NY Bomber Rahami’s Sister Posted Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood Fan Posts on Facebook

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@eksymons/Twitter
Edwin Mora
Washington, D.C.

The sister of Ahmad Rahami, the U.S. naturalized citizen of Afghan descent believed to be behind last weekend’s bombings in New York and New Jersey, posted radical Islamic material online, including a quote from an al Qaeda (AQ) co-founder known as Osama bin Laden’s predecessor and the “father of global Jihad” as well as Muslim Brotherhood (MB) propaganda.

Aziza Rahami, the sister, “posted a stream of anti-American and jihadist rhetoric online, as questions were mounting about how the FBI came to dismiss repeated concerns about Ahmad Rahami,” reports The Telegraph.

It adds:

Aziza Rahami, who is believed to have lived with the rest of the family above a fried chicken shop in New Jersey, is thought to have posted a series of messages in the summer of 2013 and early 2014 praising the September 11 attackers and quoting Osama bin Laden’s predecessor – a man known as ‘the father of global jihad.’

Also known as the late bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam is a co-founder of AQ who was killed by a car bomb in Pakistan back in 1989.

Aziza posted a quote from Azzam on Facebook in March 2014, saying: “If defending ourselves is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists!”

Ahmad reportedly ran a website, which he used to share his radical Islamist views, a form of expression that he appears to share with his sister.

The Australian reports:

Terrorists rarely run solo races and Ahmad Khan Rahami’s alleged journey to becoming the New York and New Jersey bomber is no exception: he has been ­surrounded by a sympathetically fanatical family bathed in radical Islamist and violent ­jihadist ideology.

After revelations brother ­Mohammad had joined him on trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan comes the case of the woman ­believed to be his bellicose sister Aziza, who posted a mix of pro-Islamic State, al-Qa’ida, and Muslim Brotherhood propaganda on social media…

In a nod to the Arab Spring, Aziza also published the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood hand symbol saying ‘yes to Khilafah Islamiyah,’ ‘No to Democracy’ and ‘No to Secularism.’

The mix of extremist influences matches her brother’s hodgepodge of jihad inspirations…Apologies for terrorism are a family affair in the Rahami clan.

MB, which was founded in Egypt and has spread to various Western countries including the United States, has been designated a terrorist organization by various nations, including Muslim-majority states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Despite suggestions that the alleged Muslim and suspected terrorists Ahmad was inspired by AQ and its rival the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), neither group has claimed to be affiliated with him or the bombings he carried out, which wounded 29 people.

Some analysts believe it is more likely that Ahmad was influenced by al Qaeda since he visited various places in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the group is known to operate. The Afghan Taliban has denied any involvement in the attacks.

The Australian points out:

While the FBI was ignoring Rahami’s father’s alleged 2014 appeal to arrest his ‘terrorist’ son, it was also failing to ­investigate Aziza, posting as Masood Maymunah, spreading incitements to attack ‘crusader’ Americans and Westerners, alongside jihadi sphere anti-­Semitic conspiracy theories about September 11, 2001.

Posts cited US-born cleric Sheikh Khalid Yasin, who inspired one of the jihadists who stabbed British soldier Lee Rigby to death on a London street in 2013.

A video from Yasin shared by Aziza was captioned ‘9/11 was done by the American government and then blamed it on the Muslims!’

Mohammad Rahami, Ahmad’s father, was born in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, known as an AQ stronghold and the birthplace of the Taliban. Like Osama bin Laden, who reportedly inspired the bomber, the father was part of the Afghan mujahedeen (jihadists) who fought the Soviet Army in the 80s.

The Telegraph notes:

[Ahmad] Rahami had been on multiple trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was stopped on his return to the US by border police, and had become increasingly violent – stabbing his brother and attacking his mother. He served three months in prison for the domestic violence, but a grand jury decided not to indict him.

The 28-year-old, according to the federal charge sheet published on Tuesday night, also ‘liked’ several jihadi videos on his YouTube page. And mobile phone footage from one of his siblings showed Rahami exploding a container in his backyard, days before the bombing.

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