U.S. authorities in Idaho said they have arrested an Uzbekistan Muslim national, Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, on federal terrorism charges involving WMD’s.

Huffington Post  The Idaho indictment alleges that between August 2012 and May 2013, Kurbanov knowingly conspired with others to provide support and resources, including computer software and money, to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a designated terrorist organization.

Fazliddin Kurbanov

Federal prosecutors said  he was arrested in Boise on Thursday after a grand jury issued a three-count indictment as part of a terrorism investigation.

The indictment charges Kurbanov with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The indictment also alleges he possessed an unregistered explosive device.

A separate federal grand jury in Utah also returned an indictment charging Kurbanov with distributing information about explosives, bombs and weapons of mass destruction. In count two, the indictment alleges Kurbanov provided material support to terrorists, knowing that the help was to be used in preparation for a plot involving the use of a weapon of mass destruction.

This Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

The indictment also alleges that on Nov. 15, 2012, Kurbanov possessed an explosive device, consisting of a series of parts intended to be converted into a bomb. Those parts included a hollow hand grenade, a hobby fuse, aluminum powder, potassium nitrate and sulfur.

The city and organizers were facing increased insurance and liability costs because of the lawsuits filed and won by Christians who have repeatedly been subjected to taunts and physical assaults outside the festival in the past.

Detroit Free Press (h/t Rob E)  The decision to cancel the festival comes after four years of tensions at the event between some Christian missionaries and local Muslims. Their encounters resulted in heated arguments, scuffles, some bottle-throwing and several lawsuits. 

Last year, one group of Christian missionaries brought a pig’s head and signs insulting Islam’s prophet, which drew a strong reaction from some children. Earlier this month, the City of Dearborn apologized and paid an undisclosed amount of money to a group of Christian missionaries arrested in 2010 at the festival for disturbing the peace. They were later acquitted.

Local Arab Americans were upset over the cancellation of the festival because the original intent of it was to highlight Arab-American businesses, which helped turn east Dearborn from a ghost town into a thriving commercial destination, said local leaders, (where non-Muslims increasingly dare not go)

As you watch the below video keep in mind

1.  The Christian Street preachers notified in writing the Wayne County Sheriffs Department they would be attending the festival.

2.  The Street preachers attended the festival last year and the police knew Ruben Israel and worked together in the past.

3.  Wayne County Sheriff’s Chose not to provide Mr. Israel with two officers to provide security as the crowds became agitated.

4.  Putting all these fact together one would conclude this was a Wayne County Sheriffs riot because Deputy Chiefs Jaafar and Richardson could have easily managed the situation and willfully abdicated their responsibility as public servants.

5. The street preachers never retaliated or said a negative word in anger to the Muslim rioters or law enforcement despite personal injury, cuts, bruises, spit, physical, and verbal abuse.

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When Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a 2010 ballot measure that prohibits state courts from considering Islamic law, or Sharia, the Council of American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit within two days challenging the constitutionality of the measure, and won. But when Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a similar measure, one that its sponsor said would forbid Sharia, on April 19 of this year, no legal challenges were mounted. Why the change?

Washington Post  The biggest difference is that the older bill — and others like it — singled out Islam and Shariah. The new bills, however, are more vague and mention only foreign laws, with no references to Shariah or Islam. They also make specific exceptions for international trade. All of that makes them harder to challenge as a violation of religious freedom.

“These bills don’t have any real-world effect. Their only purpose is to allow people to vilify Islam,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR’s legislative affairs director, of the more recent bills. (Islam and CAIR deserve to be vilified)

The change in language seems to have helped such bills advance in several states. And while these bills no longer single out Shariah, it is often understood that Shariah is the target, which many legislators make no secret of.

The driving force behind these new versions of anti-Shariah laws is (justifiable) “anti-Muslim bigotry plain and simple,” said Daniel Mach of the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking on a panel in Washington Thursday (May 16). To those agitating for such measures, “Islam is the face of the enemy,” he said. (No. Islam IS the enemy)

To date, Oklahoma is the sixth state — joining Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee — to adopt a law prohibiting courts from using foreign or international law, with some exceptions, in their decisions.

