The shocking revelation that Boston-area fugitive Ahmad
Abousamra is running the Islamic State’s (ISIS) sophisticated social media
propaganda campaign casts light on the leadership of a complex of radical
mosques in and around the Greater Boston area. According to information
obtained during litigation discovery and provided by Boston Muslims who asked
not to be identified out of fear for their physical safety, Ahmad Abousamra is
deeply connected to the top Muslim community leaders in Boston.
The devout Muslim in your neighborhood is most likely a good man but, how many are terrorist waiting to strike? It's not fair or right to say all Muslim's are killers but it's only safe to assume that killer Muslim's live around the corner. The devout Muslim believes in the "just kill" meaning that some of us white christian people deserve to be beheaded, shot in the back, beat to death by a gang of Muslim nut jobs. Are you aware? Are you watching? Have you talked to your children? The Administrative Communist Government of Barack Obama is not going to save you. The borders are open and they are here, around the corner, across the street, up the road. Take care of your family.
Ahmad’s father, Abdulbadi Abousamra (Abousamra
Sr.), has served as a president or board member of several mosques, Islamic
schools, and Muslim political organizations in Massachusetts from the
mid-1990s. In fact, he is still the president of an Islamic elementary school
in Sharon, MA. Abousamra Sr. had used his leadership position in multiple
Boston Islamic institutions to import extremist and terrorist-affiliated imams
into Boston. One of these imams, Hafiz Masood, appears to be the one who
radicalized his son, Ahmad Abousamra (Abousamra Jr.).
Until 2007, when Abousamra Jr. was first questioned
by the FBI over a plot to provide assistance to Al Qaeda in Iraq and to
massacre shoppers at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleboro, MA, his
father, Abousamra Sr., was vice-president of the Boston branch of the Muslim
American Society (MAS Boston). According to federal authorities, the Muslim
American Society was created to be "the overt arm of the Muslim
Brotherhood in America." MAS Boston operates the largest Islamic center in
the Northeast, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC). The
Boston Marathon bombers attended the ISBCC’s sister mosque in Cambridge. Both
mosques have a long history of Islamic extremism and terrorism.
In 1994, Abousamra Sr. joined the Islamic Center of
New England (ICNE), another Muslim organization that runs two mosques in the
Boston suburbs of Quincy and Sharon. By 1998, he became its president. Abousamra Sr.’s passion lay with influencing
the religious education of the Center’s youth. He personally founded two
schools at the ICNE: the Islamic Academy of New England elementary school in
1999 and the Al Noor Academy secondary school in 2001 – the latter with
$100,000 in seed money he received from the Islamic Society of Boston. Even
though Abousamra Sr. left the country shortly after the FBI put a bounty on his
son, he is still the president of the Islamic Academy of New England.
In 1998, Abousamra Sr. hired Mohammed Hafiz Masood
to be the new Imam at the Islamic Center of New England and a teacher at the
Islamic Academy of New England. At that time, Masood was in the United States
illegally.
Masood quickly began to clash with the moderate
members of the community over the extremist ideology he was teaching their
children. Masood told one child, whose father was Egyptian but whose mother was
Jewish that he won’t get into heaven unless he disowns his mother. The couple
pulled their son out of the school. According to another mosque member, Masood
told his eight-year-old nephew that Americans are “Shataan [Satan] and will not
go to paradise because they don't do prayers.” This mosque member insists that:
“In my view, this type of talks to young
generations is creating hate towards the U.S. and its people, which include us
too. He is brainwashing young kids with material that has nothing to do with
Islamic teaching.”
Yet another mosque member claimed that Masood and
Abousamra Sr. “were making eight-year-old, seven-year-old girls wear hijab
[head scarf], and they were making young boys go and talk to these girls [if
they weren’t wearing a head scarf], so there was indoctrination.”
Moderate Muslims in Boston who spoke out against
Abousamra Sr. and his fellow extremists were often intimidated or directly
assaulted. According to one of the victimized Muslim community members,
Abousamra Sr. had a former convict who converted to Islam in prison hang around
the mosque and threaten those who objected to Abousamra Sr.’s ideology.
“They’ll beat you up,” he said.
Mohammed Hafiz Masood has since been deported for
immigration violations. After his deportation, it turned out Masood was not an
ordinary radical.
Masood is the brother of Pakistani terrorist Hafiz
Saeed, who founded and runs Lashkar-e-Taibah (LeT), one of the largest and most
violent terrorist groups in Pakistan, and who has a $10 million FBI bounty on
his head. Saeed’s terror group is responsible for the 2008 Mumbai massacre,
which targeted India over the conflict in Kashmir and left 166 people dead. A
Boston Muslim community member claims that while living in Massachusetts,
Masood “has stated many times in closed gatherings that, ‘I used to go to Kashmir
and kill people and come back,’ and that was why he was a hero to many people.”
After the Mumbai massacres, The Times of India
reported that Masood was using his status as Imam at the Islamic Center of New
England to raise funds and recruit local Massachusetts Muslims for
Lashkar-e-Taibah. Now living in Pakistan, Masood has become the spokesman of
his brother’s terror group.
Hafiz Masood’s son, Hassan Masood, allegedly
conspired in terrorist plots with Abousamra Jr. He turned informant and testified
against Abousamra Jr. and his captured co-conspirator, Tarek Mehanna. According
to Muslim community members, Tarek Mehanna and Abousamra Jr. were “thick with
Masood” and had been radicalized by his preaching.
The Tarek Mehanna / Abousamra Jr. partnership and
Mehanna’s subsequent arrest has spawned a popular radical movement that
lobbies, among other things, to free Tarek Mehanna from prison. It is called
the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee – and it has a large presence in Boston.
Many of its members are former students of Hafiz Masood.
The Tarek Mehanna Support Committee encourages
Muslims here to view American law enforcement with hostility and suspicion. On
October 10, 2012, the group denounced the bounty the FBI put on Abousamra Jr.,
saying:
“The Tarek Mehanna Support Committee opposes all
attempts by the US government to capture and prosecute Tarek Mehanna’s
co-defendant, Ahmad Abousamra. … The bounty offered to capture Abousamra is
part and parcel of the US government’s attempts to destroy the Muslim community
through fostering informants and mistrust. … Our prayers go out to Ahmad
Abousamra and his young daughter, wherever they are. … We call upon members of
our community to take a principled stance of non-cooperation with any and all
FBI and US Attorney’s office attempts to gather information and testimony in
this case. We further call upon community members to take a stance of complete
non-cooperation with federal agents and future grand juries or trials.”
Many of the current top leaders of mosques formerly
led by Abousamra Sr. are also leaders in the Free Tarek Support Committee.
Moderate Boston Muslims insist that the indoctrination that led to Abousamra
Jr.’s joining ISIS is still ongoing at several Massachusetts mosques, and it’s
only getting worse. One such Boston Muslim asked to pass along this warning:
“They have now made it a goal to go after the
elementary schools, high schools, and college students. Parents are losing
their children.”
Charles Jacobs is the President of Americans for
Peace and Tolerance. Ilya Feoktistov is the Director of Research for APT.