Al-Qaeda Somalia in U.S.: Supporters Blamed For Ohio Arson
Leaders of a nonviolent Columbus mosque finger local al-Shabaab supporters — who want control of the mosque — for intimidation by arson.
In the early morning of October 19, a fire ravaged through the property surrounding Masjid Salama, a growing Columbus, Ohio, mosque frequented primarily by members of the local Somali community. Several Somali-owned businesses surrounding the mosque were heavily damaged, but the mosque itself was not touched. However, because of the surrounding damage, the mosque itself has not been cleared for reopening.
As reported by the Columbus Dispatch, fire investigators immediately determined that arson was to blame for the blaze.
But rather than blaming the arson on unknown anti-Muslim individuals engaged in a religious hate crime, many inside the Columbus Somali community are fixing their suspicions on leaders of another local Somali mosque, Masjid Ibn Taymiya. This mosque is dominated by supporters of the al-Shabaab terrorist group, and members have made repeated attempts to take over the rapidly growing Salama congregation through an unsuccessful campaign of legal and physical intimidation.
Following the blaze, I met with two leaders of Masjid Salama, who described the ongoing efforts by the leaders of Ibn Taymiya to take over their burgeoning year-and-a-half-old congregation. On November 12, the Salama leaders had to obtain a temporary restraining order to prevent the bulldozing of their rented facility by a leader of the Ibn Taymiya mosque, Mohamed Hassan, who, they say, is the ringleader of the campaign.
“The first thing Hassan did was to obtain the lease rights to the property we rented, and then use his contacts in City Hall to try to illegally evict us,” one of the Salama leaders said. In fact, Hassan took the Salama mosque to court earlier this month, only two weeks after the arson at the mosque property, claiming that they had not paid rent — a claim that was soundly rejected by the judge when the Salama leaders provided canceled copies of the rent checks for the past year. Hassan had also rejected checks for the past three months rent.
But Hassan’s harassment campaign began earlier this year when he obtained trespassing orders from the Columbus prosecutor’s office. According to the Salama leaders, Hassan hoped to force them from the mosque property, change the locks overnight, and reopen the mosque the following day with a new imam appointed by Ibn Taymiya. That plan failed when it was pointed out that the mosque property wasn’t even in the Columbus prosecutor’s jurisdiction, making the orders invalid.
The Salama leaders said that Hassan then sent a team of “mediators,” who proposed that the entire Salama board resign, but the current imam would be retained and the “mediators” would appoint a new board. Needless to say, the Salama leaders rejected the proposal out of hand:
These people have nothing to do with our mosque. Who are they to demand mediation for anything? And all the proposals these mediators proposed would get rid of our board and finish the takeover of our mosque. This new board they would appoint would get rid of our imam as soon as they were in place. Why would we ever agree?
Not long after came the fire that has closed Salama ever since and the unsuccessful judicial hearing on the bogus claims that the mosque had not paid its rent.
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Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.
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23 Comments
1. Patrick Poole:Copies of the permit obtained by Mohamed Hassan of Masjid Ibn Taymiya attempting to bulldoze Masjid Salama and the judge’s temporary restraining order halting the demolition of the mosque can be found at this link:
http://www.bartamaha.com/?p=15957
There is a court hearing later today to decide whether to extend the TRO.
Nov 20, 2009 - 2:12 am 2. realspark21:Great…Does anyone else see the irony of JIHADIST in-fighting ON OUR OWN SOIL? It would seem that if there are enough of them to start attacking each other they should be easy to spot…Where are our LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS? Calling J-No and Holder, your bus is leaving….
