We now know that two of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing regularly attended the Boston Islamic Society. The media, however, keeps running with the story that the pair were radicalized on the internet. So what about this mosque? For starters, one of it’s founders is a convicted terrorist serving prison time. But it gets worse - Glenn explained on radio today alongside guest Patrick Poole.
Transcript of interview is below:
GLENN: Last night I had some meetings I had to be in and then I had to fly to New York and to I had to leave Dallas early before I left for New York and I ‑‑ I'm really bummed because Stu did the show for me and executed a lot of the information that we had on the Islamic mosque that is up in Boston that these two guys went to. And they are trying to make this mosque seem like this is just the all‑American mosque. You know, this mosque is on the front lines of fighting for the Fourth of July and Martin Luther King. Nothing could be further from the truth and we have Patrick Poole who is with us. And Patrick has been at the for front of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terror and Islamic terror cells here in America for a very long time. I don't think there's a handful of people that have his credibility and Patrick is here to tell us a little bit about what this mosque is, the history of this mosque and who is involved. Patrick, they are saying that this was religion that did this to these guys and the mosque, they knew he was a bad dude because, you know, he stood up and said that we shouldn't emulate Martin Luther King. Is this ‑‑ is this mosque friends of Martin Luther King?POOLE: Well, it's doubtful because they have a long line going back to their very founding, their incorporation papers where Abdurahman Alamoudi, the Al‑Qaeda fundraiser currently in federal prison, was one of the founders of this mosque and was involved in it for years.
GLENN: This is also their, one of their spiritual leaders, their trustees is the wheelchair guy over in Saudi Arabia?
POOLE: In Qatar, yes, Yusuf al‑Qaradawi was basically the chief jurist for the Muslim Brotherhood and he's probably the most popular Islamic cleric on the planet. He has a Friday afternoon TV program called Sharia In Life on Al‑Jazeera.
GLENN: I'm sorry. On what network?
POOLE: Al‑Jazeera.
GLENN: Oh, Al‑Jazeera. Well, that's a good ‑‑ we've heard from the president that's just a good quality network that gives good people truth, if people would just watch it, you'll get the truth from Al‑Jazeera. That's what we've heard from Hillary and the president.
POOLE: Well, and interestingly al‑Qaradawi who then was a trustee for the Islamic Society of Boston, Qaradawi holds the distinction for being the first Sunni Islamic cleric to issue a fatwah authorizing suicide bombings targeting Israel. This was back in 1994. You know, suicide bombing was typically a Shiite, you know, kind of Iranian/Hezbollah phenomenon and then Qaradawi authorized, was the first Sunni cleric to give suicide bombings the green light, and I mean that launched, you know, all kinds of terrorist movements. And this is the guy who, he's banned from the United States. In fact, the Islamic Society of Boston had a fundraiser featuring Qaradawi but he had to do it by teleconference from Qatar, his office in Qatar which, by the way, his office in Qatar, you look out his window and you can see into CENTCOM's compound there in Qatar, but that's a whole other story. But, you know, these are some pretty noxious guys.
GLENN: So this is also, if I'm not mistaken, this is the mosque that the ‑‑ Americans will remember this mosque. Not that anybody in the media will really point this out, but they will remember this mosque as the mosque that had all of the kids come in from the local area and had these schoolkids come in and get a tour of the mosque and some would say a little indoctrination.
POOLE: Well, even more than indoctrination, they had some of the kids line up for prayer, and one of the mothers who was with the group took video of this and handed it off to Charles Jacobs with Americans for Peace and Tolerance up you there who had been a very vocal critic of the mosque and was sued by the mosque for his criticism and it ended up being a big hubbabaloo but, yeah, it wasn't just indoctrination. And last night Stu played the clip of the woman teaching in the mosque that, you know, women in Islam have been, you know, free, you know, since the time of Mohammed and only here in America, it's only been for the past hundred years.
GLENN: Right. They were trying ‑‑ yeah, what they were trying to do, this clip is amazing. This woman is claiming that, you know, under Mohammed women are free. Unfortunately they kind of leave out the all‑important parts that, no, not really. In Saudi Arabia can't really even drive a car if you're a woman.
POOLE: Right. And one of the other clips that we played last night was the current imam, Abdullah Farooq talking about jihad. We can't just be talking about jihad; we need to be doing jihad by the sword and the gun too.
GLENN: No, I think we've learned from the administration that jihad is a holy practice that brings you closer to God.
POOLE: Yeah. Umm... one of the things we didn't get to, and my hat's off to Stu. I mean, we covered a lot of ground last night. One of the things we didn't get to is that the former chairman of the mosque, a guy by the name of Osama Kandil, he was a trustee for another group called the Taibah Aid International Association with Abdulrahman al Moody, the Al‑Qaeda fundraiser, which was a designated terrorist organization and was raising money for Al‑Qaeda. I mean, this is the chairman of the board.
GLENN: But I don't think you understand ‑‑
POOLE: ‑‑ for the Islamic Society of Boston
GLENN: I don't think you understand, though, that they kicked these guys out because they said they are so mainstream that when they said, you know, we should really celebrate Fourth of July here in America, it made the Boston bomber angry and he left and so they kicked him out for four or five days, you know, because that was a ‑‑ you know, that was a really bad thing. I don't think you ‑‑ I think you're downplaying how American this mosque is and how much they love the whole star change he would banner and everything.
POOLE: Yeah. Well, one of the other current imams, Suhaib Webb, two days before 9/11 was out in California raising money for a convicted cop‑killer with none other than Anwar Awlaki. So I don't know if you can get any more all‑American than that.
GLENN: Yeah, absolutely. I think you ‑‑ now you're starting to see it.
POOLE: Yeah.
GLENN: We have a video on TheBlaze now from the American Muslim Center, a mosque in Everett, Massachusetts. The clip, which is posted on the mosque's website advertises the house of worship many activities. However, there's a woman in this named Kat and she's speaking about how she recently converted to Islam and TheBlaze is wondering and has the pictures side by side. It looks like this could be Katherine Russell, the bomber's ‑‑ the bomber's wife. It's an interesting. It's an interesting promo that you might want to ‑‑ you might want to see.
Is anyone, Patrick, looking at this, really seriously looking at this mosque? And why is this ‑‑ why does this mosque continue to get a pass from the United States government?
POOLE: Well, because looking at any of its extremist ties has basically been outlawed by this administration. I mean, if you were to ‑‑ and as I talked about last night, all the information, which is freely available, you know, everything we've been talking about here for this segment is all open sourced. It's been reported by The Boston Globe, New York Sun, a bunch of other outlets. All this information was inside the DHS system and back in late 2010, Homeland Security purged all of the information, again, all open source, all freely available, purged that information from the system and from my understanding from some congressional investigators who are looking at this purge, there were hundreds of files of mosques and Islamic leaders, negative information that was part of this purge that they're having to look at.
GLENN: Patrick, I thank you very much for all of your hard work. I thank you for all of the work that you've done on our documentary specials that we've done and all the things that you've done not only with us but with PJ Media. You have been brave, outspoken, unflinching and on the front lines this whole time, and there's only a handful of people that are doing that and you're one of them. And we're very, very grateful. And Americans, if they don't know who you are or what you've done, America, you should look into Patrick Poole because you are ‑‑ you're a fearless guy, and I appreciate it. Thank you, Patrick.
POOLE: Thanks.
GLENN: Appreciate it.
POOLE: Thank you.
Patrick Poole also joined Stu on The Glenn Beck Program last night to discuss: