Imagine walking down the street in the heart of your city, and a car bomb suddenly explodes, or some idiot yelling “Allahu Akbar!” detonates the bomb that they have strapped to their waist, killing and wounding dozens of Americans.

Could it happen here?  Most assuredly.

 According to European intelligence officials, a group of Islamic Terrorists from the German city of Hamburg are believed to be at the heart of the recent al Qaeda plot to launch co-ordinated terrorist attacks against European cities,

The plan caused the U.S. State Department to issue a Europe-wide security advisory for Americans traveling in Europe.

Western intelligence officials learned about the plot when Ahmed Sidiqi, a German citizen of Afghan descent was arrested in Afghanistan in July and taken to the U.S. Airbase at Bagram for questioning. He has not been charged and  he is co-operating with intelligence sources in Germany.

In early 2009 Sidiqi and ten others left Hamburg for the tribal areas of Pakistan.  Most of them joined an Islamic Terrorist group fighting U.S. and coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan, according to German intelligence officials.

Sidiqi told American interrogators that at least one member of his travel group was to be a “foot-soldier” in the plot, with other members of the group helping to plan the attacks.

According to German officials, the Hamburg group were all recruited from the Taiba mosque in Hamburg. In the 1990s the same mosque — then called Al Quds – was attended by the lead hijacker in the 9/11 attacks, Mohammed Atta.

A friend of Atta from those days has emerged as a crucial figure in the new plot. Naamen Meziche, 40, a French citizen of Algerian descent, worked to persuade a number of young men praying at the Taiba mosque to fight Jihad. His whereabouts are unknown.  He is thought to be in the Afghan/Pakistan border area.

According to a European counter-terrorism official, Meziche had longstanding connections to al Qaeda dating back to the 1990s.  He used these connections once he arrived in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The group got together late in 2008, and most of them had left for Pakistan before authorities had a chance to prevent them, despite constant surveillance of suspected terrorists at the Taiba mosque.

In November 2008, an assault on hotels and other “soft targets” in Mumbai by members of Lashkar e Tayyiba, a terror group based in Pakistan, killed more than 160 people.

The Imam of the Taiba mosque in Hamburg is Mamoun Darkazanli, a German businessman originally from Syria. The 9/11 Commission identified him as having links to al Qaeda financiers. In 2003 he was charged with membership of al Qaeda by Spanish authorities, but as a German citizen was not extradited. He faces no charges in Germany.

After the “success”of 9/11, the Taiba mosque became the place to go for al Qaeda sympathizers across Europe.

According to an official with German Intelligence:

They all wanted to come and pray where Mohammed Atta prayed. 

Hamburg authorities finally shut down the mosque a few weeks after Sidiqi was arrested.

Officials in Hamburg said that the decision to shut the mosque was a difficult one, because the presence in one place of so many militants made it easier to monitor their activities.  They had to close it because the mosque had become a recruiting center for jihadists across Europe.

Several militants now back in Germany who failed to make it to Pakistan’s tribal areas are of continuing concern to German intelligence services, who have kept them under observation.

According to another German Intelligence official:

Their greatest enemy is the United States.

Well, duh.

A recent report by Hamburg’s intelligence services stated that 45 Muslim Terrorists lived freely and openly in the city, from where they actively supported al Qaeda. High evidence thresholds under the German legal system have made it very difficult for authorities to make arrests.  In addition to those actively supporting al Qaeda. another 200 Islamists living in the city are described as having “violent tendencies.”

German intelligence officials say that like many European cities, Hamburg faces a challenge from Islamist extremists, but that some cities, like London, have even bigger problems. They say they are increasing resources to confront the problem of Muslim extremism. They say that radicalization is on the rise because of the growth of German-language extremist websites and the revolution in social media.

A senior German counter-terrorism source said that some 200 individuals have left the country since 9/11 to receive training with militant groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, and that dozens have returned. According to German intelligence officials, the increase in U.S. drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan has not staunched the enthusiasm of German Muslims wishing to travel there.

Meanwhile, in New York City, United States of America…

From the New York Times:

Visitors to the upper floors of the Muslim community center planned for near (NYT’s word) ground zero would walk through lofty spaces — for art exhibitions, for contemplation and prayer, for programs on interreligious dialogue, for a 9/11 memorial — as sunlight streams through irregularly shaped windows between white crisscrossing beams.

The planners have not begun to raise the $140 million needed for construction or hired an architect.

An image of the façade has been in circulation since early this year, but last week the planners revealed renderings of how some interior spaces might look and how the center’s many amenities — including a restaurant, theater, day care center, gym and pool — might be stacked in a building of up to 15 stories.

There would also be a 9/11 memorial and a space open to people of “all faiths and of no faith” for prayer, contemplation and meditation, Mr. Gamal said.

The space for Muslims would be in the basement. Technically, it would be a prayer hall known as a musalla, because its construction would not meet rules required to sanctify a mosque.

Muslims who worship in a musalla often refer to it as a mosque or masjid.

On February 27th,2007, speaking to Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, in an interview since deleted from their archives, Barack Hussein Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

In fact, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, “with a first-class [Arabic] accent.”
The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada:

“Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet? ”

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This statement expresses a Muslim’s complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam. Obama chanted it with pride and finesse. 

And yet, this “Christian” falsely attributed a Biblical quote about “being his Brother’s Keeper” as spoken by Jesus Christ, when, in fact, it was spoken by Cain, the son of Adam, to God in Genesis 4:9:

Am I my brother’s keeper?

But, I digress.  If the Cordova Intiative/Park51/whatever they are calling themselves today comes up with the money to build the Ground Zero Mosque, the sounds of the Muslim Call to Prayer will be echoing, several times a day,  from the site of the worst Terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil, which killed 3,000 men, women, and children, that happened to be perpetrated by those who claimed to be devout Muslims.

Personally, I would rather hear this: