HAMAS operative nearly appointed to Columbus Public School Board

On the left is Anisa Abd El Fattah, who is a known HAMAS operative; on the right is Caroline Keeble, who was interviewed for an open position earlier this year on the Columbus Public School Board. Unfortunately, they are the same person.

Hamas: Coming to a School Board Near You?
By Patrick Poole

Exactly how did a known Hamas operative obtain an interview with and almost get appointed to the Columbus, Ohio Public School Board, which oversees one of the largest school districts in the country? And what does this incident tell us about the domestic terror threat and the process of radicalization happening right now in the US?

Those were the questions raised during my research for an article I recently wrote titled “Hamas in the House .” It revealed that a woman named Anisa Abd El Fattah was scheduled to speak at an “interfaith” event to be held in the atrium of the Ohio State Capitol later this month. Not only was Fattah past president of the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), an organization founded by Specially Designated Global Terrorist Mousa Abu Marzook and described by another convicted terror leader as “the political command for Hamas in the United States,” but she also co-authored two books with current Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef. Yousef fled the US in 2005 to avoid prosecution and immediately reappeared as one of the top leaders of Hamas. He has been described by one Middle Eastern newspaper as “The Smiling Face of Hamas.”

Additionally, for more than a decade Fattah was a paid consultant to convicted terror leader Abdurahman Alamoudi’s now defunct American Muslim Council, as well as a founding board member of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR, as FBI agent Lara Burns revealed this summer during the Holy Land Foundation trial, was founded as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and thereby directly connected to Hamas.

During the research I conducted for that previous article, I discovered that Fattah had been one of thirty-two candidates who applied for an open position on the Columbus Public School Board, and that she had made it far along enough in the process to become one of fifteen individuals who actually received an interview by the board.

How did Fattah’s extensive terror-connected credentials escape the notice of the school board screeners and the media who covered the candidates for the open position?

[read the rest at PJM]

HAMAS in the (Ohio State) House: HAMAS operative to speak at Ohio State Capitol later this month

UPDATE #1 (10/9/07): Since someone from the Columbus Dispatch has been doing several Google searches today trying to obtain information on this conference (way to keep up, guys!), I’ll make it easy for them. Go here (this is to your own site, Dispatch!), here, here, here, and here. Nothing gets by the establishment media!

In Anisa Abd El Fattah’s immediate circle of colleagues, she is about the only one that hasn’t been designated a global terrorist by the US government, been tried and convicted on terrorism-related charges, or fled the country to avoid prosecution by the Feds. She headed an organization that one convicted terrorist leader described as “the political command for HAMAS in the United States”, which was named by federal prosecutors this past May as unindicted co-conspirator in the current Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial; and she co-authored two books with the current spokesman for HAMAS, Ahmed Yousef, who fled the US in 2005 and immediately reappeared in Gaza in his new position within the HAMAS leadership.

So why is she speaking at a conference held in the Ohio State Capitol atrium later this month?

That’s the question I ask in my FrontPage article this morning, “HAMAS in the House”. The conference, “The Many Faces of Islam”, sponsored by the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio, is being organized by local terror apologist Abukar Arman, who was forced to resign from the Franklin County Homeland Security oversight board this past summer after I revealed his extremist statements in support of HAMAS, Hezbollah and other terrorist leaders.

(If you have an opinion on this proposed event that you would like to express on the matter, I might suggest contacting William Carleton [wcarleton@csrab.state.oh.us], Executive Director of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board.)

Here’s a quick rundown of Abd El Fattah’s background:

