Looking Within

While the mosque leaders and parishioners may wonder what the Fort Dix six were busy doing at their mosques and whether there are others in their midst that might give their congregations a bad name, the New York Times can't quite figure out the connection between the six and Islam.

The Philadelphia mosque — along with the South Jersey Islamic Center in nearby Palmyra, N.J., where the Duka brothers and another suspect, Serdar Tatar, prayed on Fridays — has become associated with words like “terrorist” and “jihad” in news reports and on the streets in the last few days. For a house of worship long proud of its mainstream reputation and strong ties to the city, whispers of a sleeper cell within its walls have been troubling.

“There’s been a lot of frustration,” said Marwan Kreidie, who is prominent among the city’s Muslims and was recently asked to serve as a spokesman for the mosque. “This is a place with great relationships to the community, including a strong working relationship with law enforcement in all its forms.”

It is unclear what role, if any, religion played in the attack Mr. Shnewer and the five other men are charged with planning. (The sixth suspect, Agron Abdullahu, had no apparent connection with Al-Aqsa or the South Jersey Islamic Center.) The authorities have described the suspects as Islamic extremists, but the lengthy criminal complaint summarizing the F.B.I.’s 15-month undercover investigation of the group does not mention where — or how often — they prayed. Certainly there is no evidence that they picked up radical ideas at either mosque.

No, there's no mention of the mosques or where they prayed in the complaint, but the complaint is replete with examples of how the six were intent upon committing jihad. Or maybe look at the first page of the affidavit by the FBI That's killing in the name of Islam. There are indications that they came to view jihad as their calling through online interactions with various websites that are jihad incubators.

The jihadis do not need to be involved in an organized mosque to engage in jihad. While some jihadis do indeed get their marching orders from extremist imams, such as Sheikh Adbel Rahman who pushed for the 1993 WTC bombing and later landmarks plots, other jihadis do not necessarily have links to mosques or religious leaders.

It is quite possible that the Fort Dix six may not have gotten their ideological marching orders from the mosques, but from online. However, the NYT curiously omits the fact that at least some of the six members prayed at a Staten Island mosque and it is possible they may have prayed at other congregations.

UPDATE:
Eugene Volokh wonders what is going on with the NYT reporting of today's story about the Fort Dix six and the crossroads of the case and religion. He points to the original NYT reporting when the arrests were made public and noted the religious overtones of the affidavit and complaint. How they can now question whether religion played any role in the case screams of revisionism, ignorance, or correcting the original story unless they're purposefully ignoring the initial stories or are whitewashing the religious overtones of the case. If you read this story on its own and weren't familiar with the back story, you'd be scratching your head about the possibility that these six were engaged in jihad. Perhaps that is the point.

Others making the same point: Newsbusters, Discerning Texan, Hot Air, and Ace. Ace also notes that the NYT reporters don't seem to be too familiar with the NYT archives. That's a recurring theme when it comes to reporting stories that don't stick to the NYT party line.