RUTH KING:INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK T. DUNLEAVY…AUTHOR OF “THE FERTILE SOIL OF JIHAD-TERRORISM’S PRISON CONNECTION”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10552/pub_detail.asp
A lonely, alienated and angry person is convicted of a crime and imprisoned. Although he is prone to violence, and feels he has been wronged by “the system” he is fearful of prison predators and generally a loner. He is befriended by another prisoner, a skillful radical Moslem who introduces him to the Koran and shows great empathy and offers protection and social interaction. He converts to Islam and meets a charismatic Moslem chaplain, who has been chosen for the job by an Imam with close ties to organizations known to enable and fund terrorism. First, he becomes a messenger whose visitors who are sympathetic to his hatred of authority become conduits of information from and to outside terror operations with calls and orders emanating from the chaplain’s quarters. Ultimately he is converted to the cause of terror and jihad. Thus, a prison terror cell is hatched.
This may sound like a proposal for a movie but it is very real and happens throughout American jails. All Americans interested in national security and terrorism must read Patrick T.Dunleavy’s mesmerizing book “The Fertile Soil of Jihad-Terrorism’s Prison Connection.”
The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism’s Prison Connection by Patrick T. Dunleavy (Hardcover – Sep 30, 2011)
Patrick Dunleavy, former deputy inspector general of the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the New York State Department of Correctional Services which investigates and infiltrates criminal enterprises and conspiracies was a key figure in “Operation Hades” which probed the radical Islamic recruitment for jihad inside and outside prison walls.
In January 1993, only a month before the first World Trade Center bombing, a young Palestinian Arab named Abdel Nasser Zaben was imprisoned for robbery and kidnapping. Medical and psychological records indicate that his language, reading, comprehension and mathematics skills were below average. His devotion to Islam, however, was disciplined and orthodox and he was keen to convert and recruit. Furthermore, his ability to spot a potential recruit and manipulate his fears and frailties is impressive.
Dunleavy traces Zaben’s peregrinations through boroughs and mosques in New York as well as his prison “career” where he recruited a significant and diverse number of common criminals to the cause of Islamic terrorism in several penitentiaries starting with Riker’s Island.
Rashid Baz.
At Riker’s Island, Zaben reconnected with a friend Rashid Baz, a Lebanese livery cab driver celebrated by Hamas sympathizers as the “Holy Warrior and Son of Islam” for opening fire on a van full of Hasidic Jewish boys on the Brooklyn Bridge in March 1994, killing one and wounding several others. Baz was tried and convicted of the second-degree murder of Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old Jewish yeshiva student from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, along with fourteen other counts of attempted murder.
From Riker’s Island Zaben moved through the New York Downstate Correctional Facility, a maximum security Auburn Correctional Facility, Cayuga Correctional Facility in the Finger Lakes district of New York, Fishkill Correctional Facility, and finally, after a parole rejection, Shawangunk Correctional Facility from which he was released and deported in 2005.
In all these jails, Zaben met and collaborated with notorious terrorists and converted many prisoners to radical Islam, hatred of all infidels, and participation in jihad.
Most appalling is the fact that the Moslem chaplains, many with long and nefarious criminal histories often facilitated or were complicit with prison clerks and volunteers to enlarge and connect terrorist cells.
At Auburn, Zaben met an eclectic group of terrorist “celebrities”-murderers and arsonists, a Black Liberation Army member, Anthony Bottom also known as Jalil Muntaquin, serving a life term for killing two policemen, David Gilbert convicted for murder in the Brinks’s Robbery, Leroy Smithwick, a convert to Islam sentenced for murder, and his old buddy the infamous Rashid Baz. This compatible crew presented an excellent opportunity for proselytizing and strategy in recruitment.
Zaben also met his bride, Isabel Oviedo who converted to Islam and married Zaben after a rather short “courtship” of two prison visits and changed her name to Halima. Halima became Zaben’s volunteer befriending other mothers or wives who visited other jails and delivered messages among cell members in other jails. This was facilitated by the fact that prison visitors took buses from a central location in New York.
