American jihad

American jihad, Iran, War on Terror

JFK airport attack plotter wanted help from Iran

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The New York Sun reports:

A Shiite imam accused of plotting to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport wanted to seek Iranian backing for the terrorist plot. The disclosure came yesterday in a court decision denying bail to the Trinidadian-based cleric, Kareem Ibrahim.

Mr. Ibrahim, 62, is one of four men arrested last month on charges connected to the plot. At the time, American law enforcement officials said Mr. Ibrahim encouraged his co-conspirators to seek funding for the attack from outside their home countries of Trinidad or Guyana. While American authorities have not provided more details, a judge in Trinidad wrote that evidence, including tape recordings, suggests Mr. Ibrahim intended to seek backing for the plot from individuals in Iran or Britain.

In those recordings, Judge Prakash Moosai wrote, Mr. Ibrahim “refers to an ‘Iranian brother’ passing through Trinidad and Tobago, and of sending a ‘trusted brother’ to Iran to speak to the top men of the revolutionary movement there about the plan.” The judge’s decision does not clarify whether “the revolutionary movement there” refers to the government of the Islamic Republic. Nor does Judge Moosai state whether the plotters actually disclosed the plan to contacts in Iran or simply considered doing so. Mr. Ibrahim also spoke of contacting “brothers in England,” the decision said.

Mr. Ibrahim’s alleged efforts to find foreign backing mark the second Iran connection to surface in a case that initially appeared confined to the Western Hemisphere. At the time of his arrest, another of the defendants, Abdul Kadir of Guyana, was preparing to travel to Iran to attend an Islamic conference, according to news reports. Two of Mr. Kadir’s children were studying in Iran at the time of his arrest, according to reports.

The extent of Mr. Ibrahim’s own international contacts is unclear. He has not left Trinidad since 1979, according to the court decision. But one lead under investigation by Trinidadian law enforcement is whether Mr. Ibrahim had ties to Shiite organizations in southern Iraq and Iran through an Islamic discussion group he hosted, the Trinidad Express reported last month.

9/11, American jihad, Lawfare, War on Terror

Capt. Burke Died on 9/11 at the Hands of ‘Enemy Combatants’

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Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal wagered that the 2 to 1 ruling by a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Al-Marri v. Wright will be overturned on appeal. Their thinking is Judges Motz and Gregory were creative when they ruled Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri cannot be held as an enemy combatant because he had not “set foot in the soil “alongside” the forces of an enemy state, — i.e., Iraq or Afghanistan.” This morning, in the Wall Street Journal’s letter to the editor section, 9/11 family member Mike Burke weighed in with this:

In response to your June 14 editorial “Al Qaeda’s American Harbor”:

It is reassuring to know that, under the ruling by the Fourth Circuit court, if a Mohammid Atta were apprehended today, before he could murder several thousand people, he would be properly freed and, I’m sure, the authorities who seized him appropriately castigated. Thankfully, the Fourth Circuit is there to protect our civil liberties and protect our right to die at the hands of terrorists who are not “enemy combatants.”

Interestingly, the silence from those who for years have lambasted the Bush administration over 9/11 is deafening. It makes one wonder if the demand for accountability was to ensure national security or to put a head on a plate.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, my brother, FDNY Capt. Billy Burke of Engine Co. 21, called from his firehouse to his family and friends in New York, before the second plane hit, to warn them, “We are under terrorist attack!” To refer to them as “terrorists” was highly politically incorrect in regard to those who flew the planes that “hit” the towers (the poor “wretched” and “have nots,” as Bill Clinton’s assistant secretary of state called them at Yale a few days after).

Regrettably, he did not have time to consider their “combatant” status. Well, at least he didn’t call them “enemy combatants.” That sort of designation would be in violation of the spirit of the $500 million, eight-acre 9/11 “memorial” at the WTC site that won’t mention the attacks (or “terrorists”) — so that it will avoid “telling us what to think.” An hour later, when on the 27th floor of WTC 1 and aware of the collapse of WTC 2, my brother ordered the successful evacuation of his men and that of Engine 24 and the civilians they helped save.

Capt. Billy Burke perished with Ed Beya, a quadriplegic and Abe Zelmanowitz, his friend, who would not leave Ed’s side. He had an idea of what duty demanded of him — not nuance, not ambivalence, not legal technicalities. Just like Abe Zelmanowitz, he would follow it or not.

I suppose my brother would not have made a very good judge or “memorialist.” However, like his 407 New York Fire Department brothers and two sisters and the millions who throughout history have given their lives for justice before him, it is people like him whom civilization counts on.

Michael Burke
Bronx, N.Y.

Well said, Mike.

Editor — Mr. Burke has not forgotten. His mentioning “two sisters” is evidence that his draft to the WSJ pointed out that 60 New York City and Port Authority police officers perished among those 407. I suspect a WSJ editor omitted them for the sake of brevity.