Northern Virginiastan: Some Shady Connections

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

I have previously reported on some of the activities at the Herndon Day Laborer Center. See "The [Muslim?] Origins of Project Hope." Seed money for that facility, when it drew on private funding, came from Project Hope and Harmony, founded by Mukit Hossain.

From a May 17, 2006 article "Kingdom of the Illegals," which appeared in FrontPage Magazine:

"...Lost in all the controvery, however, is the more disturbing fact that the site -- a covered building featuring picnic tables and bathrooms -- was founded by a Muslim charity with ties to suspected Saudi-backed terror front groups. Its town operating permit won't expire until the fall of 2007, allowing the group not only time to aid and abet hundreds more illegal immigrants, but possibly recruit them.

"The hiring center -- called the Herndon Official Workers Center -- is a charitable front for da'awa, or Islamic outreach to non-Muslims. Local law enforcement officials say the Saudis see new Hispanic arrivals to America as particularly ripe for conversion to Islam, and have even added an annex to their madrassa in another Washington suburb to help indoctrinate the beholden immigrants....

The madrassa is the Islamic Saudi Academy, of course--the alma mater of convicted aspiring Presidential assassin Ahmed Abu Ali. I previously reported on the Islamic Saudi Academy in "What about the Islamic Saudi Academy?" With regard to ISA, Mr. Sperry states the following:

"Located in Alexandria, the Islamic Saudi Academy a year after 9/11 helped set up a similar day-care center for Hispanic immigrants on its campus (which used to be the home of Mount Vernon High School before Fairfax County officials, in their infinite wisdom, leased it to the Saudi government). At one corner, day laborers routinely flock to a 'Pollo' chicken takeout. What better way to introduce them to Islam than to open an annex in the old home economics building just yards away?

"A spokeswoman for the little 'Progresso Hispano' school, which she confirms is operated in part by the Saudi academy, provides 'immigrant services' and 'English classes' to local Hispanics. She would not be more specific, and said the annex's website is 'down.'

"But a county notice of the special planning and zoning exception needed for the annex's approval in November 2002 says that Progresso Hispano 'provides ESL classes, job skill training, good parenting classes, citizenship classes and other support services to the Hispanic community.'

Those 'other support services' are what worry law enforcement authorities.

Now, back to Mukit Hossain:

"Stepping in last year to run the government-sanctioned site was an obscure group by the name, Project Hope and Harmony, which landed (in partnership with nonprofit Reston Interfaith) the $200,000 contract. The man behind the project is Muslim activist Mukit Hossain.

"But he's not just any activist. Born in Bangladesh, Hossain also runs a shadowy Muslim charity in Herndon which recently had its accounts closed by Wachovia bank due to suspicious activity related to possible money-laundering. The Foundation for Appropriate and Immediate Temporary Help, or FAITH, received a $150,000 donation last year from a front group run by Saudi bagman M. Yacub Mirza, whose home and offices were raided by federal agents after 9/11. FAITH helped establish the Project Hope and Harmony....

"[R]ecently, FAITH has become unusually interested in helping Hispanic illegal aliens.

"In addition to running their hiring site, FAITH's Hossain has organized feasts for hundreds of illegals during Thanksgiving, rounding them up and feeding them an intentionally nontraditional Middle Eastern dinner of beef kebabs and rice (instead of turkey and dressing) at Zuhair's Cafe in Herndon. He and other FAITH workers also gave away a van full of new winter coats (price tag: $10,000) to the Hispanic workers and their families. They've also raised money to buy them work boots and bicycles....

"Hossain serves as a member of the mosque's board of trustees when he's not working for FAITH and catering to Hispanic illegals. He's also a founder of the Muslim American Political Action Committee, or MAPAC, which he set up to recruit Muslim candidates to run for federal office and work for the 'empowerment of Muslim Americans.'

"What's more, Hossain is active in the Muslim American Society, which investigators say is the U.S. front for the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihad movement that gave rise to Hamas, PIJ and al-Qaida...."

The aforementioned mosque is the All Dulles Area Muslim Society [ADAMS Center], and Paul Sperry provides some interesting information about the ADAMS Center:

"Despite it claims of being moderate and progressive, ADAMS is a hard-line Wahhabi mosque controlled by the Saudis, investigators say. A Saudi pamphlet, called 'Religious Edicts for the Immigrant Muslim,' was recently found at the mosque. It states that 'it is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country (such as the United States) governed by infidels.' Not surprisingly, even some of the mosque's more prominent members, such as Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR, have not hidden their wish to turn America into an Islamic state."

On May 12, 2006, a few days before Mr. Sperry's article was published in FPM and shortly after the election in which the Herndon mayor and two councilmen, all supporters of the taxpayer-funded center for day laborers, were defeated at the voting booth, the Washington Post published a letter from Mukit Hossain:

"Project Hope and Harmony led the effort to create a site at which day laborers could congregate in Herndon. We felt it was a moral imperative to help those who badly needed help and to solve a community problem with the help of members of that community. Sadly, opponents of the site say that it serves illegal immigrants, and they found eager allies for that viewpoint among anti-immigration groups and self-righteous journalists.

"The site has done its intended job; it has ended the chaos on the street corners where laborers assembled in the heat, cold or rain in the hope of getting a job. Often, the day laborers were exploited. But apparently it doesn't matter how well the site works, how much it would cost to expel workers that our economy needs or how inhumane it would be to close the site: Critics still want the day laborer site shut down.

"Some say the public has spoken through the recent election. Some say the laborers would be better served by returning home and perhaps trying to come back as legal immigrants. Some say they don't want the 'illegals' to be put on a path to legalization. But the more I hear these opinions, the more I see them for what they really are: bigotry.

"I once saw a bumper sticker that read, 'Hate is not a family value.' Apparently, in Herndon, it is about to become one unless the decent silent majority reclaims the community."

If Paul Sperry's information is accurate, the above letter from Mukit Hossain takes on a degree of irony. And I keep remembering another uncomforable fact: Islam divides all the world into Muslim and "other."

Finally Paul Sperry's FPM article provides a reminder that illegal immigration can pose a national-security risk: