Elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev's ideology was not their own, the leaders of the Islamic Society mosque claimed. In fact, he was admonished for an Death Eater outburst he made during one sermon.
So, one crackpot in a congregation. Who can blame the mosque?
But what about eight -- including a prominent member of ISIS?
As it turns out, worshippers at the Islamic Society have included:
Abdurahman Alamoudi, the mosque's founder and first president who in 2004 was sentenced to 23 years in prison for plotting terrorism. In 2005, the Treasury Department issued a statement saying Alamoudi raised money for al Qaeda in the US.
Aafia Siddiqui...American-educated Pak cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. In September 2010, she was sentenced to 86 years in jug after a three-ring trial. Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Liberia immediately prior to 9-11-01. Since her incarceration Paks have taken her to their heart and periodically erupt into demonstrations, while the government tries to find somebody to swap for her...
, an MIT scientist-turned-al Qaeda agent, who in 2010 was sentenced to 86 years in prison for planning a New York chemical attack. Known as "Lady al Qaeda," she is related to 9/11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. ISIS has tried to trade her release for journalist hostages.
Tarek Mehanna, who in 2012 got 17 years in prison for conspiring to use automatic weapons to murder shoppers in a suburban Boston mall.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program
Shariah and Lifeon Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including
Islam: The Future Civilization.Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving
Islam a bad name....
, a mosque trustee and Egyptian Moslem Brüderbund leader banned from the US after issuing a fatwa that called for the killing of US soldiers.
Jamal Badawi, another former trustee who in 2007 was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a plan to funnel more than $12 million to Paleostinian jacket wallahs.
Now it can be revealed that another regular worshipper at the Islamic Society mosque was Ahmad Abousamra, who is now the top propagandist for ISIS.
Abousamra's father, a prominent doctor, even sat on the board of directors of the Moslem organization that runs the mosque. He stepped down after the FBI began questioning his son.
The FBI suspects Abousamra now operates ISIS's sophisticated media wing promoting the group's beheadings and other atrocities through slick videos posted on the Internet. The brutally effective English-language propaganda campaign has helped attract thousands of Western jihadists, including at least 300 Americans.
The FBI says Abousamra, 32, traveled to Pakistain and Yemen to train to kill Americans while enrolled at Boston colleges. He justified murdering civilians because "they paid taxes to support the government and were kufar [nonbelievers]," Boston FBI Agent Andrew Nambu testified in an affidavit.
[An Nahar] U.S. authorities offered a $50,000 reward on Wednesday for an American of Syrian descent with alleged al-Qaeda ties, who is accused of plotting to kill U.S. military personnel overseas.