Nov 20, 2009 - 6:50 am 3. Libertyship46:If we have another major attack on US soil, I think it will be carried out by Somalis living in this country. There are already disturbing reports of Somalis returning to Somalia for Jihadist training:
Nov 20, 2009 - 6:56 am 4. Phranc:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/12somalis.html
There was also that controversy of Somali taxi cab drivers in Minnesota who refused to carry certain people in their cabs:
http://kerstenblog.startribune.com/kerstenblog/?cat=48
And we have an example of Muslims in Minnesota suing a meat-packing plant for supposed “religious discrimination”:
http://dearbornunderground.blogspot.com/2009/04/sharias-plump-target-in-minnesota.html
Any guess on how many of the people suing were Somali? There were 128 SOMALI Muslims involved in the case:
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2009/04/bias_suits_sett.php
These people used our own legal system (as well as a bunch of litigation-happy lawers) to milk some money out of an American corporation. The above examples show that there are problems with Somalis being able to assimilate into the United States, not to mention Western culture. And remember, once these Somalis obtain citizenship, they can use their passports to travel freely between the United States and any other unstable Islamic nation, like Somalia. Somalis have a very poor track record of cooperation with the United States and, given our history with that troubled country (Blackhawk Down anybody?), I think it would be best to prevent any more of them from coming into this country. Sad to have to say that, but I think that if we don’t limit Somali immigration, it will only be a matter of time before some of them commit a major act of terror against us.
Why are muslim terrorist and their supporters allowed to preach? Inciting violence negates freedom of religious speech. How long will the powers that be sit idle? What has to happen before action is taken? How many have to die?
Nov 20, 2009 - 7:30 am 5. Petra:It is our Christian duty to tell those living in darkness and ignorence that there is a better way.
Nov 20, 2009 - 8:21 am 6. gus3:And where are the news crews from WCMH, WSYX, and WTVN (both TV and radio)? The Columbus Dispatch?
So much for valuing freedom of the press.
Nov 20, 2009 - 11:22 am 7. Walsh:Claiming “Islam” means “peace” is fraudulent to begin with. Islam is an Arabic word. And the word for peace in Arabic is “solh,” and not Islam. Islam is derived from the root word “taslim,” which means submission or surrender. Hence, Islam’s true name, surrender, is in fact most descriptive of what it is: total, unconditional submission and surrender of the individual and the community to the will and dictates of Allah as revealed by his “rasool,” messenger, Muhammad.
http://www.FaithFreeDom.org
Nov 20, 2009 - 12:53 pm 8. Leatherneck:http://www.TheThirdJihad.com
http://www.TheReligionOfPeace.com
Another example of Islam.
It will get worse, and it appears the sold out government wants it to. Keep letting the Muslims, and illegal aliens in why don’t ya? They so want to be Americans.
Nov 20, 2009 - 2:17 pm 9. Real Deal:While it warms my heart to see what seems to be the elusive “moderate Muslim” resisting the Jihadist Muslims I’m not sure I’m ready to celebrate yet. The problem with Islam is the exhortations to violence and world domination in the Koran and that Mohammed exemplifies the “perfect” Muslim. The man was a bandit, mass murderer, and pedophile; basically the anti-thesis of holy men of other religions. He was all this as Islam’s Prophet, not a bad man who saw the light of God.
Nov 20, 2009 - 3:01 pm 10. seansarto:Echoes the tactics involved with the Reichstag Fire in Berlin.
Nov 20, 2009 - 3:53 pm 11. Eric:Want to know who’s behind the massive influx of Somalis into the US? Catholic Charities. You have no idea how many of these people are here already.
http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/
Nov 20, 2009 - 4:55 pm 12. Eric:From Refugee Resettlement Watch
http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/
“There needs to be a national debate about how many refugees and other immigrants we take and from what cultures they come. Frankly, we have made a grievous error in taking the Muslim refugees, Somalis in particular, who have no intention of becoming Americans. They are here to change America. Unfortunately, political correctness and a worshipful attitude toward multiculturalism have blinded us. The explosion on this front is yet to come and it will be like the Major Hasan slaughter at Ft. Hood and there will be much fingerpointing and gnashing of teeth about who is to blame primarily at the US State Department.”
Nov 20, 2009 - 4:58 pm 13. john from cinncinatti:why aren’t these radical imams shut down? why are these cesspools allowed to operate and not closed and the terrorist preaching treason and sedition not scooped up and sent to Gitmo/New York? their religion is not working at ho,me and they want to operate it here. convert these people to christianity and they can build their own church. nowhere left to go but up.
