Emerson - American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us

T HE VEILED COMMANDER STOOD UP, a Hamas flag in one hand and a Koran in the other. The crowd roared Allahu akbar walillahil-hamd! (Allah is great and to Allah we give praise!)the slogan of the international Muslim Brotherhood movement. This was the moment everyone seemed to have been waiting for.

His face still veiled in a red-and-white checkered keffiyeh, the Hamas commander spoke: Greetingsfrom the occupied landI extend thanks to all those who stood on our side at times when our allies were few. He gave a report describing in methodical detail Hamas terrorist attacks, reveling in the bloody results of each assault: Naturally the war has moved into Israels 48 boundaries. One day in Tel Aviv, one of the brothers entered a building and began stabbing all the people. The last operation I am going to tell you about is the operation of the bus

The anticipation was too greatshouts of Allahu akbar! erupted from the crowd, which sensed exactly what he was going to discuss. [One of our fighters] was on the bus to Jerusalem, Bus 405 and he steered it off the road. And the bus plungedsixteen Jewish soldiers were killed! In fact, seventeen civilians, including one American, were killed when a fundamentalist steered this particular bus into a ravine. I call upon my brothers to take up arms with usto take up arms and arms alone! The crowd responded with a thunderous ovation and chanting of Allahu akbar!

The date: 1989. The location: Kansas City. The commander was addressing and thanking the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Occupied Land Fund, two organizations holding a conference in the country they called home.

The dream of a world under Islam has engendered Muslim dissidents everywhere in the world over the last two decades. Almost every Islamic country has its militant faction, often two or three. The Hamas of Palestine, Hizballah of Iran, the Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, An-Nahda of Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Gamaat al-Islamiyya of Egypt, the Jamaat Muslimeen of Pakistan, and the Holy Warriors of the Philippines and Chechnyaall share the same goal of an Islamic world, or, as they refer to it, a Khilafah.

In the past twelve years, however, these groups have achieved a new level of coordination, owing to their exploitation of the civil liberties of the United States. None of these small national groups was ever able to coordinate its worldwide efforts with the others until they came to the United States. Operating in our open society, with freedom of speech and assembly and with only casual oversight from the FBI, the CIA, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the worldwide network of militant Islamic organizations has finally been able to coordinate. They have operated here both in order to direct activities in the Middle East, and to target America. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were only part of the results.

After September 11, 2001, everyone in America knows full well the power and persistence of these militant radical groups. It is a certainty that terrorists, already living among us, will continue to pursue their destructive agenda. Whether they succeed may depend in part upon whether we can recognize how they operate. This book offers a twelve-year-long story of the arrival and flourishing of terrorists in the United States, explaining where they are, how they interconnect, how they recruit, how they raise money, and how they use our legal system as a cover.

Call it jihad, American styleor the American Jihad.

I N DECEMBER 1992 I was a staff reporter for CNN, covering what I consider one of the worst stories imaginablea press conference for pool reporters.

In this case the conference was given by Lawrence Walsh, the former special prosecutor for the Iran- contra affair, who was issuing a statement in reaction to then-President George Bushs pardon of former secretary of state Caspar Weinberger. It was the kind of situation where more than a dozen reporters ask the same question over and over, then go back and write the same story.

In short, I was bored. In Oklahoma City, I found myself with nothing to do on Christmas Day. As I walked around looking for a place to eat, I passed a large group of men dressed in traditional Middle Eastern clothing.

These men had congregated outside of the Oklahoma City Convention Center. I realized there was some kind of convention going on. Drawn to the scene, I wandered inside and found a bazaar of vendors hawking all kinds of radical material. There were books preaching Islamic Jihad, books calling for the extermination of Jews and Christians, even coloring books instructing children on subjects such as How to Kill the Infidel. It was a meeting of the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA), an umbrella group that included many smaller groups.

When I asked admittance to the main meeting hall, I was told that as a non-Muslim I couldnt enter. But I found my way into a group of recent converts, where I was befriended by a man who sponsored my admission. I ended up sitting through the entire program. It was a shocking experience. Given simultaneous translation by a jihadist next to me, I was horrified to witness a long procession of speakers, including the head of Hamas, Khalid Mishaal, taking turns preaching violence and urging the assembly to use jihad against the Jews and the West. At times spontaneous shouts of Kill the Jews and Destroy the West could be distinctly heard. I had heard such declamatory speakers many times in the Middle East, but it was astonishing to hear it all being preached here in a Middle American capital such as Oklahoma City.

I had some contacts in the FBI at this point and called one to see if he knew that all of this was going on. He said he didnt. Even if the FBI had been cognizant, however, there wouldnt have been much they could do about it, owing to the FBIs mandate to surveil criminal activity and not simply hateful rhetoric.