ISIS-Inspired Terrorism in Boston

Dr. Abdulbadi Abousamra and son the late Ahmad Abousamra, an ISIS top leader

Two news stories have suddenly brought attention to ISIS-inspired terrorism in Boston and vicinity. One involved  ISIS –inspired suspects plotting to behead police officers resulting in one killed in a shooting incident and two others arrested by Boston area police. The second involves the death of an American citizen in an air attack in Iraq’s Anbar province who was technically educated and radicalized at Mosques in the Boston area.   He  fled the US to ultimately become one of the top leaders in ISIS running their highly effective social media propaganda arm.

Fox News reported the shooting death early Tuesday of 26 year old Usaama Rahim, an assailant, who threatened Boston Police officers with an 8 inch knife in an attempted beheading plot. It is believed to be  ISIS-inspired terrorism.  Rahim and two others were under surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI  in Boston.  Fox News reported that Rahim was hired in 2013 as a security guard at the Islamic Cultural Center of Boston (ISBCC) controlled by an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim American Society.   The Cambridge Mosque affiliated with ISBCC was attended by convicted terrorism felons including Pakistani Al Qaeda bio warfare expert, Aafia Siddiqui, Tarek Mehanna and the Chechen refugee Tsarneav Brothers who perpetrated the Boston Marathon Bombing.  

  Fox News noted the other suspects involved in the plot to behead police officers:

Authorities arrested another suspect, David Wright, in connection with the case, police said.

“We believe the intent was to behead a police officer,” one official told The Boston Globe. “We knew the plot had to be stopped. They were planning to take action Tuesday.”

Rahim, Wright and an unidentified third person met Sunday on a Rhode Island beach to discuss plans, the affidavit, which was released Wednesday, said. Wright, who waived his Miranda rights, told the FBI the plans included an attack on a victim in another state, the court papers said. Hours prior to the shooting, Rahim told Wright he had changed plans and was going to “go after” the “boys in blue,” the court papers said. 

“I’m going on vacation right here in Massachusetts. I’m just going to  go after them, those boys in blue,” Rahim said in the phone conversation, according to the affidavit. Authorities believe the word “vacation” stood for violent jihad in their conversations. Wright encouraged him to delete any information on his cell phone or computers, the affidavit said. Wright is accused of conspiring with Rahim to impede the investigation and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

The affidavit said one of the officers outside the CVS instructed Rahim to drop his weapon and Rahim responded, “You drop yours.” 

Tuesday, the Boston Herald  reported  the death in Iraq  of a top ISIS social media expert on the FBI’s ten most wanted  terrorist list, 33 year old Ahmad Abousamra,  a dual Syrian/American citizen from Stoughton, Massachusetts.  Abousamra wasoin the FBI’s Most Wanted Top Terrorist lists. He was killed in an air attack in Anbar province apparently along with another American national.  According to the Boston Herald report:

Abousamra was raised in Stoughton and attended Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood but left to graduate from Stoughton High school in 1999.

He studied computer science for three semesters at Northeastern University between 1999 and 2001, a school spokeswoman said. Abousamra graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston with a degree in computer science in December 2006, the school confirmed.

Abousamra, who was a co-defendant of convicted Sudbury terrorist Tarek Mehanna, had federal charges pending in Boston on conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to murder American soldiers abroad and making false statements to authorities.

Mehanna, 31, a former pharmacist, is serving a 17-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill.

Watch this Boston Herald video on the FBI hunt for Abousamra:

Abousamra’s father Abdulbadi Abousamra (Abousamra Sr.) was an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who was actively engaged in establishing a network of Mosques in the Metropolitan Boston area that brought in a number of radical extremist Imams. A Truth Revolt report in 2014 by Ilya Feoktistov of Americans for Peace and Tolerance  noted:

Abdulbadi Abousamra, Sr. served as a president or board member of several mosques, Islamic schools, and Muslim political organizations in Massachusetts from the mid-1990s. In fact, he is still the president of an Islamic elementary school in Sharon, MA. Abousamra Sr. had used his leadership position in multiple Boston Islamic institutions to import extremist and terrorist-affiliated imams to Boston. One of these imams, Hafiz Masood, appears to be the one who radicalized his son, Ahmad Abousamra (Abousamra Jr.).

Until 2007, when Abousamra Jr. was first questioned by the FBI over a plot to provide assistance to Al Qaeda in Iraq and  massacre shoppers at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleboro, MA, his father, Abousamra Sr., was vice-president of the Boston branch of the Muslim American Society (MAS Boston). According to federal authorities, the Muslim American Society was created to be “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” MAS Boston operates the largest Islamic center in the Northeast, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC). The Boston Marathon bombers attended the ISBCC’s sister mosque in Cambridge. Both mosques have a long history of Islamic extremism and terrorism.

In 1994, Abousamra Sr. joined the Islamic Center of New England (ICNE), another Muslim organization that runs two mosques in the Boston suburbs of Quincy and Sharon. By 1998, he became its president.  Abousamra Sr.’s passion lay with influencing the religious education of the Center’s youth. He personally founded two schools at the ICNE: the Islamic Academy of New England elementary school in 1999 and the Al Noor Academy secondary school in 2001 – the latter with $100,000 in seed money he received from the Islamic Society of Boston. Even though Abousamra Sr. left the country shortly after the FBI put a bounty on his son, he is still the president of the Islamic Academy of New England.

Enter the Radical Imam with connections to the 2008 Mumbai Massacre terrorist group:

In 1998, Abousamra Sr. hired Mohammed Hafiz Masood to be the new Imam at the Islamic Center of New England and a teacher at the Islamic Academy of New England. At that time, Masood was in the United States illegally.

Mohammed Hafiz Masood was deported for immigration violations. After his deportation, it turned out Masood was not an ordinary radical.

Masood is the brother of Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed, who founded and runs Lashkar-e-Taibah (LeT), one of the largest and most violent terrorist groups in Pakistan, and who has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head. Saeed’s terror group is responsible for the 2008 Mumbai massacre, which targeted India over the conflict in Kashmir and left 166 people dead.

After the Mumbai massacres, The Times of India reported that Masood was using his status as Imam at the Islamic Center of New England to raise funds and recruit local Massachusetts Muslims for Lashkar-e-Taibah. Now living in Pakistan, Masood has become the spokesman of his brother’s terror group.

The radical Imam’s son turned informant leading to the  arrest of Abousamra and Tarek Mehanna:

Hafiz Masood’s son, Hassan Masood, allegedly conspired in terrorist plots with Abousamra Jr. He turned informant and testified against Abousamra Jr. and his captured co-conspirator, Tarek Mehanna. According to Muslim community members, Tarek Mehanna and Abousamra Jr. were “thick with Masood” and had been radicalized by his preaching.

The Tarek Mehanna / Abousamra Jr. partnership and Mehanna’s subsequent arrest has spawned a popular radical movement that lobbies, among other things, to free Tarek Mehanna from prison. It is called the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee – and it has a large presence in Boston. Many of its members are former students of Hafiz Masood.

Watch this NECN interview with Ilya Feoktistov  of Americans for Peace and Tolerance on the Abousamra MAS radical connections in Boston:

This is a cautionary tale to show how sophisticated members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)  immigrated to  the US to create networks of mosques. Mosques controlled by MB affiliates  to engage immigrant radical Imams to educate young  American Muslims  in  Da’wa – the call to extremist Salafist Jihad ensnaring them into a life of Islamic Terrorism.