Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [49]
Once deposited with CARE, the money was often laundered through other fraudulent charities, including the Benevolence International Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation, both in Chicago, and to front organizations in Bosnia and Chechnya. In total, hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through CARE for distribution to jihadists and jihad-support organizations overseas.16
CARE was wired into a national network that included jihadist organizations in Texas, New Jersey, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Illinois. Working individually and sometimes in concert, this more diffuse conglomeration of groups continued the work of the original Al Kifah but also helped it evolve into new forms.
Most of the new breed positioned themselves as nonprofit charities, rather than political organizations, which would eventually provide the basis for prosecuting them after September 11. CARE was ultimately brought down on tax charges rather than for its promotion of jihad, as Aloke Chakravarty, the federal prosecutor who handled the case, explained to me:
It’s not the U.S. government’s role to ever persecute somebody for what they believe. Our case really has been a testament to the fact that it’s not what you believe or what you say that should ever result in some kind of culpability. This is all about freedom of expression. However, in our case, you don’t have a right to be subsidized to engage in your beliefs. And in our case, CARE International is one of many similar types of organizations that had obtained a tax exemption, so that U.S. taxpayers were actually funding them.17
One of CARE’s closest alliances was with the American Islamic Group (AIG), the official U.S. chapter of Omar Abdel Rahman’s Gamaat Islamiyyah. AIG was founded by Mohammed Zaki, the red-headed Egyptian who had saved the leg of Brooklyn mujahid Abdullah Rashid after he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan.
Zaki inspired fierce loyalty in those he met. One of his comrades described him as “a man whose like is rare nowadays,” telling a colleague that “you will be amazed by him.”18
After relocating from Brooklyn to San Diego, Zaki created AIG, along with a number of so-called charities that actually helped finance and supply the mujahideen in Bosnia and Chechnya, including the Islamic Information Center of the Americans and American World Wide Relief, also known as Save Bosnia Now. The first organization focused on fund-raising and propaganda; the latter helped fly mujahideen—including al Qaeda operative and naturalized American citizen Hisham Diab—from the United States to Bosnia so they could take part in fighting.19
Zaki traveled back and forth to Boston to take part in Al Kifah events and fire up crowds with his charisma and tough talk. At one point, Muntasser asked him to fly to Boston “because we are looking for a brother who knows about matters [in Bosnia] to give an inciting speech.”20
But unlike some of his peers, Zaki wasn’t only talk. In 1993 and 1994 Zaki traveled to Bosnia, where he fought alongside the mujahideen, becoming well-known as “Abu Umar the American.” He also made videotapes of the mujahideen camps, which he took back to the United States to use for fund-raising. In early 1995 he departed for Chechnya, telling a friend, “I hope that I will be granted martyrdom this time.”21
That wish was granted in May 1995. According to his comrades, Zaki was discussing the Koran with his fellow fighters when the class was shelled by the Russians. Zaki was the only casualty. Struck by shrapnel, he lingered briefly before dying. On his deathbed, he said that he had seen the virgins of paradise promised to jihadist martyrs, and “they told me I would follow them.” His supporters back in the United States took up collections for his family, a wife and four children left behind in San Diego.22
ISA AND ISMAIL: A STUDY IN CONTRASTS
Despite the best efforts of Al Hussam to