Rep. Michele Bachmann defended Rep. Peter King’s investigations into homegrown terrorism among America’s Muslim communities on Saturday just hours before one of her vocal critics seemed to agree with her. On his show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher interviewed Rep. Keith Ellison and said that terrorists from an Islamic background present “a unique and greater threat” than right-wing terrorists such as militias and anti-abortion activists. Ellison said Maher is  “coming to the wrong conclusions.”

On Saturday, Boston’s Talk 1200 radio host Jeff Katz spoke with Bachmann about New York Rep. King’s hearings on “radicalization” among Muslims in America and Rep. Keith Ellison’s emotional testimony against the hearing. Bachmann said a “veneer of political correctness” was putting the nation in jeopardy, and Katz claimed that Ellison was “pretending to cry” during the testimony last week.

“Let’s talk about the hearings that congressman King is having,” Katz said. “I think it’s a reasonable, common sense approach to this, but you have this Keith Ellison pretending to cry; he’s a hero, I just don’t get it.”

To that, Bachmann said, “Well, I think a lot of people get it; they see through the hearings and they want to see our country be safe.”

She added, “What’s really been a tragedy is applying a veneer of political correctness to national security and also the issue of terrorism in general.”

She talked about the slaying of two American servicemembers in Germany and a Saudi Arabian student in Dallas who was building a bomb, both within the last two months.

“If we don’t understand that there are Sharia-compliant terrorists in our midst, if we purposefully and intentionally fail to understand our enemy, we will make ourselves more vulnerable,” she said.

Bachmann did hint a bit at whether she was running for president, saying she “isn’t in and isn’t out,” and offered this pledge: “I tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for President of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table.”

The same day, Ellison appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, where Maher made statements similar to Bachman’s.

Ellison said he came to Islam after meeting Muslims in college while working on social justice issues.

“We need to have respect for people who are believers and those who are nonbelievers,” Ellison said, noting the need for pluralism in faith debates and public policy.

Maher then talked about Islam and terrorism. “I would say that the threat from radicalized Muslims is a unique and greater threat” than that posed by anti-abortion activists such as Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller, or right-wing bomber Timothy McVeigh.

“There is obviously something going on that they’re getting from the Koran,” he said.

“You are casting a very wide net and coming to the wrong conclusions,” Ellison said. On the Koran, he said that “it is easy to take things out of context.”

Maher said, “I’ve heard this many times, and I don’t buy it.”

“Like any ideologue, they will take things out of context to do what they want to do,” Ellison said, adding that many terrorists “cite political grievances; they don’t use too much religion.”

He said many Muslims, like himself, oppose terrorism based on the teachings of Islam.

Maher, who is an atheist, has frequently bashed Bachmann, an evangelical Christian, on his show and his columns. On the Muslim investigations, it seems that the agree.

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt at the Republican Governor’s Association convention in San Diego on Friday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that Attorney General Eric Holder should resign because he wasn’t able to prosecute a Guantanamo Bay prisoner effectively in civil court.

Ahmed Ghailani was acquitted of more than 280 charges earlier this week in connection to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. Ghailani was convicted of conspiracy and faces a sentence of 20 years to life.

Pawlenty called on Holder to resign because he doesn’t feel taking cases to federal civilian court is effective for trying those accused of terrorism.

Here are Pawlenty’s remarks:

TP: Well, I think we should all pause and make sure we understand the lessons of that. And I think President Obama made, and the Justice Department made a huge mistake in transferring that case to the civilian court. You have somebody who amongst other things, Hugh, was taken down in a ten hour firefight in Pakistan, in an al Qaeda safe house, allegedly. And you had somebody who clearly tried to kill and injure dozens or more people. And the only conviction they get out of him is relating to destruction of property. Now there’s a lot of underneath the hood of that, but the point is there is a major disconnect between that conclusion and his behavior. And the big problem in that regard was bringing that into civilian court, because of the way they couldn’t consider the other things that are under the hood.

HH: Should that end? Should that practice end?

TP: Absolutely. Yes.

HH: Okay, and should Eric Holder resign?

