Excerpt:
President Obama's project to "combat violent extremism," to be showcased in a Washington "summit" on Feb. 18, cites Boston as one of three model cities that can lead the way. That will be a problem: The central Muslim institution that Boston law enforcement agencies are partnering with against extremism is itself extremist.
The Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) and its political arm, the Muslim American Society, seen as the go-to groups for civic and law enforcement partnerships, have links to many extremists who are either in jail, in flight from federal authorities, or have been killed during terrorist attacks.
In Boston, deception and self-deception have ruled: The first Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge was founded in 1982 by Abdulrahman Alamoudi, a man who convinced both Presidents Bush and Clinton that he was a moderate, but who turned out to be a Muslim Brotherhood operative. He is now serving a 23-year prison term for raising money for al Qaeda.