• She served as president and director of public affairs for the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), which convicted terrorist supporter Mohammed Salah described as “the political command of HAMAS in the United States”. UASR was founded by Mousa abu Marzook, who is now the deputy political director for HAMAS and has been identified as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. (For more info on UASR, including it’s connections to Al-Qaeda, see Scott Wheeler’s 2004 investigative report, “Alleged Terrorist Threat Operates in DC Suburb”).
• She has co-authored two books with her former UASR coworker Ahmed Yousef, The Agent: The Truth Behind the Anti-Muslim Campaign in America and Al-Aqsa Intifada. Yousef fled the US in 2005 to avoid prosecution in the Fawaz Damra trial (Damra was convicted and deported earlier this year), and he shortly reappeared in Gaza as the official spokesman for HAMAS. One Middle Eastern daily recently called Yousef, “The Smiling Face of HAMAS”. Fattah and Yousef also co-edited the UASR’s quarterly publication, the Middle East Affairs Journal.
• FBI Agent Lara Burns in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial that UASR was part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine (HAMAS) Committee in America. A 1991 document released during that revealed that the head of the UASR, a position that Fattah herself held, was part of the Central Committee. UASR was named as unindicted co-conspirator by federal prosecutors this past May in that trial.
• In her role at UASR as director of public affairs, Fattah released a press statement dated March 23, 2004, condemning the targeted assassination of HAMAS founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin following a wave of suicide bombings targeting civilians.
• Fattah was also actively involved in the formation of the American Muslim Council, founded and headed by convicted terrorist leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is currently serving 23 years in prison. Her own bio states that she “has been credited with developing the blueprint for what later became the American Muslim Council, and served for nearly 10 years as an unofficial advisor”.
• She also served as a founding board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which federal prosecutors have said is also affiliated with HAMAS.
• In a recent letter to the editor published in the Columbus Dispatch, Fattah indicated that any Israeli man, woman or child in Gaza was fair game for terror attacks: “There are no Israeli civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are only illegal Jewish settlers, who, by Israeli law, are also citizen-soldiers. They are heavily armed with fully automatic weapons.”

There are many more details in the article. Read it all.

Here’s the conclusion:

What remains to be seen is whether officials responsible for booking this conference at the Ohio Statehouse were aware of the extremist views of the scheduled speakers, and whether a sponsoring Ohio legislator was needed to book the event. But in light of the precedent recently established by the US House Sergeant-at-Arms in denying these extremists from holding their event in such a prominent public venue, perhaps Ohio legislative leaders will be prompted to reconsider their tacit endorsement for these terror-tied extremists and the legitimacy that such an event held in the political epicenter of Ohio would give them.

Former congresswoman encourages Columbus State censorship of anti-terror student group

Following up on my FrontPage article last week, “Censorship State”, and my related blog post here concerning the decision by Columbus State Community College Student Life Director Timeka Rashid (trashid@cscc.edu) to prevent students with the Terrorism Awareness Project (TAP) from promoting their events later this month, I can now report that former Ohio congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar appears to be behind the Columbus State’s move to censor the anti-terror student group.

In early September, Mary Rose Oakar sent a letter (both the letter and the text are reprinted below) to Columbus State President Valeriana Moeller (vmoeller@cscc.edu) on behalf of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) encouraging the censorship of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week events to be held later this month sponsored by the Terrorism Awareness Project student group. Columbus State is just one of dozens of universities and colleges that will be hosting such events. In a bold move of Orwellian irony, ADC bills itself as a “civil rights organization”.

In an email to TAP student leaders, CSCC administrator Timeka Rashid appealed to Oakar’s letter as the grounds for her denial of the group’s posting fliers advertising their Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week events. At this time, it still is unknown whether Rashid solicited Oakar’s letter as a pretext to censor the TAP, or whether ADC is behind a nationwide push to censor anti-terror student groups. That notwithstanding, this is an unmistakable effort by Mary Rose Oakar and the Columbus State administration to deny these students their civil rights.

Yesterday, JihadWatch had a post revealing that the Muslim Public Affairs Council has posted a handbook providing instruction to university and college administrators on steps to censor students, which may indicate that Oakar’s letter is part of a collective effort by radical Islamist organizations to censor students with an anti-terror message.

In the letter below, Oakar spews plenty of epithets and make a number of baseless claims, but what is of particular note is that the real issue Oakar is concerned with is students challenging the pro-Palestinian terrorist orthodoxy on college campuses — an orthodoxy that Columbus State apparently is desperate to protect.

Here is the text of Oakar’s letter:

September 7, 2007

President Valeriana Moeller
Columbus State Community College
550 East Spring Street
Columbus, Ohio 43216

Dear President Valeriana Moeller:

I am writing on behalf of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Founded in 1980 by former United States Senator James Abourezk in response to stereotyping, defamation and discrimination directed against Americans of Arab origin, ADC is the largest Arab American civil rights organization in the country. ADC has 38 chapters, members across the nation, and ADC is a member of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR).