Prison conversions and radical Islamic influences from volunteers and chaplains continued long after Zaben’s release. As late as May 2009, James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen were arrested for a plot to bomb synagogues and down military aircraft with missiles. All four were prison inmates and converts to Islam.
Dunleavy masterfully weaves together the intrigue, the connective dots between the prisoners and the radical mosques and charity fronts, the conspiracies that bind the jihadists’ in and out of the penitentiaries and their subtle connection to home grown domestic terrorists .His narrative is spellbinding and his prose is superb. No review can do it justice.
This book is essential reading and it is my great pleasure to interview Patrick Dunleavy.
RK: How did authorities come to know about the main character – Abdel Zaben – and others like him in prison?
PTD: He first came to authorities’ attention in early 1999 when information from two separate confidential sources talked of an alliance formed between Middle Eastern inmates and African-American Muslim inmates to train together for acts of jihad. One source specifically named Zaben as a follower of Osama bin Laden who not only recruited within the prison system but also had the ability to facilitate overseas travel for recently released prison converts to study and train in places like, Egypt, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
RK: One of the most startling revelations in your book is the complicity of Moslem chaplains, many with their own sordid criminal history in the recruitment of terrorists. How are they chosen and by whom?
PTD: That was a process that evolved in corrections in the same way that Islam did. In the 60’s the vast majority of muslim inmates were followers of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. Then in 1968 The Dar ul Islam movement began a prison program with the goal of putting a Sunni/Salafist mosque in every prison. Still there were no full time Islamic chaplains. Following the Attica riot in 1971, prison officials began to look to hire Imams. The pool that they drew from were mostly former inmates who had converted in prison. One of the first chosen was Warith Deen Umar, formerly known as Gene Marks. Umar then formed an organization called the Muslim Chaplains Association which was run out of the basement of his house. That organization became the ecclesiastical certifying body for newly hired Islamic clergy. The process worked like this:
Umar would recommend an individual to the Deputy Commissioner for Program Services for hiring. Then Umar’s own organization would do the background certification necessary for the hiring to be completed. Umar himself was a former Nation of Islam disciple who became a Sunni fundamentalist while in prison through the Dar ul Islam outreach.
Following his release he received funding from the Saudis to perform his hajj to Mecca. He continued to receive foreign funding which he used to send newly hired Chaplains on hajj also.
RK: Please describe for us how the chaplains’offices were used by high security prisoners to place calls and how Operation Hades was able to monitor them.
PTD: Each prison chaplain had an office with a phone. The phone was primarily to be used for inter facility communication, however the chaplain was also issued a personal identification number (PIN) to be used when dialing outside the prison. Staff were to safeguard the number and no inmates were permitted to use thephone because it was not subject to the same security monitoring as the regular prison phone. The chaplain also had inmate clerical staff to help with paperwork, filing and cleaning of the office. It did not take inmates long to realize that they could breach security by using the chaplain’s phone. One of the first to do this for terrorist reasons was El Sayyid Nosair, who was in Attica at the time for the shooting of Rabbi Meir Kahane. He utilized the prison Imam’s phone to contact hisassociates who were plotting to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.
When investigators from Operation Hades became aware through confidential sources that Abdel Nasser Zaben was using the chaplain’s phone to call places in the Middle East and North Africa, we decided to go through the Courts and obtain a wire intercept order under the New York State Anti Terrorism Act. With that in hand, we then utilized the latest technology available to capture the call data.
Salahuddin Muhammad.
RK: Please tell us about Salahuddin Muhammad, aka known as Leon Lawson, Leon Ross, Shanhan Allah or Lawson?
