The new report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom on textbooks in use at the Islamic Saudi Academy in northern Virginia leaves little doubt that the Saudi government, which owns the school, and school officials use the school as an incubator for their special brand of Islam among the students, to the rejection of moderate interpretations of the Koran which reject hate speech, polarization, and incitement. Yesterday’s USCIRF report was actually the fourth since 2003 warning that various Tawhid editions of textbooks used by the Saudis in its schools include intolerant language which should be removed (see last year’s USCIRF report, which refers to the other reports).
But I can see millions of Americans rolling their eyes, wondering why it matters. It matters because the ISA textbooks and intolerant culture have acted as an incubator of homegrown terror for years, as seen in the case of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali.
As I reminded readers on May 20, the 1999 valedictorian at the ISA was none other than Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted of joining Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush. Ali was born in Houston and raised mostly in the U.S. His family moved to Jordan for four years, and then moved to Falls Church, Virginia, when Abu Ali was 14 or 15, and his father worked at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. I know Falls Church like the back of my hand, and there is nothing in its public schools or culture which would lead any average, U.S.-born young man towards radical Islam. Ali attended ISA, excelled there, and was obviously attracted to the teachings represented in the textbooks and the culture of the school. For after first attending the University of Maryland, he left in 2000 to study Sharia law for several months at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. While there, he met someone who befriended him, who eventually became a coconspirator in his assassination plot. After Abu Ali returned from his studies to the U.S. in August 2000, he stayed in touch with his “friend,” and Abu Ali returned to Saudi Arabia in September 2002 (pages 7-8). Then, to quote a February 2005 filing in the criminal case against him (page 4), “Between in or around September 2002 and on or about June 9, 2003, the defendant joined a clandestine al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia.” That was no ordinary cell - members included the Al Qaeda terrorists which planned and executed the May 12, 2003 attacks in Riyadh, killing 34, including nine Americans (page 5 of the linked document). The Saudis publicly warned, five days before the attack, that 19 persons were planning an attack inside Saudi Arabia, and named Abu Ali in that group, but the warning was too late to stop the attack. The same filing which pinpointed Abu Ali’s entry into Al Qaeda gave a clue to a second coconspirator in the plot to kill President Bush (pages 4-5):
Evan Kohlmann identified that coconspirator in a post here on February 24, 2005, after the filing:
The Saudis arrested Abu Ali in June 2003 and held him until the U.S. demanded that they try him or send him to the U.S. for trial, and the Saudis chose the latter. Within a week of his arrest, the FBI searched his room at his parent’s house (page 6) and found items which had he had in his possession there before leaving for Saudi Arabia in September 2002:
Audio tapes in Arabic promoting violent jihad, the killing of Jews, and a battle by Muslims against Christians and Jews; and
A book written by al-Qaeda official Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which al-Zawahiri characterizes democracy as a new religion that must be destroyed by war, describes anyone who supports democracy as an infidel, and condemns the Muslim Brotherhood for renouncing violent jihad as a means to establish an Islamic state.” (More on that last phrase below.)
Abu Ali didn’t move towards Islamic jihadism when he was growing up in Houston, and I doubt that he latched onto it as a kid in Jordan. His serious exposure to the jihadist mentality had to start at the ISA, when there was no oversight of the textbooks and school culture. The outstanding study released last year by the NYPD, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” identified four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization. The report analyzed the “Virginia jihad network” as a case study for each stage, but just as easily could have discussed the Abu Ali case. The study identifies common factors in U.S. homegrown terrorists:
• Male Muslims, under the age of 35, who were local residents and citizens and came from varied ethnic backgrounds. In fact, all were between the ages of 18 and 37 with the average ages at the time of their training activity being about 27.
• Many, but not all, were the children of immigrants from the Middle East or South Asia; the second generation in the U.S.
• Significant proportions came from middle class backgrounds; none were economically destitute.
• Most had some form of higher education, at least high school graduates, if not university students.”
The ISA case is also another example of the continuous export of Wahabist propaganda from Saudi Arabia; the string of broken promises by the Saudis on counter-terrorism issues; and the power of the Saudis inside Washington to escape responsibility for its actions. But that is a different post for another time.