It has come to our attention that Columbus State Community College will be the host of a campaign which carries false, hateful, and biased messages about Muslims and Arabs. This nationally organized campaign is called “Islamo-Facism [sic] Awareness Week” and is scheduled to take place on Oct. 22–26.

As a civil rights organization, ADC values the principle of free speech, however, hateful speech cannot be condoned and should not be allowed to permeate American campuses. The post-9/11 United States has seen a dramatic increase in hate crimes targeted against Arab and Muslims or those perceived to be. Events such as “Islamo-Facism [sic] Awareness Week” do not seek to further the discussion in a peaceful manner, but rather they contribute only to the prejudicial anger and hatred which ultimately is targeted against Arab and Muslims in the US.

“Islamo-Facism [sic] Awareness Week” is being organized and promoted by Mr. David Horowitz and his Horowitz Freedom Center. Mr. Horowitz claims, “During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever — Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” While the plan for the week includes sit-ins, lectures, and film, ADC is deeply concerned that these planned activities seek not to increase awareness, tolerance, and understanding, but instead promote intolerance, fear, and bigotry.

Materials scheduled to be distributed are: “The Islamic Mein Kampf,” Why Israel is the Victim,” “Jimmy Carter’s War Against the Jews,” and “What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad.” Mr. Horowitz advises campus organizers to request funding from the student government and the University for these activities. If funding is not forthcoming, according to Horowitz’s guide, “it will prove the hypocrisy of your University’s claim to be committed to intellectual diversity and academic freedom.”

This proposed “Islamo Facism [sic] Awareness Week” initiative must be viewed within the context of the organized national campaign to foreclose the debate on the Middle East, especially at university campuses, by promoting fear of Arabs and Muslims. ADC is deeply troubled by the possibility that a tiny handful of student with a narrow political agenda, backed by a well-funded special interest group, would organize this type of hateful and bigoted event on your campus. I urge you to ensure that hate speech and demonstrations of bigotry and racial and religious profiling not be tolerated on your campus.

I would welcome the opportunity for ADC to discuss these concerns with you.

Mary Rose Oakar Kareem Shora, LL.M., J.D.
President, ADC National Executive Director

“President Moeller, George Orwell on line one!”

Censorship State: Columbus State administrators censor anti-terror student group

(Image courtesy of DarthDilbert)

This is just a quick note to refer you to my FrontPage Magazine article today, “Censorship State”, concerning a developing scandal at Columbus State Community College concerning the administration’s ongoing censorship of the Terrorism Awareness Project (TAP) student group on campus. Earlier this week, a CSCC official, Timeka Rashid, prohibited TAP from posting fliers to promote their upcoming events based solely on her personal objections to the content of the fliers.

This is not the first time that Columbus State’s administration has gone out of their way to obstruct the free speech rights of anti-terror student leaders, as was reported by Jacob Laskin last April, “Celebrating Islamo-Fascism Awareness Day”, when Rashid cancelled the group’s screening of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West.

Here’s the intro to today’s piece:

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University in what university administrators there described as an event in the best American traditions of free speech. Earlier this week, however, a Columbus (Ohio) State Community College administrator expressly denied a request from student leaders to post a flier promoting Islamofascism Awareness Week amid what student leaders of the school’s chapter of the Terrorism Awareness Project say is a growing atmosphere of censorship and intimidation by college officials. The contrast between an Iranian dictator given an open forum at one of our country’s premiere academic institutions and students at a public college denied access to their own campus couldn’t be more stark.

The Columbus State administrator in question, Timeka Rashid, Director of Student Activities and Athletics, emailed Josiah Lanning, president of the Columbus State Terrorism Awareness Project chapter, on Tuesday informing him that she was not allowing the student group to post a promotional flier because of her supposed concerns with their topic:

Josiah, given this picture and our previous conversations I hope you can understand my concern, thus I am not approving this flier to be hung…Again based on your topic, our campus climate and culture and recent concerns brought to the President, I feel this event and it’s promotion needs careful consideration.

At issue is a promotional flier for campus events related to Islamofascism Awareness Week to be held at Columbus State and nearby Ohio State University later this month.

Rashid also strictly warned Lanning in another email last Friday not to discuss their interactions with anyone without prior approval from college officials.