PTD: Imam Muhammad is a very interesting fellow. In an interview in the New York Times in 2009 regarding Islamic radicalization in prison he stated emphatically that he had never seen or heard any inmates involved in jihadist rhetoric or recruitment. If that is true than he must be the most unfortunate individual to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Abdel Nasser Zaben worked for him as his clerk for four years. In taped conversations with associates in the Middle East Zaben spoke glowingly about his relationship with the Chaplain and even arranged for him to meet two of them in Brooklyn. In addition to his position as the prison chaplain he is also the spiritual leader of Masjid al Ikhlas in Newburgh, New York. That is the mosque where the four ex-inmates, James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen met prior to plotting to bomb synagogues in New York City and shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles.
RK: You describe a nexus between the Brink’s Robbery terrorist David Gilbert, who is an author and unrepentant advocate for terror and Professor Rashid Khalidi in a taped telephone conversation. Tell us about that.
PTD: The segue for that was through a visitor who came to the prison to meet with both David and Yousef Saleh. Yousef, a Palestinian from Ramallah, was serving a life sentence for firebombing a Jewish deli in New York killing two people. The visitor was an activist with Free Palestine Movement. Several other visitors of Gilbert’s were also involved in the Viva Palestina movement. The conversation took place just prior to the Republican National Convention in 2004 from a phone in Clinton Correctional Facility to the Professor’s house. Several individuals participated in the conversation which centered around demonstration tactics to be utilized at the convention as well as the war in Iraq.
RK: What is the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. I doubt that many Americans, even those interested in the evolution of terrorism on our soil are familiar with it.
PTD: The historical database of terrorist incidents and organizations which I refer to in my book is no longer available to the general public.The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism’s Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB) was an online link containing information on terrorist incidents, leaders, groups, and related court cases. The TKB ceased operations on 31 March 2008. The database is now maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). MIPT continues to provide training and other resources to first line officers.
RK: Tell us about your role in Operation Hades and the melding of the agencies involved in the investigation.
PTD: My participation in Operation Hades was at the request of the NYPD to the Inspector General’s Office of the New York State Department of Corrections. Police and Intelligence officials, in light of the Richard Reid and Jose Padilla cases, wanted to first identify if there were any radical Islamic influencesat work in the prison system and to probe the depth of that influence. At the time I was the head of the Criminal Intelligence Division and had spent over twenty years infiltrating criminal enterprises and narcotics organizations operating through inmate associations. I had also spent considerable time working as an undercover agent for the Department of Correction’s IG.As the Operation Hades investigation developed it became necessary to include a multitude of agencies to completely cover the national and international aspects of our findings.
RK: What do you think will happen if the inmates from Guantanamo are moved into the U.S. Prison System?
PTD: I think that would create numerous security and facility management issues to both corrections administrators and Counter Terrorism officials. Where are they to be housed? If in the general prison population, they would have the ability to communicate and influence other inmates. If you isolate them and place Special Administrative Measures (SAM’s) on them you will be constantly defending against lawsuits brought by the inmates and their supporters on the constitutionality of the conditions of confinement as in the case of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed convicted in 2001 for the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania in 1998. He is requesting the Court to remove the SAM’s enforced by the Bureau of Prisons arguing, among other things, that after 10 years in prison he is a different person and that the restrictions are no longer necessary.
Which brings us to the question of the rehabilitation of radical Islamic terrorists. Would the Bureau of Prisons institute a program specifically designed to re-intergrate jihadists into society along the same lines as the Saudi’s program? With a current recidivism rate in the US of about 65 % of released inmates returning to crime, do we really want to gamble with that option when it comes to terrorism?
RK: What do you think is the greatest challenge facing prison officials and intelligence experts today?
PTD: The greatest challenge would be to remain vigilant to the ever changing adaptability of incarcerated terrorists. In prison there is always time. Time to think, to plan, to plot. Days turn into weeks, to months, to years. The general public tends to forget over the great space of time. Inmates do not, particularly those who have already committed acts of terrorism. Complacency is the X-factor that concerns me most.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ruth S. King is a freelance writer who writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel.
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