of jihadist Twitter accounts, which routinely use the service for fundraising and recruiting.

In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers petitioned Twitter to shut down accounts associated with any foreign terrorist organization designated as such by the United States.

5th Circuit Dealt Blow to WH Immigration Scheme

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Simply stated, on a 2-1 decision, the court ruled the ‘stay’ on Barack Obama’s executive action remains in place however, two options remain. The 5th Circuit Court sends the case back down to the lower court while the other option is for the administration to ‘rocket-docket’ the case to the Supreme Court. To advance the case to SCOTUS may not be a prudent decision as the next judge in line of rotation at the Supreme Court is Justice Scalia, who would likely rule adversely on Obama’s executive action. The Obama legal team as well as Hillary Clinton have pushed back hard on the court’s decision, so the showdown will likely continue or where the administration will alter terms used for immigration to redefine those here, as told are in the shadows to a refugee or under asylum status. Another nefarious plan B could be in place and about to be launched.

If you are under the notion that members of congress are not doing anything on the Obama executive action, mostly you would be correct. However, there are some that are taking an aggressive stance and they need our support. Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Sessions are two that are pushing back hard. Please note Senator Johnson’s position here.

Meanwhile, eyes should be also focused again on the insurgency season upon America for the 2015 incursion at the Southern border. The United States is a generous and benevolent country and such is the condition with those desperately needing to escape violence.

The only viable solution is to install solutions in home countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador such that safety and viability is restored. No politician speaks to that solution, demand those answers.

Deaths, gang activity surge as illegals flood border, 30,000 expected

A crackdown on children attempting to illegally enter the United States by Mexico and other Latin American nations has cut this year’s surge to a still-high 30,000, but proponents believe that has made the situation even more desperate for kids, leading to greater crime and deaths.

“Those that are fleeing and trying to get out of their countries are now using even more dangerous tactics with more criminal entities and costing them even more money to get through to safety,” said Kimberly Haynes, director of children’s services for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Baltimore-based LIRS is a key player in caring for unaccompanied children crossing into the United States and advocates for joining the kids with their parents already in the United States. Haynes told Secrets that those they have interviewed this year arrive with horrible stories of how smugglers got them through Mexico and into the United States.

Worse, she said, many arrive minus a brother or sister, believed to have died in the process.

“While riding the [illegal immigration freight] train was horrendous in its own right and the journey was already scary enough, being locked in the back of a truck for four days or being smuggled in other ways through the border has only created a heightened amount of risk,” Haynes said of how illegals now travel.

“There are several siblings that we know never made it. We don’t know what happened to them. One of their brothers made it, one sister made it, there’s something, but there’s no understanding, no knowledge. They left at the same time, smuggler’s separated them, nobody knows. So there’s a huge population of loss that’s happening out of these countries that can’t even try to immigrate back if things become stable enough because they’re just a lost generation,” she said.

“Nobody’s heard from them, nobody knows what’s happened, so whether they got exploited, killed, went into criminal entities or died in the process, it’s an unknown,” added Haynes.

What’s more, she said the smuggling prices has jumped from $1,000 to at least $1,600, and sometimes gangs demand more money before making the final delivery.

So far, the numbers of illegals crossing into the United States has been about half of last year’s numbers. Haynes said that while about 68,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border last year, current numbers suggest a total of about 30,000 this year.

But at 30,000, it is still very high and equal to fiscal 2013’s numbers.

She said that Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have cracked down on families and children trying to leave. And, she added, that some still try is a sign that the political and humanitarian situation in those countries has not improved.

“To know that families are risking that level of life means that there is something bigger going on down there,” said Haynes.

 

About Those Gangs Across America

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After the big shoot-out and arrests a few days ago in Waco, here is a detailed summary of the list of gangs and who are the members. Simply stated, no town is safe, hence we are not safe.

Featured photo - Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs

Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.”

A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the report was obtained by The Intercept.

The full report/presentation is here.

The report lays out, in almost obsessive detail, the extent to which OMG members are represented in nearly every part of the military, and in federal and local government, from police and fire departments to state utility agencies. Specific examples from the report include dozens of Defense Department contractors with Secret or Top Secret clearances; multiple FBI contractors; radiological technicians with security clearances; U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees; Army, Navy and Air Force active-duty personnel, including from the special operations force community; and police officers.

“The OMG community continues to spread its tentacles throughout all facets of government,” the report says.

The relationship between OMGs and law enforcement has come under scrutiny after it became known that law enforcement were on site in Waco bracing for conflict.

