Boston Muslim Leader Tied to Radical Groups

(Boston Herald) - Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, Maggie Mulvihill and Kevin Wisniewski Osama M. Kandil, chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to construct a $22 million cultural center and mosque in Roxbury, is identified in a federal government affidavit as a member of what U.S. investigators have dubbed the "Safa Group," a complicated array of individuals and interlocking for-profit and non-profit entities allegedly involved in financing Islamic terrorism. The Islamic Society of Boston also has a longstanding relationship with Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, a radical Egyptian cleric whose vocal support of suicide bombings and the terrorist group Hamas prompted the State Department to bar him from entering the U.S. four years ago. Public records show that Kandil is also one of nine founding directors of the controversial Muslim Arab Youth Association. In the 2002 book American Jihad, author and Islamic terrorism expert Steven Emerson wrote that MAYA conferences "have regularly attracted a parade of top Islamic militants.''


2003-10-30 00:00:00

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