Cleveland’s New Terror Imam
Ohio's largest mosque found an extremist replacement for its deported terror-linked leader.
Now all of this information concerning IAU and the Fiqh Council would have been easily accessible for any reporter going through the motions of journalism. If the two glowing Cleveland Plain Dealer articles welcoming Abouabdalla to the area in recent weeks are any indication, however, none of that background investigation was ever done.
This pedestrian method of journalism by the Plain Dealer when it comes to the Islamic Center of Cleveland was evident last October when Abouabdalla’s immediate predecessor, Ahmad Alzaree, who replaced the moderate Mohamad Altabaa, came under fire from fellow Pajamas Media contributor Tom Blumer and me after the Plain Dealer announced Alzaree’s hiring.
The very next day, Blumer revealed that he had conducted some research and discovered sermons by Alzaree on his previous mosque’s website in Omaha, Nebraska, making religiously and racially incendiary remarks. As Tom admitted, he had done something called a “Google search” (whatever on earth that may be!) on Alzaree, where he immediately found sermons by the newly hired imam preaching about the Day of Judgment and the anticipated widespread slaughter of Jews by Muslims:
Dear brothers and sisters, the talk about the Day of Judgment is long and full of things that will confuse the human mind and put fear in the hearts of the faithful. Every day that comes is much more worse than the day before it as we get closer to the hour. Among the signs of the approach of Day of Judgment is what the messenger of Allah PBUH said: “The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews.“ Agreed upon. This is seemed to be very soon and close now. We ask Allah SWT not to test us so hardly if we live till this horrible moment insha’allah.
I quickly followed up with additional information that Alzaree had hosted extremist speakers at his previous mosque in Omaha and offered other sermons where he lamented that Jews and Christians were no longer required to pay the jizya (payments made to Islamic authorities by non-Muslims to prevent violence), based on information readily available on its website. No sooner had these revelations been made than the information was promptly scrubbed from Alzaree’s Omaha mosque website. At one point the whole website was taken down.
The Plain Dealer predictably rushed out another story trying to explain away Alzaree’s incendiary statements. But curiously, the paper failed to mention that the information had come from Blumer, who at the time was a paid Plain Dealer blogger, and the information had been published on the Plain Dealer’s website — a fact Blumer humorously noted, again, on its own website!
But even in the Plain Dealer’s initial article on Alzaree’s hiring, there were indications that something wasn’t quite right, as this statement indicates:
Alzaree would not confirm his hiring, at one point saying he would not come to Cleveland because a reporter was inquiring about his background. But Abu-Shaweesh said Alzaree has signed a contract to start work in November, and confirmed today that he has accepted the position.
Whatever concerns or doubts were raised by Alzaree’s evasion, however, were quickly dismissed.
Over the next few weeks Tom and I continued to publish damaging information about Alzaree’s previous statements and activities, and our information was picked up by several news outlets across the state, including the Associated Press. Undaunted, the Plain Dealer tried to push its man clear of our findings by publishing a third extensive article dismissing our allegations, assuring its readers that Alzaree hoped “to ease Muslim-Jewish relations” and that he promised to serve as “a voice for tolerance, harmony, and understanding” in the community.
That same day, I published additional information with screen shots taken from the website of Alzaree’s previous mosque showing links to terrorist groups and essays defending armed jihad, information that had appeared immediately after Alzaree had arrived at the Omaha mosque. Later that week, just a few days before he was supposed to assume his new position at the Islamic Center of Cleveland, Alzaree threw in the towel, submitting his resignation to the mosque’s board and telling the Plain Dealer that the scrutiny from “bloggers” was too much to bear. (See the wrap-up posts by Blumer and me.)
Apparently learning nothing from this previous episode with Ahmad Alzaree, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has yet again let important elements of its own story escape it regarding Sayed Abouabdalla. At this point, with two glowing stories on Abouabdalla’s arrival without any hint of critical inquiry, this neglect appears more deliberate than neglectful.
Remember that the position he is filling was vacated by an individual with extensive ties to international Islamic terrorism, and the Plain Dealer published no fewer than 45 stories on Fawaz Damra’s ordeal.
