Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…

Posted on by

As a follow-up to our earlier series on the New Year’s Day explosion and fire in Minneapolis, our English correspondent Seneca III presents some interesting additional discoveries about the 500 block of Cedar Avenue South.

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…
by Seneca III

“Why then a final note prolong, Or lengthen out a closing song,
Unless to bid the gentles speed, Who long have listed to my rede?
To Statesmen grave, if such may deign, To read the Minstrel’s idle strain,
Sound head, clean hand, and piercing wit, And patriotic heart — as Pitt!”

L’ENVOY – TO THE READER, from Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott’

L’Affaire Cedar Avenue resonates at many levels with many people. As with all such things, on occasion time and persistence can produce signs of a viable crop on what may have at first appeared to be fallow or — as in this case, I suspect — deliberately poisoned ground.

Even in the convoluted world of politically correct counter-terrorism that multiculturalism has thrust upon us, it is axiomatic that hasty denials on the part of the Executive, quietly overseen by Representatives of the Legislative — be those denials specific, implied or in the form of questionable attributions — carry with them serious risks in the presence of somewhat less than credulous enquirers. For such denials to succeed they must be predicated upon a precise appreciation of what can and cannot be extracted from information freely available in the public domain — or, if you will, what is not open to deniability.

So let us have a look at two events that preceded the descent of the actual circumstances surrounding the explosion/fire, and particularly its aftermath, into the smoke and mirrors of Minnesotan and Beltway politics.

1. The Adventures of Johnny Northside

Civic pride and activism can take many forms. For at least a decade now in Minneapolis a particular citizen has been waging a one-man campaign against the scourge of graffiti and blogging his efforts under the name of johnnynorthside[1]. Whilst the problem of graffiti is not confined to any one locale either nationally or internationally, nor would it appear that this campaign is directly related to the happenings on 01/01/14 and immediately after, it does unknowingly raise a few questions in other respects.

Here are two of his photographs said to be dated 2008 or 2009…

…which show the same (armoured) door in the mosque next to 514-510…

…as in the Google Street View of June 2011, but which is now sans the instruction to use the back entrance.

What first drew my attention to the second of the photos above is that Fadlan, when used as a proper noun, is a male Somali name although it is not that much in common usage. However it eventuates that the verb fadlan means ‘please’ in Somali (it probably has its roots in the Arabic ‘min fadlik’, also meaning ‘please’) and after a bit of searching it turns out that Fadlan, Ka soo Albaabka Danbe does indeed translate directly to Please, Use [the] Back Entrance.

Nevertheless, there is a further item of interest on the door — the circular logo above the bi-lingual instructions on the white panel and which appears to be the logo of Dar Al-Hijrah…

…not of the Islamic Civic Society of America — unless, that is, they are the same thing.

In consequence this short sequence of photographs begs several questions, (in no particular order):

  • Why is the door armoured?
  • Why were visitors directed to the back door at that time?
  • Why was the sign removed at some time between 2008/09 and 2011?

…and, most important of all,…

  • What actually is Dar Al-Hijrah and what are its objectives? (see 4, below)

2. The Minnesota Martyrs

In august of last year (2013) there were a flurry of news reports focussing on a recruiting video** released by Al Kitab (in Arabic Al-Kitab means ‘The Book’) the propaganda arm of the Somali terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab, wherein the lives and deaths of three Jihadi recruits from Minnesota (via Cedar-Riverside?) was detailed and lauded. This video was also reported upon widely beyond Minnesota including in the UK Daily Mail[2] newspaper, the recollection of which finally rang my bell. My review of the many news reports this video release prompted produced two the content of which caught my eyes and ears. The first was a CBS Local news broadcast[3] here that at about forty five seconds in, either with intent or by happenstance, ran this street view of Cedar-Riverside showing the now well-familiar 514-510 building and its adjacent mosque followed by the reporter stating “For the past seven years federal agents have been investigating and prosecuting a Minnesota terror pipeline recruiting young Somali men here in Minnesota into Al Qaeda and Al-Shabaab training camps overseas.” Just prior to the reporter’s short on-screen interview with an FBI agent who confirmed this was indeed the case.

(**YouTube pulled the full version very shortly after its release.)

Another video on YouTube from the same period at 1:19 was explicit about the jihadi-recruiting activities that had long been taking place in the Cedar-Riverside Area here:

3. A Short Time Line

January 2014   The Explosion/Fire at 514-510 Cedar Avenue South.
August 2013   The Minnesota Martyrs video was released by Al-Kitab.
June 2011   The first known date when the ‘Fadlan, Ka soo Albaabka Danbe’ plate with the Dar Al-Hijrah Cultural Centre logo was seen to have been removed.
2009   The year that the Minnesota Martyrs video alleges the ‘martyrs’ were recruited.
2008/2009   The period when the photograph showing the Cultural Centre logo was taken.
2006-2013   The period during which “…federal Agents have been investigating and prosecuting a Minnesota terror pipeline…”
 

4. Dar Al-Hijrah

(a)   The Arabic word Dar means ‘House of’ and when coupled with ‘al’ and a noun means a major division either in a cultural/geographic or an ideological sense such as Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) or Dar al-Harb (House of War). The Arabic word for house in the context of being a home is Bayt.

Hijrah can mean immigration or flight in general but most particularly as is implied through the use of the related word Hegira it specifically means the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD marking the beginning of the Muslim era. (my bold)

To the Muslim mind, particularly those dedicated to the ultimate aim of Islam (global conquest) these words and the phrase Dar Al-Hijrah carry strong and impelling undertones of the eternal quest for Islamic hegemony through the various forms of Jihad.
 
(b)   The Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque & Cultural Centre on Cedar Avenue is most probably either an ideological clone or a direct subsidiary of the main Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Centre located in Culmore, near Washington DC, (well inside the Beltway). It — the Washington incarnation — was/is substantially Saudi-funded and has an impressive track record of being fronted by and having as its Imams (amongst them the Al Qaeda recruiter and motivator Anwar al-Awlaki — from January 2001 to April 2002) an interesting collection of ‘integrationists’, a major percentage of whom have been indicted for or accused of or investigated for un-American activities, links to terrorism and the funding thereof, plotting to assassinate a US president (George Bush) and obstruction of justice to name but a few. Al-Awlaki has been linked to various terrorists including three of the 9/11 hijackers, the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas day 2009 bomber.

[A comprehensive overview of the history, leadership and activities of this establishment would be too long to iterate here but, for once, Wikipedia does a good job[6] of summarising it and it is well worth reading in full if you wish to get the flavour of the mind set of those who run and attend it and its sister establishment in Cedar Avenue.]
 

5. Summary

(a)   The suburb known as Cedar-Riverside, wherein is situated 514-510 Cedar Avenue and its adjacent Islamic Civic Society of America & Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque(c), has long been known as a prime recruiting site for the international terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab and others. Not only did this information enter into the public domain in a blaze of publicity in the fall of 2013 but the reports (above) indicate that this information has been in the hands of the authorities, particularly the FBI, for significantly longer, probably as far back as 2006.
 
(b)   The apartments above it (514-510) were apparently all occupied by single men[5], most if not all of them Somali immigrants, a prime target for jihadi recruiters and also an ideal audience for the on-line sermons of such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Anwar al-Awlaki(c).
 
(c)   Odds are that the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque & Cultural Centre on Cedar Avenue is either an ideological clone or a direct subsidiary of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Centre located in Culmore near Washington DC, an establishment which over many years has been caught carrying some very substantial Jihadi baggage.
 
(d)   Somali political and cultural organisations appear to have a particularly strong influence in Minnesota; the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party (DFL) has within it a strong Somali-American Caucus representing the Somali community, and a Somali-American chairs the Republican Party’s Immigrant Relations Committee in Minnesota. Also:

(i)   Quote[5] — “U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minneapolis, stopped by the scene Thursday [02/01/14] and said he was there to help, though it is unclear what the federal response would be to such a fire. Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, said he had been in the [Dar Al Hijrah] mosque many times.”
 
