The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved an extension for the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), an Islamic high school in Alexandria, Virginia. The school operates under the authority of the Saudi Arabian government. In 2008, ISA was cited for using textbooks calling for violence against non-Muslims.
Fairfax County, a federal agency on religious freedom and the US Senate all urged the State Department to take action regarding ISA’s textbooks, but State did not act.[i]
ISA claimed to have updated their texts, however, those who reviewed the textbooks were paid by the school.[ii]
Numerous ISA graduates have gone on to pursue jihadist activities worldwide: Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, ISA’s 1999 valedictorian, received a life sentence for his role in an al Qaeda plot to assassinate President George W. Bush.[iii] Raed Alsaif, a 2003 ISA graduate, was arrested in 2009 for attempting to smuggle a butcher knife onto a US Airways flight from Tampa, Fla. to Phoenix.[iv] Two other ISA graduates, Mohammed Osam Idris and Mohammed el Yacoubi, allegedly traveled to Israel with the intention to become suicide bombers.[v]The school’s comptroller, Ismail Selim Elbarasse, the assistant to the Chief of Hamas’s political wing, sent money to the Palestinian terrorist group through his bank account.[vi]
The board’s decision extends the madrassa’s lease from 2011 to 2012. (Filed by Chris Carter/Nov. 5, 2010)
