NY ATTACKER’S MOSQUE PROMOTED SITE ADVOCATING VIOLENCE AGAINST JEWS, WOMEN, GAYS

FrontPage: Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old Uzbekistan-born ISIS operative who killed eight people after driving a truck down a crowded bicycle path in New York City, worshipped at a mosque around the corner from his and his family’s Paterson, New Jersey residence, Masjid Omar bin al-Khattab. The mosque has been associated with a website that advocates committing violence against others. Because of this fact, the mosque itself should be considered a party to Saipov’s horrific crime.

On October 31st, Halloween, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, an Uber driver with known residences in Tampa, Florida and Paterson, New Jersey, drove a pickup truck he had recently rented to New York City’s Riverfront, on the West Side of Manhattan, and proceeded to plow into pedestrians and bicyclists along a stretch of one mile, before being shot and apprehended by police. Saipov had with him knives and a stun gun as additional weapons. A note found near the truck contained a claim that the act was done in the name of ISIS.

In court, the following night, Saipov was charged with one count of material support to a terrorist organization and one count of violence and destruction of a motor vehicle.

According to the federal complaint against him, Saipov told investigators he had become radicalized by watching ISIS videos on his phone and was inspired by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call for revenge on the United States. He said he had been planning the attack for the past year and that he chose the occasion of Halloween because he thought the streets would be more crowded then. He said he had considered placing ISIS flags on the truck but thought it would draw too much attention.

According to law enforcement, Saipov’s name may have come up, during previous investigations into other known terrorists or persons of interest, as an acquaintance of those being investigated. Question: Was Saipov self-radicalized and acting on his own or did he have help?

Saipov and his family attended Paterson’s Masjid Omar bin al-Khattab, aka Omar Mosque. In 2006, the NYPD ordered surveillance on the mosque, and according to a 2006 NYPD document, the mosque was “believed to have been the subject of federal investigations.” The surveillance program, which included a number of New York Metro Area mosques, was conducted in order to identify “budding terrorist conspiracies.”

The Omar Mosque was founded in 1994. Its corporation starting date is listed as July 1994.

The group’s website domain, omarmasjidnj.org, was purchased in July 2010. The first and what appears to be the only version of the website was uploaded in November 2010.

During its entire existence, before it was removed (The site is no longer up), the website’s top navigation bar contained a button, titled ‘ASK THE IMAM’ and linked to a mirror site of the controversial website Islam Q&A, giving off the impression that Islam Q&A was a function of the mosque. In fact, the mirror address itself was an actual page off the mosque website (masjidomarnj.org:80/Ask_the_Imam.html).

Islam Q&A or Islam Question & Answer (islamqa.info) is run by Islamic scholar Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid. The site is said to be the most popular Salafist (ultra-fundamentalist Islamic) website in the Arab speaking world. Al-Munajjid created the site to answer people’s questions from an Islamic viewpoint. Many of the answers provided by the site are unspeakably bigoted and violent in nature.  read more