- TERRORISM: GROWING WAHHABI INFLUENCE IN THE UNITED STATES [Senate Hearing 108-267] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] S. Hrg. 108-267 TERRORISM: GROWING WAHHABI INFLUENCE IN THE UNITED STATES ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, TECHNOLOGY AND HOMELAND SECURITY of the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ JUNE 26, 2003 __________ Serial No. J-108-21 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 91-326 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 2003 ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800 Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah, Chairman CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts JON KYL, Arizona JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware MIKE DeWINE, Ohio HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina Bruce Artim, Chief Counsel and Staff Director Bruce A. Cohen, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security JON KYL, Arizona, Chairman ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts MIKE DeWINE, Ohio JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina Stephen Higgins, Majority Chief Counsel David Hantman, Democratic Chief Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS Page Kyl, Hon. Jon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio............. 1 Schumer, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of New York........................................................... 3 WITNESSES Alexiev, Alex, Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy, Washington, D.C................................................ 14 Aufhauser, David, General Counsel, U.S. Treasury Department, Washington, D.C................................................ 7 Mefford, Larry A., Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C............... 9 Schwartz, Stephen, Senior Fellow, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Washington, D.C................................... 16 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Responses of the Department of the Treasury to questions submitted by Senators Kennedy, Kyl, and Schumer................ 28 Responses of Stephen Schwartz to questions submitted by Senators Kennedy, Schumer, and Kyl...................................... 34 Responses of Alex Alexiev to questions submitted by Senators Kennedy, Kyl, and Schumer...................................... 51 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD Alexiev, Alex, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy, Washington, D.C., prepared statement........................... 61 Aufhauser, David, General Counsel, U.S. Treasury Department, Washington, D.C., prepared statement........................... 67 Mefford, Larry A., Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., prepared statement...................................................... 81 Schwartz, Stephen, Senior Fellow, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Washington, D.C., prepared statement.............. 88 TERRORISM: GROWING WAHHABI INFLUENCE IN THE UNITED STATES ---------- THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2003 United States Senate, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m., in room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jon Kyl, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. Present: Senators Kyl and Schumer. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JON KYL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OHIO Chairman Kyl. Welcome to this hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. Our hearing today is entitled, ``Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States.'' Let me, first of all, indicate to those in the audience that we are engaged in about three different things that are directly relevant to this Committee right now. First of all, there is a full Committee markup occurring right now on the asbestos litigation or legislation, and we are all supposed--well, litigation and legislation--we are going to be running back and forth to that. We have four votes scheduled at 2:40 on the floor of the Senate, and so we will have to excuse ourselves for that. I apologize to all of you, especially those of you who are witnesses here because there will be some disruption in our schedule, but we will begin and move forward as much as we can. Senator Feinstein will not be able to join us, at least at this point, but hopefully will be here later, and some of the other members of the Committee are hoping the join us. But what I would like to do is get started, make a brief statement, have Senator Schumer make a brief statement and then at least begin with our first two representatives of our Government, representing the first panel. We are here today to discuss a vital, if largely overlooked, aspect of the terrorist campaign being waged in our country, and I think unless we pay closer attention to it and understand it, we will not know how to protect ourselves against this. Our witnesses today are going to talk about how this terrorist campaign is supported in the United States and how it has been caused to spread. The problem we are looking at today is the State-sponsored doctrine and funding of an extremist ideology that provides the recruiting grounds, support infrastructure and monetary life blood of today's international terrorists. The extremist ideology is Wahhabism, a major force behind terrorist groups, like al Qaeda, a group that, according to the FBI, and I am quoting, is the ``number one terrorist threat to the U.S. today.'' Nearly 22 months have passed since the atrocity of September 11th. Since then, many questions have been asked about the role in that day's terrible events and in other challenges we face in the war against terror of Saudi Arabia and its official sect, a separatist, exclusionary and violent form of Islam known as Wahhabism. It is widely recognized that all of the 19 suicide pilots were Wahhabi followers. In addition, 15 of the 19 were Saudi subjects. Journalists and experts, as well as spokespeople of the world, have said that Wahhabism is the source of the overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities in today's world, from Morocco to Indonesia, via Israel, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya. In addition, Saudi media sources have identified Wahhabi agents from Saudi Arabia as being responsible for terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. The