Immediate Release

Phoenix – May 22, 2009 – Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), today warned that the foiled bomb plot in New York City is a “clear and calculated warning that well-coordinated extremists are on the move within the U.S.”  Four individuals were arrested Thursday in New York City on charges that they planned to detonate explosives at a Jewish synagogue and community center and shoot down U.S. military aircraft with surface-to-air missiles.

“The arrest of four individuals – three of whom appear to be U.S. citizens – confirms that homegrown Islamist-inspired terrorism is a clear and present danger,” said Dr. Jasser.  “Today’s arrests should be a wake-up call to America and especially to American Muslims that we are long overdue in countering the well-coordinated and well-funded Islamist programs which exist within the United States.”

• “The 2007 NYPD Radicalization Report is accurate – radicalization in U.S. prisons is an immediate threat.  This recent terrorist attempt on Jewish synagogues shows the NYPD Report was right.  The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) opposed that report because as usual they were in denial about the radicalization in U.S. prisons,” said Dr. Jasser.  “It’s now acknowledged that at least some of the alleged bombers were radicalized in U.S. prisons –Many Islamist imams are aggressively recruiting inmates in our prisons with ideologies that fuel ‘home-grown’ terror.”
• “It’s significant that this terrorist plot was targeted against synagogues, underscoring the dangerous hatred promoted by radical imams in American prisons,” said Dr. Jasser.
• “The solution begins with government rejection of Islamist apologist groups like CAIR, who are not representatives of the Muslims in America.  The FBI has recently rejected them and we support that decision.  We must engage the majority non-Islamist American Muslim community to reject political Islam and its fuel for radicalized Islam,” said Dr. Jasser.

Dr. Jasser, a devout Muslim and son of Muslim-Syrian immigrants, is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, physician and past president of the Arizona Medical Association.  Jasser is widely known as a moderate, anti-Islamist Muslim leader featured in the PBS film, Islam v Islamists produced by ABG Films, Inc. in 2007 and narrator of the recently released The Third Jihad produced by Clarion Fund, Inc. which focuses on the threat of radical Islam to America. Jasser appears regularly in print and on national TV and radio programs.

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About American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD)

AIFD is a think tank and activist Muslim organization which provides a platform for a movement to separate spiritual Islam from the political.

AIFD openly engages and challenges all American Muslims to proactively be in the forefront of the domestic and foreign struggle against the primary driving force of militant Islamism and its terrorist offshoots-the ideology of political Islam. Militant Islamists are fueled ideologically by a radicalization of the faith of Islam. This radicalization is fueled by both militant components and a more central political desire (Islamism) to establish Islamic states. Islamists view secular pluralistic societies like America as an anathema to Islam.

AIFD rather seeks to build coalitions of Muslims which not only reject the means of terror as an anathema to Islam but more globally reject the ends of the Islamic state which Islamists seek.

AIFD believes that the only way to genuinely wage the contest of ideas and counter the root cause of terrorism is for Muslims to be given ample opportunity for debate between one another– especially within the mosques. AIFD believes that the outcome of these debates between political Islam and non-political Islam will ultimately be one of the primary reasons globally for the decrease in the threat of homegrown terrorism. For more information see www.aifdemocracy.org.

(New York, NY – May 10, 2009) The Clarion Fund announced today that it will premiere its newest documentary film, The Third Jihad, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, May 13, 2009. In addition to the screening, several American Muslim groups have been invited to participate in a roundtable discussion where the film’s narrator, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser – a devout Muslim and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) – and its producers will speak out about the threat of radical Islam in America.

Clarion’s first documentary film, the award-winning Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, communicates the global threat posed by the radical elements of Islam. The Third Jihad shifts the focus to the growth of radical Islam on American soil via “Cultural Jihad,” the use of the democratic system to transform the American way of life from within to a society governed by Sharia Law (Islamic religious law).

“Clarion Fund recognizes the propagation of radical Islam and the promulgation of Sharia Law within our borders as a clear and present crisis affecting the Muslim American community and the American public at large,” said Peter Connors, Executive Director of Clarion. “Our educational tools and media properties will serve as a platform for the American public – including Muslims – to embrace Western liberties and speak out in a meaningful way to silence radical elements in our midst.”

Among these tools is RadicalIslam.org, the foundation of Clarion’s grassroots movement. The user-friendly website was developed to spread awareness about the threat of radical Islam in America as well as to provide practical response tools. For the launch of the film, the site has been redesigned to include up-to-the-minute updates from major news sources as well as social media-driven networking capabilities.

“We are focused on educating the American public about this eminent threat to their rights and freedoms, with the goal of bringing ‘Creeping Sharia’ to a screeching halt,” explained Raphael Shore, producer of both The Third Jihad and Obsession and the founder of Clarion. “We want to expose the true intent of radical Islam in order to secure the future of the American public at large, including its Muslim community.”

Among those organizations invited to participate in the roundtable discussion is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). However, CAIR has declined the invitation, a surprising turn of events considering the group’s usual insistence that a representative of their “mainstream Muslim” staff be present at such events to offer a “balanced perspective.” In fact, since the beginning of 2009, CAIR has requested such representation in at least three U.S. events focused on radical Islam.

“We invited CAIR and they said they wanted nothing to do with this film,” said Connors. “CAIR’s response is unfortunate, as The Clarion Fund believes that the only way to address this issue is to discuss it openly and honestly with those who agree with us and those who disagree. Then, based on that education, the American public can decide for itself.”

The Third Jihad, which is narrated by devout Muslim American Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, centers on the FBI discovery of a Grand Jihad Manifesto calling for the destruction of the U.S. and the establishment of a radical Islamist theocracy in its place. The film features interviews with experts on radical Islam and American security specialists, including leading expert professor Bernard Lewis, as well as a first-hand account from a former terrorist. All those interviewed agree that the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in America is a societal reality that cannot be ignored.

Though a shortened version of The Third Jihad has spread virally on the Internet since the beginning of the year, the Washington, D.C. screening will serve as the official launch of the feature-length version of the film.

The Clarion Fund (www.clarionfund.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that aims to educate Americans about issues of national security. The organization focuses primarily on the emergent threat of radical Islam. To that end, Clarion produces and distributes documentary films and facilitates online education to help Americans better understand the real dangers posed by radical Islam. In addition to RadicalIslam.org, the organization’s interactive online educational and social networking tool, Clarion has a popular live-blogging presence on Twitter: @No2RadicalIslam.