And now that the Islamic Center of Cleveland has replaced its old terror imam with a new one with very questionable credentials of his own, it is apparent that the media establishment has chosen to snooze once again through any semblance of critical inquiry concerning whom Ohio’s largest mosque has chosen to lead its congregation.
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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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19 Comments
1. Mary Madigan:Great investigative reporting!
I think the concept of investigative, honest, unbiased reporting is so foreign to most MSM types, they classify anyone who does it as a “blogger”
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:35 am 2. Smarty:I have just been in a job search. As an Engineer, I have ignored all Ohio job openings, and point blank told recruiters NO to Ohio; don’t even ask. All because of race relations, which you can translate to “Ohio blacks are radical and out of control, and the whites who share power with them are too PC to get them under control”.
I cannot be the only one, and I must not be, because the Ohio economy is suffering under foolish policies and a lack of talent.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:01 am 3. Roark:I’m telling you, Ohio, Minnesota, and Michigan are going to get out of control unless the National Guard comes in an sets things right.
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:30 am 4. Shariah Law in the USA-Cleveland’s New Terror Imam « Shariah Finance Watch:[...] Posted by allysonrt on July 9, 2008 http://pajamasmedia .com/blog/ cleveland% e2%80%99s- new-terror- imam/ [...]
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:44 am 5. Ohio’s largest Mosque replaces deposed terror-linked Imam with… | Infidels Are Cool:[...] Their first replacement was fired for being “too moderate”, but now they’ve found their man to continue the [...]
Jul 9, 2008 - 9:57 am 6. olad:it,s clear Now GOP changing to be communists party and ignored rights of _religion, freedom of speach, freedome of… and etc_ in whats when is upon a time known world,s most democrotic and freedom USA.
Jul 9, 2008 - 10:47 am 7. Jude:however,I used to work in Columbus OHio after I came to USA on 27 september 2001 I met alot of hard work , religious discrimination , when day my mannager stood in front ofme where I was bowing and come b/ween my allah and me. He was White man , I did not know what to do rather than to I quit my job and i did .in columbus again with an other company they put a moving camara wher aver I was working, when ever I was praying, even if I go to the rest room .
is that what you call national guard .
guys whe need real change to safe the world from extrimist not only islamists but also poeple like Roark, and who ever thinking the same .
When you pray at work the company should deduct the time from your pay. You’re not working, your praying.
Newt is correct when he says we’ll wise up when we lose a city.
Jul 9, 2008 - 3:29 pm 8. BadBlackMan:Smarty, those bad bad African Americans from Ohio are out to GET you!! You must be extreeeemly intelligent. We’ve got enough of you geniuses out west. Pleeeese do not head this way! Thanx!!
Jul 9, 2008 - 3:50 pm 9. olad:The issue is not the prayers but using the power in his hand , stopping me to do my blessing , and humalating me in the front of every body becouse I was changing my forklift battery and get a time to do my prayers at same time. besides, there ware lot of fork lifts ahead of mine.
the guy (manager)has not any feeling and no one can justify his behavior . I was one of the working class and I new my job covering 90% of my job discription every day getting my breaks the other 10%to get my daily life .one other day in other campany the girl who changes battery tended to kill me with open covers of battery and I swallowed the battery foams ,I did not recognise untill I vomatted and my eyes got red becouse i was to cver my jop on time still
I still couph what those people coused me .
I come the hazard department and reported they send me to hospital and next day she was working the same place knowing what she did to me the manager and all supperiors were there and knew what happen to me what can you justfy this irrisponseplity again she was white again !!!!!?
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:16 pm 10. ab:I wonder why one likes to thereaten the other and try to direct the hatred and call it salvation who cares the bad african american do think you do ?
Those Muslim extremists must be snickering in their mosques at the PC absurdities that render us impotent in our own country. If federal law enforcement could subvert the KKK, why is it so difficult to rid ourselves of these Islamic bigots who align themselves with terrorists groups?
Jul 9, 2008 - 8:22 pm 11. p2:having no concept of OUR culture except for what is given to them through dvd’s and the movies, most moslems moving into the free west end up becoming resentful.