Nov 21, 2009 - 6:28 pm 14. brock merck:If the commit a crime send them packing. Our county is based on the rule of law and will use force to stand by it. America.
Nov 22, 2009 - 8:57 am 15. ehunter:Why the hell are these people EVEN IN THE USA?
Nov 22, 2009 - 8:58 am 16. ehunter:How did white people get talked into committing slow suicide?
Why the hell are these people EVEN GET IN THE USA?
Nov 22, 2009 - 10:13 am 17. exdem13:How did we get talked into committing slow suicide?
This is the civilian version of the Fort Hood incident. Everybody can see trouble coming, but nobody wants to do anything about it, lest the scarlet letter “R” for “Racist” be emblazoned upon their breasts. Once again, political correctness is doing more harm than good. A large portion of non-Muslim Columbus will have to burn for anything to be done. Maybe not even then….
Nov 22, 2009 - 11:18 am 18. ehunter:EXDEM
Study up on “Cultural Marxism” invented by Marxists in Germany
Nov 22, 2009 - 12:29 pm 19. http://preahvihears.blogspot.com/:in 1920s with the aim of destroying traditional society to make way
for a Marxist takeover. “Poltical Correctness” is one of the chief tools of destruction of Cultural Marxism. It was never meant to be “do good” or be helpful or benin. It was meant to use Western Civs
virtues…ie “tolerance” “openess” etc to DESTROY Western Civ.
Only the modern TV fed liberals are naive about all this.
Following the blaze, I met with two leaders of Masjid Salama, who described the ongoing efforts by the leaders of Ibn Taymiya to take over their burgeoning year-and-a-half-old congregation. On November 12, the Salama leaders had to obtain a temporary restraining order to prevent the bulldozing of their rented facility by a leader of the Ibn Taymiya mosque, Mohamed Hassan, who, they say, is the ringleader of the campaign.
Nov 23, 2009 - 7:32 am 20. Hassan, Ali:I would like to clarify some sensitive statements that were in Mr. Poole’s article on the Somalis.
Nov 24, 2009 - 3:41 pm 21. Abdikarim Karshe:• First of all, it is unethical to charge an entire community to be part and parcel of Al-shabaab. Masjid Ibn Taymiya is a Somali Community owned building, and it is used by all Somali community for worshiping. Somali communities who live in Ohio or other parties of the United States are law abiding citizen and residents. They are taxpayers who work hard to help their community in large. Patrick Poole says in his article, “many inside the Columbus Somali community are fixing their suspicions on leaders of another local Somali mosque, Masjid Ibn Taymiya” which is a baseless state. Our community did not suspect any side of the lessee and sub-lessee, and we are waiting for the well-trained law enforcement guys to unveil this case.
• Secondly, Mohamed Hassan is a member of the community, and he is not the leader of Masjid Ibn Taymiya. He used to be Masjid’s director, but he resigned that position a year ago. Currently, Mohamed is one of the religious teachers. Mohamed is not acting on behave of Masjid Ibn Taymiya, he just wants to establish his own business. Mohamed wanted to invest business in that area, and unfortunately, there was misunderstanding between him and the brothers who run Masjid Salama.
• Thirdly, Masjid Ibn Taymiya has nothing to do with the conflict between Mohamed Hassan and the leaders of Masjid Salama. I am a member of Masjid Ibn Taymiya, and I have never seen sheikhs of this Masjid preaching other than peace, loving each other and helping community.
• Finally, if Patrick wanted to be fair about this issue, he would have met all parts. It is unfortunate that someone like Patrick to infiltrate our community, and publish alarming article which is going to create hatred environment. Similar to Patrick, Somalis are citizens, and they know their rights.