We at Central Ohioans Against Terrorism stand with the students of the Terrorism Awareness Project and protest this gross injustice. Hopefully some much needed public exposure of this scandal and brazen infringement of student’s free speech rights at Columbus State will immediately rectify the situation.

Establishment media dhimmis ignore new Cleveland imam’s terror ties

Following up on last week’s blockbuster news about Egyptian hate sheikh Ahmed Alzaree’s hiring to replace the Islamic Center of Cleveland’s convicted and deported former imam, Fawaz Damra, the coverage of this growing story (fueled entirely by the work of bloggers, especially the initial work done by Tom Blumer of the Plain Dealer’s Wide Open blog and BizzyBlog) by the establishment media has aptly demonstrated the sorry condition of the supposed Fourth Estate in Ohio.

When the Plain Dealer finally got around to covering the story on Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rants on Saturday, “Public scrutiny under way for Ahmed Alzaree, new imam of Islamic Center of Cleveland”, the title couldn’t have been more fitting as the scrutiny has been entirely from the “public” not the “establishment media”. As Tom Blumer noted in a subsequent Wide Open post this weekend, “Ahmed Alzaree Follow-up: Who WAS That Cleveland.com Blogger?”, the PD’s Robert Smith couldn’t even admit that one of the PD’s own bloggers (Blumer) had been the one that broke the story. The coverage by the Associated Press/Columbus Dispatch (“Comment on Jews by incoming imam draws criticism”) and the abbreviated clip by the Cincinnati Enquirer (“Spiritual Leader’s Sermon Scrutinized”) was even more non-descript.

What is shocking is how easily the PD’s Smith allows Islamic Center of Cleveland president Jalal Abu-Shaweesh to explain away Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rant about how rocks will cry out for Muslims to kill hiding Jews:

Abu-Shaweesh, who read the sermon, said Alzaree was relaying a well-known Hadith as he listed myriad signs of Judgment Day and was likely just being thorough.

“Just being thorough”? Did that warrant any follow-up whatsoever on Smith’s part? Apparently not, because it passes without any further comment.

But what all these Ohio establishment media outlets have failed to acknowledge is the updated info we provided here concerning Alzaree’s connections to yet another deported terror cleric Wagdi Ghoneim. Here’s what I wrote:

COAT contributor Sun Tzu informs me that just prior to being expelled from the United States, one of the preachers that Ahmed Alzaree brought to Omaha was his friend and fellow Egyptian terror cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, who one US immigration official explained was kicked out of the US because “our task is not to sit around and wait for people to blow up buildings”. According to an Islamic Center of Omaha newsletter, Ghoneim visited in August 2004. JihadWatch reminds us that Switzerland has also banned Ghoneim from their country in 2005. As Daniel Pipes has noted, Ghoneim called Jews “descendants of the apes” at a 1998 CAIR event (apparently a common theme in the Damra-Alzaree-Ghoneim “inter-faith” circles).

Blumer has conveniently reposted the December 2004 LA Times article and Associated Press article concerning Ghoneim’s expulsion from the US for immigration violations and to avoid further investigation into accusations of his terrorist ties and fundraising. But not one of these “media” outlets could utter a word of mention of Ghoneim’s appearance at Alzaree’s Omaha mosque just weeks before he was expelled from the US, even though the PD’s follow-up article mentions the Central Ohioans Against Terrorism blog entry by name (yes, I am presuming that Smith read the post, since he was writing an article on the “public scrutiny” of Alzaree’s hiring; perhaps that is asking too much).

Beginning with the original Plain Dealer story by David Briggs last Tuesday, it has been the “bloggers”, not the “journalists”, who have continued to break new developments on Alzaree’s hiring, questionable background and incendiary statements. The media establishment’s reluctance to say anything critical of Islamic extremists is hardly surprising in light of their past performance, but their willful ignorance and whistling past the graveyard has become so painfully obvious that it is getting hard to watch anymore.

Ohio’s largest mosque hires Egyptian hate sheikh to replace deported terror cleric Fawaz Damra

[Be sure to see the update with new info below! And read Tom Blumer’s take on this story this morning at Wide Open blog.]

[And welcome to everyone joining us from LGF!]

