“To exclude the FBI from looking in that direction is a mistake. We’ve gone so far in political correctness to stay away from the term ‘profiling’ that we can’t do a regular investigation.”
The FBI under the Obama Administration moved to purge all mention of Islamic Terrorism from within their systems. This led to the loss and destruction of thousands of vital documents and investigatory information — all in the effort to become politically correct. Under the direction of the Obama White House, the FBI, as well as other federal agencies, systematically removed all references to Islam from training material and the library of approved language.
On October 19, 2011, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates wrote a letter to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President for National Security with Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States. Fifty-seven Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, signed the letter. These groups included: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
The Muslim groups signing the letter demanded that the task force “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials, as well as implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state, and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training.”
Brennan assured Khera that all her demands would be met. “Your letter requests that the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem, and we agree that this is necessary.” He then detailed other specific actions being undertaken, including “collecting all training materials that contain cultural or religious content, including information related to Islam or Muslims.”
In reality, this material wouldn’t just be “collected”; it would be purged of anything that Farhana Khera and others like her found offensive. The Obama administration went along with every demand. This culture of ignoring the existence Radical Islamic Terrorism (RIT) permeated the federal government under the Obama administration, and weaved its way into policies and approaches to national security. The result was a FBI that looked the other way when it came to Islamic terrorism.
FBI Misses the Mark, Repeatedly
Orlando
The FBI investigated the Orlando Florida Pulse Night Club shooter for ten months beginning in 2013; putting him under surveillance, recording his calls, and using confidential informants to gauge whether he had been radicalized after the suspect talked at work about his connections with al-Qaeda and dying as a martyr.
As part of the investigation, Omar Mateen was placed on a terrorism watch list and was interviewed twice before the probe was closed in March 2014 — agents concluded he was not a threat. Several months later, in July 2014, Mateen surfaced in another investigation into the first American to die as a suicide bomber in Syria, a fellow Floridian. Again, the FBI investigators moved on.
Boston Marathon
The FBI acknowledged interviewing Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years before the deadly marathon bombing, but hadn’t released details. Tsarnaev was first flagged by Russian intelligence sources in March 2011. A memorandum to U.S. officials stated that Tsarnaev had been radicalized and was planning to fly to Russia to join an extremist group. But here, counter-terrorism investigators made a host of mistakes, according to an unclassified summary report from the Office of the Inspector General.
While some attempts to investigate Tsarnaev, including an in-person interview, did occur, agents never informed local authorities of their concerns. The agents never visited Tsarnaev’s mosque; never interviewed his wife or an ex-girlfriend he had assaulted; never interviewed friends or associates; never asked Tsarnaev about his plans to travel to Russia; and failed to search several major FBI systems. Even when Tsarnaev traveled to Russia for several months in 2012, the FBI determined his visit “did not prompt additional investigative steps to determine whether he posed a threat to national security.”
Texas
The attack in Garland Texas was the first attack claimed by ISIS on U.S. soil. The target of the attack was an event taking place in a conference center on May 3, 2015. A self-described free speech advocate named Pamela Geller was holding a provocative contest, offering a cash prize for the best drawing of the prophet Muhammad, whose depiction is considered sacrilege by some Muslims.
The two terrorists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were killed by local police before they managed to murder anyone, but the FBI was also involved. Not only had the FBI been monitoring the attackers for years, but there was an undercover agent right behind them at the scene when the first shots were fired. Instead of taking action, the FBI agent snapped pictures and sped away leaving the local officers to fend for themselves. In the days after the shooting, then FBI Director James Comey acknowledged the FBI had investigated Elton Simpson from 2006 to 2014.
The Mistakes Go On
Two years after the FBI concluded Ahmad Khan Rahami was not a terrorist, the Afghan immigrant was charged in federal court with using a weapon of mass destruction in a weekend terror attack that injured 31 people. Rahami, 28, is alleged to have planted pipe and pressure cooker bombs at four locations in New York and New Jersey. When he was arrested, authorities found a journal in his possession with entries praising “Brother Usama bin Laden.” He wrote that he prayed to Allah to continue his jihad and achieve martyrdom, and raged against the U.S. government.