Washington Post has confirmed Wahhabi involvement in attacks against U.S. forces in Felugia. To examine the role of Wahhabism and terrorism is not to label all Muslims as extremists. Indeed, I want to make this point very, very clear. It is the exact opposite. Analyzing Wahhabism means identifying the extreme element that, although enjoying immense political and financial resources, thanks to support by a sector of the Saudi state, seeks to globally hijack Islam, one of the world's three great Abrahamic faiths. It means understanding who our worst enemies are and how we can support the majority of the world's Muslims, ordinary, normal people who desire to live in a safe, secure, and stable environment, in their own effort to defeat terror. In the end, Islamist terror must be defeated to a significant extent within Islam by Muslims themselves. Based on Government documents, Newsweek magazine reported in its recent issue, June 23rd, that al Qaeda, which experts have described as a Wahhabi movement, has overhauled its approach to penetrating the United States, and I just want to quote this one paragraph before I conclude. ``To foil the heightened security after 9/11, al Qaeda began to rely on operatives who would be harder to detect. They recruited U.S. citizens or people with legitimate Western passports who could move freely in the United States. They used women and family members as support personnel, and they made an effort to find African-American Muslims who would be sympathetic to Islamic extremism, using mosques, prisons and universities throughout the United States.'' ``According to the documents, the former al Qaeda director of Global Operations who was captured in Pakistan last March reached deep into the heartland, lining up agents in Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, and Peoria, Illinois. The Feds have discovered at least one--'' and this is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ``--one KSM-run cell that could have done grave damage to the United States.'' The extreme nature of Wahhabism is well established. As the great scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, has noted, ``Saudi oil revenues have,'' and I am quoting here, ``allowed the Saudis to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim World and among the Muslims in the West. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe.'' Now, some of the testimony that you will hear today will be chilling. It will describe a well-organized, foreign-funded terrorist support enterprise that is networked across our own country, as well as the rest of the world. Today, we will hear testimony about Saudi, al Qaeda, and Wahhabi involvement in terrorism. In particular, the Department of Treasury will make clear that the ultimate goal of terrorist financings is destruction and will comment on the involvement of Saudi-based entities and individuals in terrorism. Representatives of the FBI will testify that the al Qaeda network remains the most serious threat to U.S. interests here and overseas. In addition to the FBI and Treasury, two private organizations that have spent a great deal of time wrestling with these issues, the Center for Security Policy and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, will show the link between al Qaeda and Wahhabism and will address the struggle against terrorist financing and terrorist penetration of our country, the origins of Wahhabism, its international ambitions and its influence in American Islam. I welcome all of you to this hearing today, and now we will turn to somebody who has also devoted a great deal of time and effort to this war on terror here in the United States, my colleague, Chuck Schumer. STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES SCHUMER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK Senator Schumer. Well, thank you. And I want to thank you, Chairman Kyl, for having this very important hearing. This is an issue that I have been very interested in, as you have mentioned; terrorism, in general, and Wahhabism, in particular, for quite a while. And the issue we are addressing is very important in our effort the protect America from future terrorist attack. We have learned that when you ignore it, it gets worse, and so I really salute you for having this hearing. Now, since the Wahhabi presence in the United States is a foreboding one that has potentially harmful and far-reaching consequences for our Nation's mosques, schools, prisons and even our military, these hearings could not come at a more opportune time. But before I begin, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Islam is an admirable and peaceful faith that embraces tolerance, morality, and charity. As you mentioned, it is one of the three great Abrahamic faiths, and the bottom line is anyone who misinterprets and says speaking out against an extreme faction that advocates violence is speaking out against one of the great religions because a few of its adherents seek to hijack what that faith is all about, are totally misinterpreting and not being American. What we do not do as Americans is, and we have learned this because of our long history with race and racial problems is, take a person and say you are of this faith, you are branded by some who might share that faith and distort it, and we are against everybody or take action against everybody or discriminate against you. I think that is extremely important, and we should underline it. Now, most of the Muslim world follows the tenets of mainstream Muslim of a peaceful, admirable faith, but unfortunately the increasingly influential and radical Wahhabi ideology distorts this message by preaching hate, violence and intolerance, not only toward the Judeo-Christian world, but towards moderate Muslim as well, to the rest of the Muslim faith. Al Qaeda, and the 9/11 terrorists were the products of Wahhabism's hateful and intolerant system of belief, and over the past year my office has been studying Wahhab activities in the United States and around the world and has uncovered disturbing information. Wahhabism is an extremist exclusionary form of Islam that not only denigrates other faiths, but also marginalizes peaceful followers of Islam, like Shia and most Sunnis. The roots of Wahhabism can be found in Saudi Arabia, where the governing regime has made an ugly deal with that Nation's radical Muslim clerics. The Saudis give