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June 4, 2005

U.S. Prisons Becoming Islam Battleground

Back in January 2004 the FBI was warning that "Al Qaida continues to recruit members in U.S. prisons despite a government crackdown."

[...]
..... Officials said Al Qaida's recruitment has been facilitated by Muslim clergy with access to federal and state prisons. They said the organization has succeeded in winning new members despite tighter rules instituted by authorities since the Al Qaida suicide attacks in September 2001.

"'These terrorists seek to exploit our freedom to exercise religion to their advantage by using radical forms of Islam to recruit operatives,' FBI counter-terrorism chief John Pistole said. 'Unfortunately, U.S. correctional institutions are a viable venue for such radicalization and recruitment.'

"Officials said Muslim chaplains have facilitated Al Qaida recruitment, Middle East Newsline reported. They cited the case of Warith Deen Umar, the administrative chaplain for the New York State Corrections Department, said to have preached that the Al Qaida suicide attackers who killed more than 3,000 Americans were heroes.

And what are we hearing about Islam and the terrorist recruitment in our prisons today?

Across the United States, tens of thousands of Muslims are practicing their faith behind bars. Islam is most likely to win American converts there, according to U.S. Muslim leaders, and the religion has for decades been a regular part of prison culture.

But the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have brought new scrutiny to Muslim inmates, many of whom are black men focused on surviving incarceration. While prison chaplains of various denominations argue that Islam offers a spiritual path to rehabilitation, others say it has the potential to turn felons into terrorists. The FBI calls prisons "fertile ground for extremists."

Ever since the 2002 arrest of Jose Padilla, a felon and American Muslim convert who authorities say planned a "dirty bomb" radiological attack after he left jail, law enforcement officials, politicians and even a few evangelical leaders have warned that Muslim inmates are ripe for terrorist recruitment.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, has said: "Wahhabi influence is inculcating them with the same kind of militant ideas that drove the 9/11 hijackers to kill thousands of Americans." Wahhabism is a strict form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers.

Chuck Colson, founder of the evangelical Prison Fellowship Ministries and a Nixon administration official, predicted that "radical Islamists will use prisons, packed with angry and resentful men," to avenge Islam.

Read more ...

It just might be time that we all took this matter a little more seriously and demanded that our leaders, both state and federal, do something about it!

Posted by Hyscience at June 4, 2005 6:51 PM

• U.S. Prisons Becoming Islam Battleground - Jun 04, 2005