(ii)   Quote[5] — “We pray that they [the missing] are found and can resume their lives,” Noor** said Thursday. “We come together as Somalis, as East Africans and as Minnesotans to pray for them[3].” (The order of loyalties here is interesting ,to say the least.)
    ** Mohamud Noor, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota.
 

 

6. Conclusions:

Cedar-Riverside, the building at 514-510 Cedar Avenue South, and its next door neighbour the Mosque appear to have been a locus of subversive/and or terrorist activity for many years and this simply cannot have escaped the attention of the authorities. In fact, the FBI agent who appeared briefly in the CBS Local report on the Minnesota Martyrs promotional video clearly observed that it had not.

The substantial Somali diaspora that has planted its roots in Minnesota and the Twin Cities has become politically powerful at a local and possibly a State level, and a significant proportion of these Politicals appear to be closely associated with or members of an organisation, the Dar Al-Hijrah movement, that has a track record of promoting terrorism and being closely associated with Jihadi organisations of all shades and affiliations.

Yet, despite or because of all of this there was a rush to judgement, a rush to deny any possible hint of (Muslim) terrorist activity, a rush to propose that a gas leak was responsible for the explosion and fire despite all of the contradictory evidence and, most of all, a rush to needlessly destroy any and all forensic evidence that might have enabled a thorough investigation and thus lead to an open, considered and expert analysis and conclusion.

This whole farrago stinks of a PC-motivated cover-up, and that stink will not go away no matter what dissembling establishment air-fresheners are sprayed over its carcass.

— Seneca III, Middle England, February 2nd, 2014.

References

1.   More photos of 516 Cedar Avenue
2.   The Daily Mail
3.   CBS Local
4.   YouTube video
5.   Star-Tribune
6.   Wikipedia
 

Previous posts about the explosion and fire in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis, on New Year’s Day 2014:

2014   Jan   1   A Fiery Dawn in Minneapolis
        2   Enter DHS — It Was a Gas Leak
        2   The Gas Company Says: “No Way!”
        3   Body #2 Found at Cedar Avenue
        3   A Funny Smell in Minneapolis
        4   Applying Occam’s Razor
        5   What the Police and the Gas Company Really Said
        5   Fiat Lux — 514-510 Cedar Avenue South, Part I
        7   Welcome to Minnedishu!
        7   Fiat Lux — 514-510 Cedar Avenue South, Part IIA
        8   Fiat Lux — 514-510 Cedar Avenue South, Part IIB
        19   Fiat Lux — 514-510 Cedar Avenue South, Part III
        20   Ember Days
 

For links to previous essays by Seneca III, see the Seneca III Archives.

18 thoughts on “Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…”

  1. “With one meeting as a newly appointed Minneapolis school board member behind him (was sworn onto the school board on Dec. 10, after its members voted for him to succeed the late Hussein Samatar), Mohamud Noor now is hoping to wrest a legislative seat away from a formidable incumbent. Noor announced this week that he’s seeking DFL endorsement for the seat held by state Rep. Phyllis Kahn, now in her 22nd term.”

    http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/238190961.html

  3. Back in 2011, JihadWatch.org posted a thread discussing that Virginia mosque titled: Virginia mosque where Awlaki was once imam: Awlaki “was known for his interfaith outreach, civic engagement and tolerance in the Northern Virginia community”
    Robert Spencer specifically noted:

    Al Awlaki is not the only person associated with Dar Al Hijrah that has cast an unfavourable light on the mosque. Nidal Hassan Malik, the man behind the Fort Hood shooting, attended the mosque in 2001 when Al Awlaki preached there. It is alleged they kept in contact.

    In response to that thread, a commenter using the identity “dumbledoresarmy “ responded:

    It’s called ‘Dar al Hijrah’, eh?
    That means ‘land of Migration’.

    Hegira.

    Mohammed and the Muslims migrated from Mecca to Yathrib/ Medina.

    They **took over** in Medina.

    That’s what hegira is about…going somewhere and then, by subversion and/ or violence, **taking it over**.