The 40-page report, “OMGs and the Military 2014,” issued by ATF’s Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information in July of last year, warned of the escalating violence of these gangs. “Their insatiable appetite for dominance has led to shootings, assaults and malicious attacks across the globe. OMGs continue to maim and murder over territory,” the report said. “As tensions escalate, brazen shootings are occurring in broad daylight.”

The ATF report is based on intelligence gathered by dozens of law enforcement and military intelligence agencies, and identifies about 100 alleged associates of the country’s most violent outlaw motorcycle gangs and support clubs who have worked in sensitive government or military positions.

Those gangs “continue to court active-duty military personnel and government workers, both civilians and contractors, for their knowledge, reliable income, tactical skills and dedication to a cause,” according to the report. “Through our extensive analysis, it has been revealed that a large number of support clubs are utilizing active-duty military personnel and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contractors and employees to spread their tentacles across the United States.”

The report predicted that six dominant OMGs — Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, Pagans, Bandidos and Vagos — would continue to expand, with escalating violence. The groups are known as “one-percenter” clubs, a moniker they proudly use to denote their outlaw status. The report identifies the most violent as Bandidos and Hell’s Angels support clubs — the same groups involved in a deadly shootout in Waco, Texas on Sunday.

The deadly confrontation involved the Bandidos and a rival club, the Cossacks MC, who are backed by Bandidos’ arch rivals, the Hell’s Angels. The shootout was part of a ongoing turf battle: Without permission from the Bandidos, Cossacks members have begun wearing a patch on their vests that claims Texas as the club’s territory — a figurative thumb in the eye of the Bandidos, long the state’s dominant motorcycle club. Nine people were killed and more than 170 bikers were arrested in the noontime showdown.

On Wednesday, law enforcement in Texas confirmed to several media outlets that one of the bikers arrested in the massive post-shootout sweep was a former San Antonio police detective, who joined the Bandidos after retiring from the department after 32 years.

The ATF report identifies the Bandidos as the dominant and most violent of the motorcycle gangs in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and identifies a staff sergeant instructor in the United States Air Force, currently stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, as the president of the local Pistoleros chapter, a Bandidos support club. According to the report, he routinely hosts parties for active duty military personnel.

In response to questions about the report, an ATF spokesperson said, “This was supposed to be solely a law enforcement tool to help fight violent crime. It was not supposed to be out there in the ether for general consumption.” The Intercept, after consulting with ATF, has redacted some portions of the report.

In an interview, Edward Winterhalder, a former high-ranking member of the Bandidos who left the club in 2003, said that while military veterans have long been involved in motorcycle clubs — many of the current outlaw clubs were formed in the wake of World War II — current-duty military or law enforcement members are not generally involved in the most violent gangs.

According to Winterhalder, biker clubs not associated with the violent one-percenters have many government employees — current military, law enforcement and firefighters — as members. Indeed, some clubs have emerged that pointedly disavow any connections to violence or lawlessness, or that specifically bill themselves as a LEMC — law enforcement motorcycle club.

Among those are the Iron Circle LEMC, a Texas club formed in 2006; the Arizona-founded Roughnecks Country MC — for the “99 percent … that gives a shit about society and the laws that govern the world we live in”; the Iron Order MC, a fiercely independent club that strongly rejects the ethos of the one-percenters; and the Protectors LEMC, which requires a criminal background check for prospective members.

Nonetheless, the report documents extensive involvement of current-duty military and government personnel in the outlaw groups, and does not mention LEMCs.

The report is a testament to how seriously law enforcement takes the issue of outlaw motorcycle gangs, detailing extensive surveillance; the document includes copies of military or government identification photos, some gained from traffic stops, and information from what appears to be close monitoring of military and government officials who attend the groups’ gatherings and activities across the country.

U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Fundraising Again

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The Assad regime is predicted to fall.

BEIRUT – Reports have emerged that the Syrian regime has been preparing a military evacuation from Deir Ezzor after ISIS’ victory in Palmyra cut ground routes to the besieged city.

“The Syrian regime is preparing to withdraw its forces in batches from Deir Ezzor,” as ISIS continues its offensive to seize the city, Alaraby Aljadeed reported Monday.

A local media activist, identifying himself as Mujahid al-Shami, told the London-based daily that Damascus had begun to move military supplies out of a key base northwest of the city.

Another media activist, who refused to disclose his name, said that “the regime is emptying the city’s museum of all its statues and artifacts.”

Fundraising coming out of the United States meanwhile is taking on yet another Holyland Foundation trial case and the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States is still quite active.

