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Tag Archives: Bangladesh

Latest FBI Entrapment Shows Trend in Targeting Muslim Youth

Increasingly, the resultant terrorists are younger and younger, some just months shy of their 18th birthdays; Mohamed Osman Mohamud, Mohammed Hassan Khalid, Adel Dauod.

They represent an impressionable and ignitable cross section of an already scrutinized and marginalized Muslim community, and to target young adults seems especially detrimental to establishing long term relationships with an already skeptical population.

On October 17th, 8:12 a.m, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was arrested at the Millennium Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, New York after recording a video and placing several calls on a cell phone.

Nafis, a middle-class Bangladeshi from Dhaka, had first come to the U.S. in January of 2012. Quazi Ahsanullah, Nafis’ father, agreed to let him pursue an American degree to increase his professional appeal in Bangladesh’s competitive job market. “I spent all my savings to send him to America,” the banker said.

Enrolling in Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) as an undergraduate in cyber security, the student led an inconspicuous life in Cape Girardeau.

The devout young man’s spring semester at SEMO was marked by regular prayer and charitable projects. He became the vice president of the campus’ Muslim Student Association and encouraged fellow Muslim students to practice Islam.

He taught me to be a better Muslim,” student Dion Duncan, adding that Nafis also did charity work and collected backpacks for underprivileged kids.

He prayed five times a day,” Duncan said. “Sometimes he would stay later to pray. He was very strict in his religion. I had no idea he would do something like this.”

Agreeable and friendly, Nafis did not fit the profile of a violent criminal, much less a terrorist. Classmates spoke positively about their interactions with the 21 year old Muslim. “I’d see him in a group. He used to greet you when he passed by,” remarked engineering student, Syed Saqib Hussain, “He was a normal guy.”

Sophomore Mushfiqur Rahman, discussed religion with Nafis several times and recalled, “We chitchatted about the Islamic religion. He said he was very passionate about the Islamic religion in a positive way. He kept to himself and was very reserved.”

Members of the Islamic Center of in Cape Girardeau where Nafis often prayed expressed similar shock and disbelief when confronted with news of Wednesday’s alleged plot.

Sometime after May, Nafis transferred to a vocational school in New York, the ASA Institute of Business and Computer Technology. As confirmed by Ann Hayes, a SEMO representative, the University followed standard student visa protocols and immediately informed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) of his change in registration status.

Around the time that this notification of academic transfer was issued, Nafis came into contact (presumably via internet) with an FBI informant, who by July had already lured Nafis to New York for the “J”. A mere three months later Nafis was arrested.

What changed Nafis and inspired him to load a “big car with lots of fruits and vegetables”? The complete picture of ‘consensually recorded’ conversations between the informant, two undercover agents, a tangential co-conspirator, and Nafis, will most likely remain a mystery.

Yet, cited quotes from his criminal complaint arouse memories of old entrapment scripts, where informants and undercover agents encourage minds and orchestrate events beyond the call of twisted duty to ensure an actionable terrorist plot.    Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 18, 2012 in News Items

 

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Wali Khan Amin Shah: April 29, 2012 (Flashback: The Young Man’s Story)

Bismillah,

Speaking of stories, I promised you that I will tell you one about a young man I met in my travels. Here it is:

We were traveling in a van that we rented with a driver. We were in Bangladesh!! In the northeast of that country it was afternoon, and we were hoping that we would make it safely to a hospital that we were visiting. Suddenly an old man came out in the middle of road!! He stopped, and the driver did all he could to stop or avoid him, but he hit him or so it appeared to us. All of a sudden the whole village was upon us, and the driver said that we shouldn’t move!!

The men were holding axes!! They said it was a well planned trap to get money from travelers, and that the old man was a good actor. I couldn’t tell if that was true but we heard a lot of that. Anyway, we had to pay (: . In the crowd we saw a young man who came to us, and when he heard us talking in Arabic, he started speaking in a very clear Makkan accent (: .

The young man started to tell us his story while trying to stop the people from hurting us. He was not happy being there; he was born and raised in Makkah. Then, Iraq invaded Kuwait!! One can’t see why that would effect this poor man in Makkah, but it did because of a very bad law in Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries. He was just like other people of his community doing whatever he could to make a living in the Holy Land of Makkah when the people started to panic and think that Iraq was going to invade Saudi too!!

So his guarantor fled to Egypt!! Because he had to get his residency papers renewed and under the law he could only do so when his guarantor was in the country, he was arrested and deported to Bangladesh. He tried to make it in the capital but couldn’t find any kind of job in the city, which has more homeless people than many capitals have people.

He was told that in that village that we were ambushed in (: , that he could find a job and live with a relative. It turned out to be a job in match factory that paid just like my job here in the prison (: , which means he couldn’t eat but once a day, five times a week. It was very hard for him to learn how to fight for anything and live on the side of the road while struggling to learn the language in a land far away from where he grew up.

When we were leaving, I saw in his eyes the sadness, and I hoped to be able to help him. I was like him, made stateless and pushed away from my people. But I was given more than him by being connected to many people who made it easy for me to go around by the grace of Allah. I looked back as he was waving his hand, and I still think of him and make dua’ for him and many others who suffer injustices in the Muslim world.

Salamu alykum.

 
 

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Interview Sheds Light on America’s Recent History of Religious Prejudice & Persecution

In 2005, 16-year old Amatur-Rahman was already being monitored by FBI agents in the US, seemingly due to her increasing interest in her faith. 

After being approached by FBI agents, including a British-born Pakistani Muslim female agent, she was arrested and detained for seven weeks without charge. She was subsequently deported to the country her parents’ origin. In her first interview since the ordeal Amatur-Rahman talks to Cageprisoners about the circumstances and effects of her experience.

Why do you believe you were singled by the US authorities out of all your friends? 

Amatur-Rahman: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Was-Salaatu was-Salaamu ala Rasulillah wa a’la asHaabihi wa man wala. Thumma Amma Ba’ad. Assalaamualikum warahmatulla hi wabarakaatuhu:

In today’s time and age, it is not very common to find teenagers who take their religion seriously; even more so if the families are not too inclined towards religion or towards giving their children a religious upbringing. I was a practicing Muslim teenager who wore the niqab to high school and I was also interested in da’wah (calling others to Islam). Considering the post 9-11 atmosphere, it was easy for them to single me out and label me as they wished. The immigration issue just made it easy for them to take me in and interrogate me for as long as they wished. I highly doubt other than the ‘religious’ factor, they would have found enough interest in me to put both my family and myself through what we went through.

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Posted by on March 7, 2012 in Collateral Damage, News Items

 

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