Jul 10, 2008 - 7:42 am 12. tanstaafl:the idea to them is that we are a great country because we all get to come here and bend the rules and fight over who gets all the tax money from the evil white racists by getting their ethnic group represented in the kleptocracy first.
I dont really blame dola if he was never informed before he arrived. career socialists OWN our immigration system and the politicians take it a complement if they create these bureaucracies.
dola what youre missing is that every one of your faith’s countries are autocracies except turkey and now iraq. we used to try and return to those places and free them after we had moved to the US (germany twice..) but now its all about being a parasite and reading the rule book back to americans. youre going to start a civil war here, but why should you care about anything. you dont have to be responsible at all, you are the victim here.s/off.
Vijay Kumar, running for the US Congress in Tennessee’s 5th District, really puts it all together.
This interview Is a MUST READ
Jul 10, 2008 - 9:30 am 13. moreland:“tanstaafl:
Vijay Kumar, running for the US Congress in Tennessee’s 5th District, really puts it all together.
This interview Is a MUST READ”
i’ll second that. go to:
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=53EDA97A-4626-4866-80A2-6694936F101B
Jul 11, 2008 - 7:40 am 14. Dawn:I know we espouse freedom of religion in this country but the muslims are taking advantage. Since EVERYTHING we in the West do frigging annoys them or their nutty relgion, they should not be allowed to come here and quite frankly I don’t know why they want to be here. They are clueless about freedom and how hard we had to work for it; they stomp on it and disrespect every decent American. Why are we tolerating them?
Jul 11, 2008 - 11:29 am 15. Jude:OLAD:::
Jul 11, 2008 - 8:12 pm 16. ChrisGreen:You feel so sorry for yourself it’s sickening and you’re still mixing up your prayers with your work either do one or the other. There are procedures for changing a battery don’t give us a line of bull about getting hurt watching a women change a battery. You are a real a$$ hole if you think you are fooling us with your story. Do your job and quit acting like a damn child for crying out loud. Your blabbering is disgusting.
Olad,
Assuming you were doing your job well, your manager was a jerk and you could have taken him and/or the company to court. However, the fact that your manager is an idiot, or that fact that you didn’t sue him (and believe me, there would have been plenty of lawyers dying to take your case) is not the fault of the GOP. The same thing would have happened to you if John Kerry (a democrat) had been president.
If you want justice, TAKE IT. That is what Americans do. Seek legal council and find out if your rights were violated, then send the SOB do jail if your rights were clearly violated. You have that right because you live in America.
Jul 15, 2008 - 12:54 pm 17. ChrisGreen:For those of you reacting to Obad’s post with angry, personal attacks, how in the world do you know he’s lying. You don’t. Not every person in this country is a saint that the fact that Obad’s manager was probably a jerk doesn’t mean this country sucks. Stop being so emotional about it and respond to his post with rational, mature arguments.
Jul 15, 2008 - 1:08 pm 18. Thorum:Is no one aware that the stated goal of Islam is to restore the Caliphate? This creeping Islamizing of the West is met with political correctness which only allows it to continue. Yes, this Imam will spout the usual vitriol against any and all who are not Muslim. So simple, no?
Jul 16, 2008 - 9:40 am 19. Dave.:olad,
Jul 17, 2008 - 11:35 amWhat you need to recognize is that behind our liberty, freedom, and whatever makes America attractive to you is the responsibility to consider others interests as equal to your own, their right to worship Yahweh or Jesus Christ as you worship Allah and Mohammad his prophet. First above “God being love” is that He is holy, sovereign, omnipotent, omniscience, and “the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by the Son. For this reason, the Christian is required to always tell the truth and to stand for Christian doctrine. You do indeed, because this country is based on law instead of people, have the right to file for your rights as an employee/citizen. Because God is no respecter of persons, anyone should have the merits of their case determined on the facts, not the color of their skin, their religious affiliation, their sex, etc. If and when you, Olad, find Islamic law (Sharia) the governing law of this country, I doubt you will “enjoy” these benefits – they came about because our country was founded by and large by Christians and not Muslims.
Dave.