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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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June 20, 2016
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IPT
Exclusive: Document Reveals Omar Mateen's Father Tied to Radical Islamist
Groups
by Abha Shankar
IPT News
June 20, 2016
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first of your friends to like this.
 The father of
Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen has longstanding connections to prominent
Islamist groups in the U.S., a document discovered by the Investigative Project on
Terrorism shows. Seddique Matin is listed as president of a then-new American
Muslim Alliance (AMA) chapter in Fort Pierce in a July 1997
announcement archived by the IPT.
The AMA sponsored several radical conferences in the U.S. and its
leader, Agha Saeed, has spoken in defense of convicted terrorists,
including Aafia Siddiqui (a.k.a "Lady al-Qaida"), Palestinian Islamic Jihad board member Sami Al-Arian, and Pakistani intelligence lobbyist Ghulam Nabi Fai.
The Fort Pierce chapter is among 10 new AMA chapters opened, the
announcement in an AMA bulletin says.
AMA was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in California
in 1994 "to educate the Muslim community and others on the history and
laws of the United States and on affirmative participation in civic
activities on a non-partisan basis." AMA's political activist wing,
the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council (AMPCC),
includes leading Islamist organizations in the U.S. including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the American Muslim Council (AMC).
 AMA no longer exists
as a registered nonprofit and it last filed tax returns in 2010. But the
organization continues to maintain an active Facebook
account. In its posts, the AMA refuses to consider any Islamist
motivation for the attack and lays the blame for Omar Mateen's massacre which killed
49 people at the Pulse nightclub solely on the country's lax gun laws.
The organization has a history of working with radical Islamist groups
and has issued statements in support of several terrorists later convicted
in the U.S. The FBI cut off outreach communication with CAIR, for example,
after uncovering evidence placing the organization and its leaders in a
U.S.-based Hamas-support network.
In October 2000, AMA co-sponsored a rally in Washington's Lafayette Park where AMC's
then-executive director Abdurahman Alamoudi announced his support for Hamas
and Hizballah.
In 2004, Alamoudi was sentenced
to 23 years in prison for illegal financial dealings with Libya. He also
confessed to taking part in a Libyan plot to assassinate then-crown prince
of Saudi Arabia.
In 2003, Saeed testified on Al-Arian's behalf, describing the man who ran "the active arm" of Palestinian Islamic
Jihad as "my friend and during the last ten years we have worked
together to mainstream American politics. We have worked together to
replace the culture of despair with culture of hope and the culture of
bullet with the culture of ballot." AMA's website also featured a section entitled "Valiant Civil Rights
Struggle of Dr. Sami Al Arian."
Saeed also penned an op-ed along with CAIR's then-national board
chairman Parvez Ahmed that called for Al-Arian's release from
prison during a subsequent contempt case. The op-ed criticized U.S.
counterterrorism efforts claiming "the saga of Dr. Sami Al-Arian is a
repeat of past incidents in American history in which our government
targeted individuals using unconstitutional and un-American tactics."
Saeed advocated "armed resistance" at a 1999 Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in Chicago:
"United Nations has a resolution...which says... people in Palestine
have the right to resist their oppression by using all means including
armed resistance...." Saeed was featured as a guest speaker at Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) conventions.
Evidence unearthed in a Hamas-financing trial in Dallas, showed IAP served
as a propaganda machine for the terrorist group in the U.S.
At AMA's 7th Annual National Convention in October 2002, Agha
Saeed indirectly blamed the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden was
contemptible, he said. "But I would like to say very respectfully, who
brought Osama bin Laden from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan? Who gave him
million[s] of dollars? Who trained him in [the] science of war, death and
destruction, deception and deceit? Who gave protection to his cause and
diplomatic coverage to his enterprise? Was it not President Reagan, when he
had to see mujahideen at the White House, he said, 'When I meet you I feel
as if I am in the company of the founding fathers of this country?'"
Years after working with AMA and its Islamist allies, the senior Mateen,
who hosts the Durand Jirga Show from California on the YouTube channel Payam-e-Afghan,
has been reported to be an ideological supporter of the Taliban.
He can be seen in one video declaring his candidacy for the Afghan
presidency. In another video, Mateen can be seen praising the Afghan
Taliban and referring to the terrorist group as "our warrior
brothers," the Washington Post reports.
While little information is known about Seddique Mateen's work with the
AMA, the 1997 newsletter shows the Orlando shooter's father has worked for
years with some of the most visible and radical Islamists in the United
States.
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