Syrian Fundraising, terror ties and the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood

By Cultural Jihad, May 25, 2015:

In Questionable Charity Groups Cloud Syrian Benefit we reported on Syrian songwriter/singer/activist Yahya Hawwa  touring Muslim communities in America as part of a benefit to help Syrians in need.  It was noted that one of the organizations sponsoring the event,  Life for Relief and Development (LIFE), is one of the larger U.S. based Islamic Charities. It also has past partnerships with organizations such as Human Appeal International (HAI), a group reportedly  linked to Hamas.

LIFE’s  ties to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood originate with it’s founder and former CEO, Khalil Jassemm and his association with  the late MB leader Dr. Ahmed Elkadi  while residing in Panama City,  FL.   Elkadi’s father-in-law,  Mahmoud Abu-Saud was also living in the Panama City area at the time.  Abu-Saud was known for his expertise in finance and central banking and being heavily involved in the Muslim Brotherhood’s beginnings in Egypt.  Abu-Saud and Elkadi worked together with the formation of several Islamic organizations including the first Islamic Center of Northwest Florida in 1986.

In 1985, Jassemm joined with Elkadi to form at least one charity,  the Welfare Trust for Needy Patients, Inc in Panama City.  The organization was dissolved in 1991.   Jasseemm moved to California and started LIFE in 1992.  LIFE was moved to Michigan in 1994.  In the mid 1990s, Jasseemm maintained his ties to Elkadi while working as a visiting professor at the University of Maine, Department of Survey Engineering – Orno sponsored by Elkadi’s Institute of Islamic Medicine for Education and Research.

Jasseemm is also the author of several books relating to Islamic charities.  His,  “Islamic Perspective on Charity, a Comprehensive Guide for Running a Muslim Nonprofit In the U.S.” provides extensive guidance for Islamic charity officials in regards to laws governing such groups. Jasseemm is no longer listed as being affiliated with LIFE and is believed to be living in Jordan.

LIFE’s current board listing still reflects its MB influences and includes:

Sharif Gindy

Dr. Gindy is a co-founder and board member of CAIR Michigan.

M. Yahia Abdul-Rahim

We’ve covered Dr. Rahim’s MB ties a number times.  He is listed as the NAIT contact for the Bay County Islamic Society and is a director of the the Panama City Advanced School Corporation.  In the 1992 Phone Book seized during the Holyland Foundation investigation into terrorist funding, Dr. Rahim (Y. Abdul-Raheem) was listed as the economic head of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

A lessor known document showing Rahim’s MB ties is a 1994 Florida corporate filing for the Muslim Financial Group, Inc., which was dissolved one year later.  In addition to Rahim named as director, it includes Mohamed Mabrook and Jamal Nyrabeah.

Mabrook was president of Global Chemical and had been convicted in 2002 of mail and wire fraud – defrauding investors of the company.   According to a 2002 Wall Street Journal report it was a bit more complicated, involving suspected ties to Saudi investments and terror groups:

One month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. Treasury labeled Mr. [Yassin] Qadi, who is 47 years old, a “specially designated global terrorist” and froze his assets in the U.S. and Europe. The government says that Mr. Qadi and organizations he controls move money from Saudi sources through numerous businesses and charities world-wide. Some of the money ends up in the hands of terrorists, the U.S. says. Mr. Qadi declines to comment, but through his lawyers, he denies ever knowingly doing business with terrorists or financing them. He hasn’t been prosecuted, and his attorneys are trying to persuade the Treasury of his innocence.

The article refers to Mabrook’s company …

Chemical Connection

In the mid-1990s, another company to which Mr. Qadi had ties, Abrar Investments Inc., joined with International Relief Organization [IIRO] to invest in a Chicago chemical company — a deal that is also drawing scrutiny from federal investigators.

Abrar Investments was a Stamford, Conn., company that sought “Islamically permissible investment opportunities in the United States,” according to its prospectus. The company’s name means “the do-gooders.” Mr. Qadi’s lawyers confirm he, among others, invested money in the U.S. through Abrar Investments. He was also a director of Abrar’s Malaysian corporate parent, according to records gathered by terrorism researcher Rita Katz of the nonprofit SITE Institute in Washington.

Abrar and International Relief Organization jointly invested more than $2 million in Global Chemical Corp., which said it made household- and pool-cleaning supplies. Abrar provided $250,000 itself, as well as another $345,000 that came from one of its clients, according to an affidavit by FBI agent Valerie Donahue filed in federal court in Chicago in January 1997. International Relief Organization invested more than $1 million and guaranteed Abrar Investments against any potential loss from the deal, the Donahue affidavit said. Two of International Relief’s top officials owned a total of a 20% stake in Global Chemical, according to the Donahue affidavit.

The president of Global Chemical was Mohammed Mabrook, a Libyan immigrant and Islamic activist who during his college years in Tennessee organized opposition to the secular dictatorship of Libyan Col. Moammar Gadhafi. In 1985, Mr. Mabrook, had worked for a pro-Palestinian group headed by Mr. Marzouk, the senior Hamas leader who the U.S. believes was a coinvestor with Mr. Qadi in BMI, according to a 2001 federal-court filing in Chicago.

Global Chemical kept a warehouse full of highly toxic chemicals but appeared to have few if any customers, according to the Donahue affidavit. Alarmed, the FBI asked one of the government’s senior experts on chemical weapons, Dennis J. Reutter, chief of the army’s Materiel Command Treaty Laboratory in Edgewood, Md., to look at the chemicals Global Chemical was purchasing.

The FBI included an ominous excerpt from Mr. Reutter’s Oct. 23, 1996, report in Ms. Donahue’s affidavit. The purchases, he wrote, “do not appear to be consistent with R&D for formulation of commercial cleaning products or for quality control of commercial cleaning products.” The names of the chemicals weren’t made public. His report concluded that “taken in total, the purchases appear to be more consistent with support” of a laboratory performing biochemistry or “organic synthesis.” Mr. Reutter declines to comment.

Organic synthesis is one way to describe the process used to manufacture some explosives. But U.S. law-enforcement officials in Chicago say they didn’t find direct evidence of any bomb making at Global Chemical.

Mr. Salah — the confessed Hamas operative who received funds both directly from Mr. Qadi and from the Woodridge, Ill., real-estate investment Mr. Qadi financed — also allegedly had an interest in dangerous chemicals. In the 1995 confession to Israeli authorities, which he subsequently retracted and which the FBI summarized in court filings, Mr. Salah allegedly said that while in Chicago in the early 1990s, he trained recruits to work with “basic chemical materials for the preparation of bombs and explosives,” as well as various toxins.

Qadi was one of the original investors in Bait ul Mal, Inc. (BMI), an Islamic investment firm tied to the MB.  A 2003 National Review article provides additional details regarding BMI and terror funding tied to charities,  including IIRO.

Court documents for U.S. vs Mabrook portray Dr. Rahim a victim of fraud committed by Mabrook indicating  he  invested $600,000 in the Mabrook’s chemical company.   In light of Rahim’s position in MB financial matters, Yassin Qadi’s funding activities and the involvement of IIRO the “victim” label is  questionable.

Nyrabeah resided in Panama City, FL along with Dr. Rahim  and Dr. Elkadi.    In 1993 Nyrabeah become a director of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) and is cited in court documents.   A Canadian corporation filing also shows Nyrabeah as a listed director along with Enaam Arnaout for the Benevolence International Fund, incorporated in 2000.  In 2002, Enaam Arnaout was linked by prosecutors to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.   In 2002, the U.S. Government designated BIF as a “Financiers of Terrorism” for providing support to Hamas as well as Al Qaeda.  Nyrabeah apparently was not charged.

Hany Saqar

Dr. Saqar’s ties to the  MB  can be found in the 1992 Phone Book seized during the Holy land Foundation investigation into terrorist funding.  He is listed (spelled as Hani Shaker) as a member of the MB executive committee and as the “Masul” (leader) of the Administrative Office for East America.

Saqar was the former director of the  Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Dublin, Ohio (NICC) until a disagreement emerged with other NICC members.   Reporter Patrick Poole has written about the NICC’s former spirtual leader, Dr. Salah Sultan and his ties to Hamas and the MB.   Up until recently, Saqar was president  of the The Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (EADHR), a group reported by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) to be a pro Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood group.

This year LIFE  is not as visible with  Hawwa’s fund raising appearances.

The primary sponsoring groups are Syria Relief and Development and United Muslim Relief.  Both organizations under  control of individuals with strong  Muslim Brotherhood affiliations.

Syria Relief and Development was formed and incorporated in Kansas in 2011.   It’s 2013 filings report over $5 million in relief efforts.

The organization’s books were initially handled by Mohamad Albadawi. The Causingfitna blog has some extensive information covering Albadawi’s ties to  MB organizations and the myraid of Islamic special interest groups he is involved with.