By Abdikarim Karshe
I think that the writer of this column is naive because he did not get all of his facts right. He did not even have enough sources to support his “facts.” The columnist should have interviewed various people from both sides and people who were neutral about the whole situation. Mr. Patrick Poole did not even say that much about the fire probably being done by various hate groups. He also did not have any knowledge of the leaders of Masjid Ibn Taymiya before he attached them into his mindset hypocrisy. Moreover, it is very wrong to level Somali community at large to be element of Al-Shabaab. The columnist should have investigated more about the history of situation before pointing the finger at any person. If he did that, he would have a better understanding of the situation. Let know that the Masjid Ibn Taymiya is a teaching center not Al-Shabaab outpost as columnist mentioned. Therefore, I strongly believe that Mr. Poole wants to penetrate negative ways to our community and divide into groups. However, Somali community is very tight- knit, they would probably have differences, but they never tried to destroy each other’s properties, let alone a place of worship in this case. As Somalis, we can solve our problems as a community without any outsiders interfering in our problems.
Nov 26, 2009 - 7:30 pm 22. Safiya Ahmed:Hassan Ali and Abdirkariim Karshe, Assalamu alaikum to both of you. I’ agree with when it comes to this article being biased, but you have to also be honest, leaders of masjid ibn taymiyya would love to see masjid salama destroyed and vise versa, it’s sad but true fact. Both masjid’s hate one another for a reason only Allah knows. I am a frequent visitor to masjid ibn taymiyya and Mohamed Hassan is one of the leaders at the masjid so please don’t hide the fact that he is a big part of ibn tayymiya. Also Let’s keep this in mind, if the leaders of ibn taymiyya didn’t want Mohamed Hassan to not go ahead with what he’s doing then he wouldn’t be doing.
Also yes many boys are being recruited from ibn tayymiya daily and are being sent to Somalia to fight along side al shabab, it’s not something I’ve seen it with my own eyes but it’s something the whole community is talking about daily, even if the leaders of ibn tayymiya weren’t the ones doing the recruit they sure know who’s doing what inside their masjid. So instead of informing the authorities about recruitment inside the masjid they decided to turn the blind eye.. Shame on them and shame on those that are sending these innocent boys to harms way. I would love to see them send their children instead of other kids.
Nov 27, 2009 - 11:03 am 23. Blossom:First of all let me address the bogus claim of Mr. Poodle one by one:
Arson:
Mr. Hassan was NOT behind the arson. His whereabouts was known at the time of fire and also he had no motive. Arson is an action taken by criminal, this man seems to have gone in length to fight these other guys in the legal system. None of the parties involved in this case seems to have vested interest by burning the place. There must be a third party, for all we know it could be Mr. Poodle or it could be business man who is committing fraud/scam on the insurance companies.
Second, if memory service me right, Mr. Poodle here accused another Somali of being “jihadist” supporter,( whatever that means) or “terrorist” supporter. So, accusing Mr. Hassan a terrorist is not surprising specially coming from serial slanderer like Mr. Poodle here. There is hardly a mosque or any known Muslim in Columbus that he did not slander. He libels Indiscriminatory without any knowledge of who he is vilifying, has he taken the time and get to know Mr. Hassan he would have known that the so call Al shabaab has displaced Mr. Hassan’s family, and cause too much pain and hassle. It is like accusing a German Jew of being Nazi. Shame.
Mr. Poodle- the serial slandered- has call terrorist to another Somalis once before. If I remember his accusation at the time was that the other gentleman was terrorist supporter. It was around 2006, That Terrorist Mr. Poodle was referring to at that time was United Islamic Court, not only was he calling the UIC terrorist the whole western world was calling the UIC terrorist, yet, in December 2008, US, UK and UN all bless the so call terrorist UIC into power. You think I am lying call Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin he was there. What is wrong with that picture, you tell me.
No one has recruited anything, the so call “children” that were “recruited” were no children first of all, they are in their mid 20’s and 30, second, they were fighting with Ethiopia that invaded their country, and was murdering their families. they have dual citizenship. The American Jews do it, they are US citizens, and yet go defend Israel, there should not be double stander for US citizens with dual citizenship. Unless of course you are racist, therefore you would hardly see the point of this argument, in that case, go to some tea party…
Mr. Poodle et al, instead of sitting on your buns all day defaming Muslims all over the internet, why do n’t ya do us , humanity a favor, and make the eugenics and Malthusians happy as well, join the army. The army need more of you and the world surely need less of you. C ya do not wanna be ya
Dec 1, 2009 - 1:21 pm