Sometimes it seems like the U.S. media has but one source for quotes and reaction from Muslim Americans to developments in the War on Terror; the ubiquitous Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). An article at FrontPageMagazine by Andrew Whitehead and Lee Kaplan reports that a number of CAIR officials have been engaged in more than the promotion of good Islamic-American relations. One would think that the indictments and convictions of CAIR officials on charges relating to fund-raising and money laundering for terrorist groups might cause media people to seek out a more credible source of information and reaction for their reporting. We'll see how that works out.
The conviction of a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) state operative is but the latest apparent link between that Islamist organization and Islamist terrorism. On April 13, 2005, Ghassan Elashi, founder of the group's Texas chapter (CAIR-Texas) – as well as longtime associate of CAIR's top leadership and beneficiary of CAIR fundraising and support – was convicted of laundering money for Islamic terrorist organizations from November 1995 through April 2001. Dating back to the early 1990s, Elashi had close ties to CAIR's leaders Bassam Khafagi, Imam Siraj Wahaj, and Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, former civil rights coordinator and communications specialist for the "Muslim civil rights group."Posted by dan at May 11, 2005 04:17 PM