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\u201cThe US Mosque Obama Has Chosen For His First Presidential Visit Has Deep Extremist Ties,\u201d by Chuck Ross, Daily Caller<\/a>, January 30, 2016 (thanks to Plamen):<\/p>\n The Baltimore mosque President Obama has chosen as the first U.S.-based mosque to visit during his presidency has deep ties to extremist elements, including to the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n The White House announced on Saturday that Obama will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) on Wednesday. He has visited several mosques overseas as president but has resisted visiting one in the homeland. The purpose of the trip, according to the White House, is to \u201ccelebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n But ISB is a curious choice for Obama\u2019s first domestic visit.<\/p>\n The mosque is a member of a network of mosques controlled by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror case. Several executives with that organization were convicted of sending money to aid the terrorist group Hamas.<\/p>\n An imam who served at ISB for a total of 15 years has also been a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood network and has worked for an Islamic relief group that was designated as a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in 2004.<\/p>\n Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, who served two stints as ISB\u2019s imam, from 1983 to 1989 and from 1994 to 2003, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan in the 1970s. He also co-founded the Muslim American Society, a Falls Church, Va.-based group that is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n While in Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as a regional director for the Islamic American Relief Agency. That group\u2019s parent organization is the Islamic African Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department says<\/a> provided funds to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n After leaving Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as imam at the infamous Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church. That mosque has a lengthy roster of known terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Its imam during much of the 1990s was Mohammed al-Hanooti. He was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people.<\/p>\n Dar al-Hijrah came under the control of Anwar al-Awlaki in 2001. He\u2019s the American al-Qaeda recruiter who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Nov. 2009, is said to have attended the Virginia mosque when al-Awlaki served there. The pair also reportedly exchanged emails. Two of the 9\/11 hijackers also attended Dar al-Hijrah during al-Awlaki\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n El-Sheikh took over at Dar al-Hijrah in Aug. 2003, a little over a year after al-Awlaki left. While there he defended Palestianian suicide bombings against Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cIf certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle,\u201d he said in 2004, according to a Washington Post article<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n As The Post reported Saturday<\/a>, ISB\u2019s website states that it seeks \u201cto be the anchor of a growing Muslim community with diverse backgrounds, democratically governed, relating to one another with inclusiveness and tolerance, and interacting with neighbors in an Islamic exemplary manner.\u201d<\/p>\n But that desire for tolerance \u2014 which President Obama frequently touts as well \u2014 does not appear to be a virtue shared by ISB\u2019s resident scholar, Yaseen Shaikh.<\/p>\n