Boston Marathon Bomber Given Death Penalty

A federal jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death on Friday after being convicted last month of 30 federal charges, 17 of which potentially carried the death penalty. Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan murdered three people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injured 260 others by planting bombs at the Boston Marathon in April 2013 in an act of Islamic terrorism on American soil. The two brothers also killed an MIT policeman while trying to escape authorities.

Now that this saga has been appropriately concluded, it is important to look at where Tsarnaev was indoctrinated to wage jihad which led him to receive the death penalty after committing such heinous acts.

Dzhokhar and his brother attended a Boston mosque associated with the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), an organization with numerous connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorists, some of whom are in jail.

ISB’s founder was Abdulrahman Alamoudi, a known Muslim Brotherhood operative and al-Qaeda financier who is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for facilitating an assassination plot against then-crown prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Aafia Siddiqui was a well-respected ISB congregant known as “Lady al-Qaeda” who also raised money for the terrorist organization and opened fire on FBI agents while being arrested in 2009 in Afghanistan. She was planning a large-scale attack on New York City and received 86 years in prison.

Furthermore, ISB’s second mosque in Roxbury, Massachusetts (its first one is in Cambridge), was funded by millions of Saudi Arabian dollars. One if its founding trustees is Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who is wanted by Interpol for incitement to murder.

Several other terrorists, Muslim Brotherhood operatives, and al-Qaeda or ISIS propagandists have been and continue to be heavily associated with ISB. Both the mosque and the organization have a system in place to indoctrinate individuals to believe in jihad and Muslim Brotherhood teachings.

The Center for Security Policy (CSP) has made an effort to make these facts known to the general public so that this entrenched jihadist activity in Boston can be exposed and countered effectively.

CSP recently created an advertisement showing the serious threat posed by the ISB mosques and how 12 specific jihadists who have carried out, supported, or caused violence against innocent civilians are associated with ISB. Unfortunately, the local Fox and NBC television stations refused to play CSP’s ad. It can be seen here, however, or on CSP’s website, securefreedom.org.

Despite the established threat posed by the Boston mosques, President Obama has used them as examples of his efforts to “counter violent extremism” in the United States. Leaders from the group were invited to Obama’s February 18, 2015 “Countering Violent Extremism Summit” held at the White House. Given ISB’s strong jihadist identity, this was a counterproductive initiative, to say the least.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s sentencing is a noteworthy story in itself, but it illustrates a larger point: he and his brother carried out the Boston Marathon attack because they were indoctrinated to believe it was their religious duty to do so. One must examine their history in an ISB mosque to understand this point and realize the Tsarnaev brothers are not isolated actors but part of the global jihad movement.

Only when the US government recognizes this fact can the world, led by America, truly push back and defeat threats from al-Qaeda, Islamic State, the Muslim Brotherhood, and similar groups. Using a jihadist factory like ISB as a model for how to counter such threats, as the Obama Administration is doing, is not an effective way to achieve these strategic goals.