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Rashid wasn’t at the safe house, but he was arrested at his home the same night. His wife, Alia, was out of town when it came down. She returned to New York and visited Rashid in prison. On the ride back, she found herself in a car with Siddig Ali’s wife, Shema. It was the first time the two had met.

“My husband told me if anything happened, there’s a righteous brother out there, you know, call him,” said Shema.

“What’s the brother’s name?” Alia asked.

“Rashid.”

“Well,” Alia replied, “the righteous brother’s in jail, so how can you call him?”

A number of people escaped prosecution, for various reasons. Bilal Philips had left the country but was named by prosecutors as an unindicted coconspirator (for which he blames Emad Salem). Today he lives in Qatar, where he works in Islamic education. Some years after the events in New York, he gave his view about the United States during a 2003 interview:

The United States considers any serious Islamic action as contrary to its cultural principles. I am one of those who believe that the clash of civilizations is a reality. So I say that western culture led by the United States is enemy of Islam, as it seeks to oblige the Islamic culture to accept its secular system.63

In a 2010 interview with the author, he did not back down from this view, although he phrased the premise in slightly softer terms:

[The] secular outlook on life, is completely, completely opposite to the shariah perspective, where everything is looked at from the perspective of God and the law of God. [ … ] So that obviously is a foundational clash. It’s a clash of concepts. I’m not necessarily saying it has to be a military clash, but it’s a clash of concepts, right? And then the issue of democracy, you know, where the fundamental concept of human beings making laws for the whole society, in all aspects, [is] again in conflict with the shariah perspective, where that is the role of God.64

One person who slipped through the cracks was former marine gunnery sergeant Qaseem Uqdah, the head of the Muslim Military Members organization, who provided Philips and al Qaeda member Tahir with information about Muslim soldiers who could be recruited for the Bosnia project.

During his trial Rashid used a false name when testifying about “the marine sergeant,” and JTTF investigators never learned the marine’s name. The CIA had spotted Rashid and Philips together. After sneaking a look at documents carried by Philips on an international trip, they pegged him as someone who had an interest in infiltrating the U.S. military, but Uqdah never came to their attention.65

Uqdah was subsequently hired by Abdurrahman Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council (AMC) to head outreach to Muslims in the military, an operation that later spun off into its own organization, the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council (AMAFVAC).

In his capacity with AMC and later with AMAFVAC, Uqdah was responsible for selecting, training, and certifying Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military. The chaplaincy program was created in large part thanks to Philips’s success in converting soldiers during the Gulf War. Uqdah continues to be involved with the certification of Muslim military chaplains to this day.66

I began trying to reach Uqdah for comment on the Bosnia program in May 2009. I followed up with periodic e-mails through 2010 describing the general nature of my questions and my contacts with Rashid and Philips. While writing this book, I also began trying to reach him by phone. Calls to his office were met with a busy signal; calls to his cell phone went directly to voicemail; calls to his home went unanswered.

Finally, in November 2010, I placed a call to Uqdah from a Washington, D.C., phone number, which I had not provided to him in my e-mails. This time, I got through.

We spoke for about ten minutes. Uqdah informed me he had received my previous messages and that he was dealing with serious health issues. He said he was focused on his family and his health and would not comment on anything