Anti-terrorism fatwa bogus?

According to Pakistan's Daily Times, folks are beginning to read behind the lines and the fine print of the anti-terrorism fatwa issued a couple of days ago by the Fiqh Council of North America and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations). More details at World Net Daily. Both the Daily Times and World Net are quoting The Counterterrorism Blog. The Daily Times does not credit the blog. World Net links the blog but to the wrong page. Steven Emerson,executive director of the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism, claims the fatwa is "bogus" because it does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader.

"In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate.

Judea Pearl, father of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, as maintaining that the fatwa is a "vacuous because it does not name the perpetrators of Islamic terrorist theologies and leaders of Islamic movements."

The Chairman of the Fiqh Council, Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Sami al-Arian, the alleged North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose trial began in June 2005 in Tampa, Florida. Alwani has been named in court documents as an official of several entities in northern Virginia suspected of being connected to terrorist financing. Documents released in the Al Arian trial show that Alwani funded the Islamic Jihad front groups in Tampa.

Cair's problems have been well documented as both present and past CAIR officials have many ties to terrorist organizations. Visit The Counterterrorism Blog - there is a lot of there, there.

TAGS: fatwa, CAIR, Fiqh Council, terrorism, Steven Emerson, Counterterrorism+Blog