    The name of this mosque shows that its founders regard the USA as a ‘land of Migration’.

    Like Yathrib/ Medina.

    For more, see the following book on Islam’s doctrine of migration. For Muslims, migration = invasion and colonisation.

    Modern Day Trojan Horse: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration
    By [ex-Muslim] Sam Solomon and Elias Al Maqdisi

    Reviewed here (American Thinker)

    August 16, 2009
    The Hijra
    By Janet Levy

    Excerpt:

    “Hijra is immigration designed to subvert and subdue non-Muslim societies and pave the way for eventual, total Islamization.

    “In their compelling book, “Modern Day Trojan Horse: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration,” authors Sam Solomon, a former professor of shari’ah law and convert to Christianity, and Elias Al Maqdisi, an expert on Islamic teachings, explain the migration of Muslims to the Dar-al-Harb, the “land of war,” as a religious edict with a basis in Islamic doctrine.

    “They delineate the step-by-step process of this 1,400-year-old strategy of conquest.

    ” It is a transitional strategy which they characterize as the most important step in spreading Islam and preparing for jihad.

    “From their carefully delineated treatise on Hijra, it is clear that migration in concert with military conquest comprise the bookends of Islamic expansionism.”

  4. Hijra – Islam’s goal is worldwide domination. And Hijra is the activity that gets them there. First, they start in a new territory, say America, where they are weak. They gain in strength as time passes and Muslims invade the land. All the while they are trying to impose sharia law upon the population. When they are strong enough, jihad breaks out and the war is on. This is the classic example of Mohammed and most Americans are clueless to the evil right before our eyes. Wake up and push these evil peoples out of our land, that is unless we want to serve them.

  5. Quote:

    “(d) Somali political and cultural organisations appear to have a particularly strong influence in Minnesota; the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party (DFL) has within it a strong Somali-American Caucus representing the Somali community, and a Somali-American chairs the Republican Party’s Immigrant Relations Committee in Minnesota “

    Coincidence?

    Islamic group once tied to terror trial received thousands in farm subsidies, without growing crops

  6. All of this Hegira hogwash would be the stuff of idle “if only” discussions in coffee shops in Egypt, Saudi, and Somalia if we just had kept them out.

    Like the saps we are, we imported this fungus.

    • “If only” we had just kept them out…indeed.

      Do you remember the huge exodus out of the US by bin Laden family members? Eight days after 9/11 they left Logan Airport…Just shows you what one man can do with 54 children and a few billion dollars.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family#The_bin_Laden_flights

      Anyone know of a good account of the divvying up by Europe of the Middle East into “states”? I’d especially like to know of one that discusses what must have been a deliberate decision to refuse the Kurds their own state…by now it would be another Israel in terms of productivity.

      • Well, we Brits, and the French, had a lot to do with it.

        Re the Kurds: Attaturk emphasised the importance of Turkey’s maintaining what was left of its territorial intergrity after the Ottoman Empire collapsed; Iran, previously Persia, likely considered its Kurdish segment part of its historical territory (this is my guess, not any kind of expertise); Iraq was, I believe, welded together so that Britain could extract the oil… But I’m no expert, Dymphna, and hope someone who is can add more.

  7. Be it noted that ” Dar al-Hijrah” is also the name of the northern Virginia mosque where the late and unlamented Anwar al-Awlaki was an imam between January 2001 and April 2002. During that time, convicted Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hasan attended that mosque, as did 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour.

  8. Tuesday February 4th are caucuses in Minnesota. If you are reading this and live in Minnesota (and especially if you are Republican), you MUST attend caucuses and you MUST go with the intent of becoming a delegate to your local BPOU (Basic Political Organizing Unit) convention and to then be elected a delegate to the Congressional District (CD) and State Convention at the BPOU convention. This is life or death. We need a robust contingent of aware and knowledgeable counter-Jihadists in both parties if we are going to have an impact. It will cost money to attend the conventions. Visit [ caucusnight.com/free ] to get some basic info about caucuses. When you register on that site, put “GoV” in the “thoughts” section and I will contact you (I’m well connected). Visit http://caucusfinder.sos.state.mn.us/ to find where to caucus. I cannot stress enough the importance of doing this. I’ll also say the best chance you have of moving ahead through this process is by identifying yourself as a supporter of Jeff Johnson. But regardless, GO TO CAUCUSES. If counter-Jihadists don’t show up, counter-Jihadists won’t have a say.