Tom Blumer, the economic genius behind BizzyBlog and a new contributor to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s brand-spanking new Wide Open blog (along with Dave from NixGuy) made me aware of an article in Tuesday’s Plain Dealer by David Briggs, “Islamic Center hires new imam to replace deported cleric”, announcing that the Islamic Center of Cleveland, former home of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Fawaz Damra (before the US government stripped him of his citizenship and deported him back to Israel earlier this year), has been replaced by Ahmed Alzaree, who will assume his new position as head cleric on November 1. The Associated Press has also picked up the story. Alzaree comes to the Buckeye State from Omaha, Nebraska.

Considering Damra’s high-profile expulsion from the US, you would think that the Islamic Center of Cleveland would hire a more moderate voice to lead them than the terrorist cheerleader they had most recently. Think again.

Not mentioned in the Plain Dealer‘s report is Ahmed Alzaree’s anti-Jewish rants. According to Blumer, in a 15-second Google search, he came across a particular sermon dated March 7, 2003 where Alzaree offers this encouragement to his followers:

Dear brothers and sisters, the talk about the Day of Judgment is long and full of things that will confuse the human mind and put fear in the hearts of the faithful. Every day that comes is much more Worse than the day before it as we get closer to the hour. Among the signs of the approach of Day of Judgment is what the messenger of Allah PBUH said: “The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews.” Agreed upon. This is seemed to be very soon and close now. We ask Allah SWT not to test us so hardly if we live till this horrible moment insha’allah.

Apparently, the Plain Dealer‘s David Briggs didn’t do the same Google search that Blumer performed, even though in his article Briggs states:

Alzaree would not confirm his hiring, at one point saying he would not come to Cleveland because a reporter was inquiring about his background.

Gee, what do you think a reporter might be looking into, Mr. Briggs (real quick wits among these establishment media dhimmis, eh?), and who could possibly be motivated do such an investigation (grin)?

Someone looking at Alzaree’s background (at least if they bothered to look) might also come across the following comment in that same sermon where he highlights the required Quranic “jizya” tax to be imposed upon non-Muslims and his lament at its disuse in the Muslim world:

Abou Hurairah RAA narrated that the messenger of Allah PBUH said: “By Allah it is about the time the son of Maryam comes down and he shall rule with justice and he shall break the cross and kill the pig and will remove the “Jezyah”; (i.e. the supposed tax paid to the Muslim government by non-Muslims who live with them against guarding and protecting them which is mentioned in the Holy Quran in Surat Al-Tawbah (9-29) as a “fard” or requirement in despite of being lost and no longer practiced nowadays by almost all Arab and Muslim Countries), (that means that only Islam shall be the only accepted faith and religion), and the wealth shall increase to the point the charity is not needed” Reported by Al-Bukharee and Muslim.

Now remember that what initially got Alzaree’s predecessor Damra into trouble was a videotape that came to light of him raising money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and convicted PIJ leader Sami Al-Arian (video and transcript available from the Investigative Project). Damra was also filmed urging his supporters to point “a rifle at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." This is the same Fawaz Damra that was hailed as a great inter-faith leader in Cleveland.

(Oh, and did I mention that Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman’s close advisor and CAIR national vice chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras described terror leader and fundraiser Damra as a “long-time friend”?)

Now it seems that Alzaree has been hired to bring in Damra’s harvest of hate. Ahmed Alzaree encourages his flock by bringing to mind the glorious day in the future when stones will call out for hiding Jews to be killed and laments that the practice of jizya is no longer imposed on Jews and Christians in the Muslim world as a testament of their submission to Islamic imperialism.

Real nice. A real paragon of peace the Islamic Center of Cleveland has hired in Ahmed Alzaree. A real inter-faith leader like Damra, wouldn’t you agree? If you have any doubts, just listen to Alzaree’s recent sermon, “Prejudice from a spiritual perspective”, where he will no doubt tell you all about his peace and love for his fellow members of the Abrahamic tradition and his efforts to spread the love and engage in inter-faith dialogue at Creighton University.

Just don’t hide behind any rocks in Cleveland anytime soon.

UPDATE: COAT contributor Sun Tzu informs me that just prior to being expelled from the United States, one of the preachers that Ahmed Alzaree brought to Omaha was his friend and fellow Egyptian terror cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, who one US immigration official explained was kicked out of the US because “our task is not to sit around and wait for people to blow up buildings”. According to an Islamic Center of Omaha newsletter, Ghoneim visited in August 2004. JihadWatch reminds us that Switzerland has also banned Ghoneim from their country in 2005. As Daniel Pipes has noted, Ghoneim called Jews “descendants of the apes” at a 1998 CAIR event (apparently a common theme in the Damra-Alzaree-Ghoneim “inter-faith” circles).

Regular COAT readers will recall my mentioning Ghoneim recently in connection with our own Hilliard Holy War Homeboy, Salah Sultan, who the LA Times reported in July has been hanging out in Bahrain with Ghoneim, where the two had a weekly TV program until it was shut down by the government because of its extremism. My Bahraini friend and journalist Mahmoud Al-Yousif has been keeping track of Ghoneim and Sultan’s antics there. But rest assured, the Columbus Dispatch still considers Sultan a moderate.

Ahmadinejad’s Apocalyptic Faith

[I’m cross-posting this from my personal blog, because it has particular relevance today.]

UPDATE: I will be on the BBC World Service radio program, World Have Your Say, on the Ahmadinejad matter from 1–2pm EDT today. Follow the link to listen live or to contribute.

In light of the present visit to the US by Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I would direct readers to an article I wrote more than a year ago at FrontPage, “Ahmadinejad’s Apocalyptic Faith”. There I wrote about the virulent Hojjatieh brand of Shi’ism that Ahmadinejad subscribes to, which I described as follows:

Most Shiites await the return of the 12th Shiite Imam, Muhammad ibn Hasan, the last direct male descendent of the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, who disappeared in 874AD and is believed to be in an invisible, deathless state of existence, or “occultation”, awaiting his return. Though it is discounted even by the most extremist clerics, a popular belief in Iran holds that the 12th Imam, also called the Mahdi or the sahib-e zaman (“the Ruler of Time”), lives at the bottom of a well in Jamkaran, just outside of Qom. Devotees drop written requests into the well to communicate with the Mahdi. His reappearance will usher in a new era of peace as Islam vanquishes all of its enemies. The Sunnis, who reject the successors of Ali, believe that the Mahdi has yet to be born.

But rooted in the Shiite ideology of martyrdom and violence, the Hojjatieh sect adds messianic and apocalyptic elements to an already volatile theology. They believe that chaos and bloodshed must precede the return of the 12th Imam, called the Mahdi. But unlike the biblical apocalypse, where the return of Jesus is preceded by waves of divinely decreed natural disasters, the summoning of the Mahdi through chaos and violence is wholly in the realm of human action. The Hojjatieh faith puts inordinate stress on the human ability to direct divinely appointed events. By creating the apocalyptic chaos, the Hojjatiehs believe it is entirely in the power of believers to affect the Mahdi’s reappearance, the institution of Islamic government worldwide, and the destruction of all competing faiths.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has clearly indicated that he is a true believer in this faith. It has been reported that he has told confidants that he anticipates the immanent return of the Mahdi. When he previously served as Mayor of Tehran, he advocated for widening the roads to accommodate the Mahdi’s triumphal entry into the city. One of his first acts of office as President was to dedicate approximately $20 million to the restoration and improvement of the mosque at Jamkaran, where the Mahdi is claimed to dwell.

This personal belief directs his official policies as President. He has publicly said, “Our revolution’s main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. We should define our economic, cultural and political policies on the policy of the Imam Mahdi’s return.”

However, Ahmadinejad’s messianism doesn’t stop with the Mahdi. In fact, he has made it clear that he believes he has personally received a divine appointment to herald the imminent arrival of the Mahdi, tacitly acknowledging his own role in setting aright the problems of the world.

The Hojjatieh sect is so extreme, it was banned by Ayatollah Khomeini (which is saying something). Ahmadinejad’s spiritual mentor is Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, known affectionately (or not so) by his moniker, “Professor Crocodile”. Mesbah-Yazdi has been pushing to succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as I noted in another FrontPage article, “The War Ayatollah”.

Understanding the worldview of our enemies (Iranian-made IEDs and EFPs are killing dozens of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan each month) is essential for understanding their intentions. You should also consult my friend Timothy Furnish’s website, MahdiWatch.org, and read his History News Network article, “What’s worse than violent jihadists?” for additional background on this brand of Shi’ism practiced by Ahmadinejad.