Wahhabis protection and support in exchange for Wahhabis promising not to undermine the Saudi royal family. This is nothing short of a deal with the devil. It is the wrong thing to do, and I would urge, I have urged, the Saudi Government to refrain from it because it is going to lead to their own undoing, as well as lack of freedom for their people, as well as lack of progress for their people. The Wahhabis get to preach the hate and extremism that form core tenets of Wahhabism without consequence, and more importantly, because that still falls under Freedom of Speech. It's when you step over the line between advocating something verbally, and then doing it, and we have learned that this has happened over and over again, the Wahhabis are allowed to recruit disciplines who pose a tremendous threat to Americans everywhere. I have written letter after letter to the Saudi Government asking it to denounce the Wahhabi teachings of its madrassas or religious schools which preach extremism and stop funding them. I am sure everyone will be shocked to hear that thus far I have not received any response from them indicating any change in policy. As the Saudis turned a blind eye, the Wahhabi machine is becoming well-financed, politically powerful, difficult to prosecute and making dramatic inroads here in the United States. Let me give you an example of how Wahhabism has reached some degree of havoc in my own backyard in New York State. For 20 years, the New York State Department of Corrections employed Warith Deen Umar as one of its chaplains, eventually appointing him administrative chaplain of the New York Department of Correctional Services. A strict believer in Wahhabi Islam, Umar was responsible for the hiring and firing of all chaplains in the New York State prison system, exercising complete control over personnel matters. But last year Mr. Umar was banned from ever again entering a New York State prison, after he incited prisoners against America, specifically preaching to inmates that the 9/11 hijackers should be remembered as martyrs. Many of the clerics Umar hired during his tenure have reportedly echoed his sentiments and sermons before many of New York State's 13,000 Muslim inmates, as well as, and this is the amazing point, impeding their freedom of religion by denying these prisoners access to materials and imams used by more moderate forms of Islam. There is even one report when a Sunni Muslim prisoner wanted a different chaplain to come in that he was beaten because Umar wanted only the Wahhabi faith to be appointed as chaplains in the New York State prisons. While it is not surprising that Umar would have hired clerics who shared his beliefs, I am terribly worried that his minions may have exposed members of New York's prison population to his extremist and toxic anti-American views. More than preaching hate, many of the clerics of Wahhabism seem to be actively opposing the U.S. Government. In March, Federal prosecutors in New York indicted a chaplain at the Auburn correctional facility in New York State for sending millions of dollars to organizations in Iraq, in violation of U.S. sanctions. He has since pleaded guilty to the offense. When my office researched further, we discovered that New York's prisons were not the only ones that had been penetrated by this kind of Wahhabi zealotry. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons uses two groups to select imams who administer to Muslim inmates. The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, whose offices are right across the river in Northern Virginia and the Islamic Society of Northern America. As some of the experts appearing later today can testify, both of these groups appear to have disturbing connections to Wahhabism and terrorism. The GSISS is under investigation as part of U.S. Customs Operation Green Quest, for its possible role in helping to funnel $20 million to terrorists throughout off-shore financial institutions. Meanwhile, a number of ISNA board members appear to have checkered pasts. One member, Siraj Wahhaj, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the WTC, in the World Trade Center 1993 bombings. Another member, Bassam Osman, was previously the director of the Koranic Literary Institute, an Oak Lawn, Illinois, organization that had $1.4 million in assets seized by the Justice Department in June 1998, on the grounds it was used to support HAMAS activities. To make matters worse, the GSISS, as well as another Wahhabi-influenced organization that is under investigation by Green Quest, the American Muslim Foundation, are the sole organizations credentialed to advise the Pentagon on who to choose as imams to serve the 4,000 patriotic and valiant Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military. Again, these two groups are not totally Wahhab, but they seem to tolerate those who are Wahhab and who step over the line, as these facts have shown, not just in preaching violence and hatred, but actually acting upon it, and that is the crucial line that we are interested here in, not to deal with freedom of speech, but rather to deal with actions that cause, aid and abet terrorism. While the potential Wahhabi influence in the U.S. Armed Forces is not well-documented, these organizations have succeeded in ensuring that militant Wahhabism is the only form of Islam that is preached to the 12,000 Muslims in Federal prisons. That is against the American view of pluralism. If there are some in the prisons who want Wahhab ministers, that is one thing, but for every Muslim to be forced to have a Wahhabi minister, that is wrong, incorrect, and against the American way. These imams flood the prisons with anti-American, pro-bin Laden videos, literature, sermons, and tapes. They destroy literature sent to the prisons by more moderate Shia and Sunni organizations and prevent imams that follow these traditions from speaking to prisoners. In addition, non-Wahhabi Muslim prisoners who seek to practice their religion often receive threats from Wahhabi prisoners who have been instructed by Wahhabi imams. The point to prison is to rehabilitate violent prisoners. Instead, the Wahhabi influence is inculcating them with the same kind of militant ideas that drove the 9/11 hijackers to kill thousands of Americans. Mr. Chairman, this is a dangerous situation that is essentially being ignored. Because despite the evidence, the F… truncated (71,331 more characters in archive)