Madrid’s largest mosque was jihad recruitment center led by former Gitmo terrorist

There have been over 25,000 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11, each one with the imprimatur of a Muslim cleric and mosque. From the Boston bombings to the Fort Hood jihad, 9/11 to 7/11 — and all points in between — the theology is the cause for war and yet the top priority for law enforcement concerning mosques is — outreach.

Under oath, Director Robert Mueller admitted that the only contact the FBI had with the Boston bombers’ “radical” mosque was outreach. Mueller acknowledged that FBI counterterrorism training materials have been purged of references to “jihad” and “Islam,” and that counterterrorism agents have been restricted from doing undercover investigations at mosques.

Yet in spite of these realities — in spite of the fact that we know the recidivism rate for Gitmo enemy combatants is dangerously high — the Obama administration and our elected officials continue down this ruinous path.

— AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.
— AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.

“Madrid mosque was used to recruit combatants for Syria and Iraq,” by Fernando J. Pérez, El Pais, December 12, 2014 (thanks to Robert Spencer):

Madrid’s largest mosque was functioning as a Jihadist recruitment center led by a former Guantánamo prisoner, it has emerged.

Lahcen Ikassrien, 47, a Moroccan national who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and released after nearly four years in Guantánamo, was using the cafeteria at the Mezquita de la M-30 (named after the adjacent ring road) to recruit and indoctrinate new combatants for the fronts in Iraq and Syria, according to a High Court investigation.

Ikassrien is one of several people who were arrested in June in a raid against an international network that recruited jihadists for the terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has links to Al Qaeda.

Suspects’ relatives have confirmed that the men became more radical in their beliefs

Investigating judge Pablo Ruz this week prosecuted 15 members of that ring.

Suspects’ relatives have confirmed that the men became more radical in their beliefs after contacting with Salafist activists at the Madrid mosque.

The group called itself the Al-Andalus Brigade after the medieval name for Muslim-controlled parts of Spain and Portugal.

Hicham Chentouf, who joined ISIS in the fall of 2013, began visiting the mosque – whose formal name is the Cultural Islamic Center of Madrid – in 2010. After a year seeing Ikassrien’s people, Hicham grew a beard and embraced the strictest form of Islam. He was appointed imam of the mosque in Yunquera de Henares (Guadalajara), and in 2014 he began publishing pictures of himself brandishing AK-47 rifles on Facebook.

Another member, Ismail Afalah, left his job and joined ISIS in Syria after spending a year with the ring members at the Madrid mosque. His parents thought he was away on vacation….

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