Cleveland Imam Arrested on Terror-Related Charges

Last February I discussed an exceptional story by Amanda Garrett in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in which ties between Cleveland-area imam Fawaz Damra and Islamic terrorist organizations were revealed:

It would appear that Damra did not have a change of heart after his hateful speech of 1991; it would appear that he, AT MINIMUM, still sympathized with the murder of Israeli civilians, and possibly contributed financial support for The Movement and Hamas, as recently as 2001. This is not going away, cannot be explained away, and this poison sits at this very moment at the center of the Cleveland Islamic community.

....President Bush was right - not simplistic, not paranoid - when he said you are either with us or against us in the War on Terror, which includes Palestinian terrorist's ongoing campaign against Israeli civilians. Cleveland's, and America's, Islams must decide where they stand in the war - no more coy riding the fence - and declare their position unambiguously. This supporter of terror, of murder, Damra, is a disgrace - his insidious influence must end.

Almost a year later, Damra has been arrested on federal charges, as relayed in another fine story by Garrett, along with John Caniglia:

Imam Fawaz Damra helped lay the groundwork for an organization that ultimately merged into al-Qaida in the late 1980s.

He was an unindicted co-conspirator of the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. And he passionately raised money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which killed dozens of Jews in Israel during the 1990s.

Yet Damra, spiritual leader to thousands of Muslims in Northeast Ohio, seemed to fly comfortably beneath the radar of U.S. terror investigators - until Tuesday.

FBI agents swooped in on the Palestinian cleric at his Strongsville home, arresting him on a relatively minor - and rare - charge for lying on his immigration forms a decade ago to conceal his ties to terror groups.

....In the mid-1980s, he co- founded the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., part of a network that recruited and trained Muslims to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a venture that dovetailed with U.S. government efforts in the region.

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