Rahami’s father, Mohammad, told reporters that he contacted the FBI two years prior after a violent family incident. Mohammad said he told authorities that his son was a terrorist. Investigators were also told Rahami might have been trying to obtain explosives and was “associating with bad people.” The FBI determined Ahmad Khan Rahami was not a threat.
“If he had been communicating directly with the terrorist organization and the father said ‘Look here’s the email, here’s the phone call, here’s the communication,’ that would be something different that would allow the FBI to get an investigation,” said Tim Clemente, an ex-FBI special agent and counterterrorism expert.
The missed opportunity to stop Rahami before he allegedly bombed a New York City neighborhood is just another in a string of squandered chances by the FBI to identify and stop potential terrorists before they carry out their plots.
San Bernardino
When Tashfeen Malik arrived in the U.S. from her native Pakistan in July 2014, she was vetted by five U.S. agencies, passed three background checks and had two in-person interviews. None of those safeguards uncovered her pro-Jihad social media presence. On December 2, 2015, 14 people were killed, and 22 others were seriously injured in a terrorist attack consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and Christmas party of about 80 employees in a rented banquet room. After the shooting, the couple fled in a rented sports utility vehicle (SUV). Four hours later, police pursued their vehicle and killed them in a shootout.
Ft Hood, Texas
Members of two FBI anti-terrorism task forces knew Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was communicating with terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki via email as early as December 2008, once even asking a question about suicide attacks. But the FBI was concerned about the optics of launching a probe, given that Hasan was an American Muslim in the military — agents never pursued the case. On November 5, 2009, Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas.
I worked with one of the former DoD Police officers that took Maj. Hasan down that day. We worked together in Afghanistan. To think the Ft. Hood attack could have been stopped long before it started is mind-boggling.
Virginia
The FBI had been keeping an eye on Wasil Farooqui for some time when he injured two people in an attempted beheading in Roanoke County, Virginia during an August 2016 knife attack. He reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the assault. Farooqui made a trip to Turkey sometime during the year prior to the attack and may have tried to sneak into Syria to join ISIS. Here again, the FBI saw no links to terrorism and missed yet another opportunity to protect victims from the attack.
Marine Recruiting Center- Chattanooga, Tennessee
The father of Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez was on a terror watch list, was questioned about a trip abroad, and was investigated for possible ties to a foreign terror group. The father of a man who killed four Marines in Chattanooga was investigated and cleared as part of an FBI investigation into terrorism financing. Officials stressed that Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez’s father was one of many people investigated for their funding of overseas charities, especially after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A source said he became the subject of a full FBI investigation in 2002, when he told authorities the money was meant for charities, not to support a terrorist organization. That investigation was then closed. The FBI never keyed in on the man’s son, and on July 16, 2015, Abdulazeez opened fire on several military targets in Chattanooga, killing four Marines and a Navy sailor.
Tim Clemente, an ex-FBI special agent and counterterrorism expert, said, “The fact is that we can’t even look at somebody’s heritage or religious background that’s a Muslim extremist. That’s what we need to look for,” he said. “To exclude the FBI from looking in that direction is a mistake. We’ve gone so far in political correctness to stay away from the term ‘profiling’ that we can’t do a regular investigation.”
The Terrorists Among Us
Under his watch, FBI Director Comey ignored an extensive network of domestic terrorist training compounds. At least two dozen compounds in rural areas are operated by a terror group known as Muslims of America (MOA). MOA’s Islamic name is “Jamaat ul-Fuqra,” and its leader is Sheikh Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a radical jihadist cleric who mentored the Christmas Day (Underwear) bomber and many other terrorists. He has declared jihad on America, and his compounds are clearly involved in training jihadists. MOA members took part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Comey Led with Eyes Closed
In February 2015, at a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, Comey said, ”We have investigations of people in various stages of radicalization in all 50 states.” That comment made one wonder if the investigations were all show, or if someone was actually doing their job. The policies of the Obama administration tied the hands of our law enforcement agencies. The political correctness Director Comey instituted within the FBI caused poor investigations, inefficiency, mistakes, and missed opportunities that could have saved many lives.