  9. I just have a couple tiny corrections. Cedar-Riverside is just a neighborhood of Minneapolis and not a suburb. (I used to live a couple hundred feet from the site of the explosion, though that was long before the Somali influx.) Also, my Arabic dictionary doesn’t suggest that dar followed by al and a noun has the strong connotations you give it. Some examples it gives are dar al-kutub = public library (house of books) and dar al-shurta = police headquarters (house of police) and dar al-aytam = orphanage (home of the orphans). The first meaning given is “large and stately house,” so the idea (I think) is that it is something that is more than just an ordinary house.

    Other than that, thanks for all your work on this incident. It’s been very enlightening.

  10. Pingback: The Counterjihad Caucuses | Gates of Vienna

  11. Pingback: Targeting the Grid | Gates of Vienna

  12. Political update for Cedar Riverside

    Welcome to Your Future, America – Democrat Party Caucus Turns to Rioting and Mob Violence in Somali Muslim Area of Minneapolis

    The more Muslims we let into this country, the more our country will do politics like (expletive redacted) Egypt.

    (expletive redacted) Islam.

    KMSP-TV

    The MinnPost reported:

    The DFL caucus in Ward 6 Precinct 3 has a unique distinction among Minneapolis’ 119 gatherings Tuesday night: It’s the only one shut down by the authorities.
    The caucus at the Brian Coyle Center in Cedar-Riverside produced an overflow crowd of more than 300, a pre-caucus argument handled by the police and a subsequent physical attack on one of the participants.
    Eventually, staff from the Coyle center decided to shut down the event, and police quickly dispersed the crowd.
    Emotions had been running high more than an hour before the scheduled 7 p.m. start and escalated even more by caucus time in the Cedar-Riverside Somali stronghold.
    The cause of the uproar was the strong feelings among backers of longtime Rep. Phyllis Kahn and her challenger, Minneapolis School Board Member Mohamud Noor, who has strong support in the Somali community.
    A large number of Noor supporters had congregated at the community building more than an hour early. Shortly after, an argument over procedures broke out between the Kahn and Noor supporters.
    Staff at the center called in the police, and it looked like the argument had died down, but tensions lingered after the authorities left the room.
    The Kahn campaign remained concerned that Noor supporters from outside the precinct – and even the city — would show up to support his bid. Their concerns proved accurate in at least one case, when four Noor supporters from Brooklyn Park were turned away.
    The crush of people, at least 300, raised fire concerns, caused huge lines to get into the caucus and forced party staff to hold back attendees from clogging the registration area…
    …Ilhan Omar, a staffer for Minneapolis Council Member Andrew Johnson and vice chair of the Senate district, was attacked by a group of about five people.Then a Noor supporter launched herself into the fray and was eventually shoved into a police officer’s grasp.
    Police dragged the woman out of the building and handcuffed her, but eventually let her free. Omar escaped without serious injuries.

    Power Line has more.

  14. Islam is not a religion it is a criminal political agenda, that is why it is the fastest growing non religion in prisons. It allows/encourages lying cheating, theft, murder and rape of those who do not follow the non religion. It encourages and allows pedophiles. There is no way to list here what the last half of the Quran allows and encourages its followers to do in treatment of non followers. It is not a religion it is a manifesto for on going war on all of those who will not submit to their phony warlord, pedophile as the messenger of Allah. It is a cult of hate and death. Anyone who believes otherwise is a FOOL.

  15. Pingback: The Al-Shabaab Connection | Gates of Vienna

  16. Pingback: GATES OF VIENNA: THE AL-SHABAAB CONNECTION…….IN MINNEAPOLIS |

Comments are closed.