oh no you couldnt make this one up

An internal FBI investigation into its counterterrorism training has
purged hundreds of bureau documents of instructional material about
Muslims, some of which characterized them as prone to violence or
terrorism.

The bureau disclosed initial findings from its months-long review
during a meeting at FBI headquarters on Wednesday with several Arab and
Muslim advocacy groups, attended by Director Robert Mueller. So far, the
inquiry has uncovered and purged over 700 pages of documentation from
approximately 300 presentations given to agents since 9/11 — some of
which were similar to briefings published by Danger Room last year
describing “mainstream” Muslims as “violent.” And more disclosures may
be forthcoming, as the FBI continues its inquiry and responds to Freedom
of Information Act requests for the documents themselves.

FBI spokesman Christopher Allen confirms to Danger Room that the
bureau found some of the documents to be objectionable because they were
inaccurate or over-broad, others because they were offensive. Allen
explains that the documents represent “less than 1 percent” of over
160,000 documents reviewed by the inquiry, which was prompted by a Danger Room investigation in September.
The FBI purged documents according to four criteria: “factual errors”;
“poor taste”; employment of “stereotypes” about Arabs or Muslims; or
presenting information that “lacked precision.”

Danger Room uncovered several such documents in the fall, including some instructing FBI counterterrorism agents that “mainstream” Muslims sympathized with terrorists;
that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult” leader; and that the more
“devout” a Muslim was, the more likely he would be to commit a violent
act. Some documents even purported to graph the correlation. The FBI initially said the instruction occurred “one time only.” But when Danger Room uncovered additional anti-Islam materials — in briefings that compared Islam to the Death Star; in books on the shelves of the FBI training library at Quantico; and in pages hosted on internal FBI websites — the bureau began an extensive internal review.

Salam al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public
Affairs Council, attended the FBI meeting. He came away worried that the
volume of anti-Muslim training documents hands al-Qaida an unnecessary
win.

“People will report criminal activity to the authorities, that’s been
proven time and again,” Marayati tells Danger Room. “But if we are
giving propaganda to al-Qaida, resuscitating this dying ideology that
al-Qaida is promoting, by continually exposing anti-Muslim propaganda
published by the government, that undermines our pluralism, which is the
best defense against any transnational ideological threat.”



Others think that the FBI can’t stop at purging internal documents.
“It’s a bit hard to avoid the conclusion there isn’t a problem of
culture in the [FBI] training division,” says Maya Berry, executive
director of the Arab-American Institute, whose subordinates also
attended the meeting. “It’s one that appears to have some built-in
biases when it comes to the Arab-American and Muslim-American
communities.” Allen declined to respond.

But the FBI isn’t finished. The bureau plans to publish a “touchstone
document” in the coming weeks that explains its criteria to ensure new
anti-Islam documents won’t enter counterterrorism training in the
future. Similarly, the Justice Department plans on March 21 to release
“Cultural Competency” guidelines for dealing with Arab and Muslim
communities on counterterrorism, according to Xochitl Hinojosa, a
department spokeswoman.

Several civil-rights advocates said they appreciated Mueller’s
personal attention. The Wednesday meeting had been scheduled by the
FBI’s public-affairs arm, whose deputy assistant director, Jeff Mazanec,
briefed the groups for about 40 minutes before Mueller unexpectedly
joined.

“Director Mueller acknowledged the seriousness of our concerns and
expressed a commitment to maintaining contact with the inter-religious
community,” says Rev. C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance,
another attendee at the meeting. Mueller “seemed to understand the hurt
and pain as well as the fear, engendered by the offensive, inappropriate
and insensitive materials.”

But the worst may not have passed. Allen acknowledged that the internal review, assisted by the Army’s counterterrorism specialists at West Point,
hasn’t yet concluded. Several additional organizations have filed
Freedom of Information Act requests for the specific offending
documents; attendees came away with the impression that their disclosure
will be ugly.

The White House ordered a government-wide review of counterterrorism
training late last year. A Pentagon document responding to the order cited Danger Room’s series as an impetus for the effort.

Berry says she could “see the seriousness with which [the FBI] has
approached this.” But she calls the problem a “systemic” one, with
urgent implications for U.S. domestic counterterrorism — a concern voiced by Attorney General Eric Holder as well.

“They’ve never owned this problem. It’s not a problem of outside
contractors,” she tells Danger Room. “They’re producing these kind of
documents that inhibit our counterterrorism efforts. We need our
communities engaged, and these have done nothing but alienate us.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/hundreds-fbi-documents-muslims/

A harrowing 911 call captured a terror suspect with ties to Al Qaeda
screaming a final prayer to Allah during a 100 mph suicide run across
the Whitestone Expressway.

“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger!” defendant Adis Medunjanin howls in Arabic during the 33-second recording from January 2010.

The unrattled police operator replies, “Hello? Do you need the police, fire department or the ambulance?”

Medunjanin, 27, who survived the run, faces trial this April as a
co-conspirator in a subway bombing plot set for the ninth anniversary of
the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

He bolted from his Queens home in his Nissan Ultima within an hour
after an NYPD detective detailed Medunjanin’s alleged ties to Al Qaeda
and the bomb plot.

Officials believe he was trying to martyr himself when he flew down the
roadway at 100 mph before slamming his car into another vehicle. Nobody
was killed in the crash.

In the 911 recording, Medunjanin — the sound of traffic in the
background — tells the operator, “This is Adis. We love ... we love
death.”

“He wants to know what?” the operator replies.

“You love your life!” he shouts in Arabic. “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger!”

The call goes dead after the operator asks for Medunjanin’s location.

Medunjanin, a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen, pleaded not guilty to charges in the plot. His attorney, Robert Gottlieb, opposed the public release of the 911 call from his client’s cell phone.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/recording-911-call-reveals-terror-suspect-adis-medunjanin-howling-a-prayer-allah-article-1.1022625#ixzz1mZeNlnQf