This year, at least 36 anti-foreign law bills have been proposed in 15 states, down from 51 bills in 23 states in 2011. While most of this year’s anti-foreign law bills have failed, several others, have advanced:

* A North Carolina legislative committee on Thursday sent a bill to the Senate after it had passed the House that would prohibit consideration of foreign laws in custody and other family law cases.

* On May 9, the Missouri legislature passed an anti-foreign law bill that goes next to Gov. Jay Nixon, who has until July 14 to decide whether he will sign or veto it. Nixon, a Democrat, has not indicated what he will do, and did not reply to a request for comment. (Because there is a veto-proof House and Senate, even if Nixon doesn’t sign the bill, it passes)

* In Alabama, Indiana and Texas, anti-foreign law bills have made it through the state senates, and are now either in house committees or awaiting full floor votes.

* An anti-foreign law bill in Florida that needed a two-thirds majority to pass fell one vote short, 25-14. Besides Florida, anti-foreign law bills have been introduced but were defeated, died, or are languishing in Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Despite the losses, David Yerushalmi, the Washington-based lawyer who drafted template legislation used for the anti-Shariah and anti-foreign law bills, said the anti-Shariah movement “is growing every day” and expects more states to adopt such bills in the future.

“People see the threat and also know that a bill that simply protects U.S. citizens and residents from constitutionally offensive foreign laws and judgments can only be a good thing,” Yerushalmi said.

But CAIR’s Saylor said that victory may prove elusive for the anti-Shariah forces. By stripping all references to Islamic law, the anti-Shariah movement has failed to restrict Muslim religious rights. “In terms of substance, it’s already been beaten,” he said.

Nevertheless, some observers worry that even these watered-down bills could still be interpreted in ways that impinge on Muslims’ religious freedom.

“While the foreign law bans are certainly less of a frontal assault on religious freedom than the anti-Shariah bills, they continue to raise concerns about bias towards minority faiths,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

“The bans cast a cloud of uncertainty over a myriad of arrangements, including family and business-related matters, simply because they have foreign or religious origins.”

She added that some bans on foreign law seem to require judges to reject any foreign law or judgment that comes from a country that does not protect rights in the same way the United States does, even if the case being considered does not raise any rights concerns.

Even CAIR won’t rule out the possibility of future legal challenges. “If someone tries to use these laws to undermine a person’s religious rights, we’re keeping all of our legal options on the table,” Saylor said.

The men are accused of smuggling more than a million cartons of untaxed cigarettes from Virginia to be sold in grocery stores across New York, with $55 million in sales uncovered so far.

RAY KELLY NYPD COMMISSIONER

YAHOO (h/t winterspirit78)  “We don’t know where all of that money went, but what we do know is deeply troubling,” Schneiderman said. “We know that some members of this group have ties to very dangerous people, we know they were arrested with weapons, we know that they made tens of millions of dollars but so far we have found only a fraction of that.”

Investigators are still tracking where much of the money ended up, but they noted similar rings in the past have funneled money to Hamas, the Islamist government in Gaza, and Hezbollah, the militant Shi’ite group based in Lebanon, both of which are considered to be terrorist organizations by the United States.

Two packs of Marlboro cigarettes, the one on the left with a New York City and state tax stamp, and on the right a Virginia tax stamp, are displayed for a photo, in New York. 

The traffickers had alleged links to known terrorists, including Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric serving a life sentence for a conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks. That combination has raised concerns about where the money went.

“We know they made tens of millions of dollars but so far we’ve only found a fraction of that,” state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said while announcing enterprise corruption and other charges against 16 people, all Palestinian MUSLIM  immigrants.

In a 224-count indictment, the men are charged with enterprise corruption, money laundering and other tax crimes, for which each defendant faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. In addition to costing New York State and New York City an estimated $80 million in lost sales tax revenue, the ring generated at least $10 million in profit, Schneiderman and Kelly said.

Authorities said the ring was headed by two brothers, Basel Ramadan, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 40, both of Ocean City, Maryland, who ran a couple of local Subway restaurant franchises. Investigators said they found $1.4 million stashed in Basel Ramadan’s home, some of it stuffed in black plastic trash bags, and three handguns following his arrest on Thursday.