Bad CAIR day: Ex-staffer pleads guilty to terror charges, Senate asks questions on 9/11 anniversary

The second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was a bad day for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been struggling to overcome its reputation as a front group for Islamist terrorists.

Senators at a September 10 terrorism and homeland security hearing ripped into CAIR for its ties to the Hamas suicide bombers.

As if that wasnt bad enough, on the same day CAIRs former community affairs director pled guilty to committing bank and visa fraud while running an Islamic charity that the US calls a front for associates of Osama bin Laden.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad canceled his appearance as a witness at the hearing, held by Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security Chairman Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Awad hid behind a written statement on which the Senators could not cross-examine him.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) assailed CAIR for having intimate connections with Hamas, a group that receives substantial funding from Saudi Arabia and subscribes to Wahhabist teachings, and criticized the group for not showing up. Said Schumer, “I wish they had taken us up on our invitation so they could explain themselves.”

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called CAIR unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect. He said he hoped that in future terrorism hearings, mainstream groups of Muslim Americans that are fully supportive of our war on terrorism would be invited to testify.

The hearing was the second in a planned series that Senator Kyl has designed to explore how Wahhabi money and direction is building a terrorist infrastructure in the United States. He called for the government and all Americans to improve our ability to connect the dots between terrorists and their supporters and sympathizers.