TP: You know, I think Eric Holder and the Justice Department made a fundamental mistake, and they put the country, almost put the country at risk, and may still have done it if they continue down this path. And I don’t think you can just stay in that position and have those kinds of outcomes.

HH: That’s a yes.

TP: Yes.

Speaking at a conservative symposium on Iran at the National Press Club Wednesday, Rep. Michele Bachmann called Iran “a danger to every nation in the world” and said “we know that they [Iran] already have a nuclear capability.” She said Iran has “crossed the line” and that the United States “needs to do more than the simple engagement strategy of talking.” She did not elaborate on what that new strategy might entail.

The symposium was hosted by Freedom Watch, a lobbying group that supported George W. Bush’s War on Terror and the Iraq War. The group drew criticism for ads that linked the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center to Iraq instead of Al Qaeda.

The event’s purpose was to “help convince the new Congress, with the House of Representatives now in Republican hands, independent Democrats, and other entities, to push harder for U.S. and western intervention to remove this dangerous radical Islamic regime before it is too late.”

Bachmann said, “Their dictator, Mr. Ahmadinejad, has announced to the world their intention to bomb Israel. He directs his insulting comments to the cameras right here to our American media, right here on American soil. How long will our current administration ignore the in-our-face preview of what is to come?”

A reporter questioned Bachmann on what she sees as the differences between the current administration’s and Bush’s on Iran policy.

“The opportunity we have today, in 2010, is to extend our hand to the dissidents in Iran to show a strong U.S. presence,” she said. “What we have seen from the administration on the issue of engaging with Iran and from previous administrations that have engaged with Iran and we haven’t seen productivity in those engagements.”

She continued, “Now we know that Iran appears to have crossed the line and with that crossing of the line, it’s imperative that the U.S. makes it’s opinion known to the world. When there were dissents in Iran, at a very crucial time who could have used our help particularly in the elections, we were absent from that opportunity and I think any opportunity we have going forward we need to do more than the simple engagement strategy of talking because what we have seen are nothing but insults coming out of the regime.”

Finally, she said, “They are thumbing their nose at the United States right now and insulting us in every possible way that they can. So, I think it’s imperative that we appreciate the risks that not only the United States is looking at but the destabilizing effect on the world.”

Other speakers at the event included “former CIA Director James Woolsey, former CIA double ‘agent’ Reza Kahlili, whose recent book, “A Time to Betray” details his time as an American spy inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, former U.N. Ambassador Alan Keyes, former Reagan administration national security advisor, Frank Gaffney, investigative journalist and Iran specialist Ken Timmerman, human rights activist and former Miss Canada Miss World runner-up, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, Larry Klayman and U.S. Senators and Congressmen.”

TPM caught part of the conference on video:

According to the report’s website, www.shariahthethreat.com, “this study challenges the assumptions underpinning the official line in the conflict with today’s totalitarian threat, which is currently euphemistically described as ‘violent extremism,’ and the policies of co-existence, accommodation and submission that are rooted in those assumptions.”

The study’s sponsor, the Center for Security Policy, is run by a Washington Times writer and former Reagan defense staffer who has repeatedly accused President Obama of using Sharia code words in his speeches. He even tweeted earlier this summer, “Did you know Hezbollah is training on the US/Mexico border?”

There were two reasons for such sentiment, Ellison said: a misunderstanding of Islam and politicians trying to score points by scapegoating fellow Americans.

“The criminals and the murderers who did this thing to our nation, you know, they did associate themselves with my faith, Islam. That’s unfortunate. Nothing they did is the Islam I know or the overwhelming majority of the Muslims I know. But they did make that connection, so a lot of Americans are just … they don’t know anything about Islam,” Ellison said.

He added, “I think there is anxiety and frustration in the country. There are some politicians who believe it’s to their political advantage to identify scapegoats and try to turn Americans on Americans for their own political advantage by pandering to our worst instincts and fears.”

In order to bridge the divide and to bring the Muslim community into the fight against home-grown terrorism, he said American Muslims need to feel safe going to authorities and being part of the community.

“I think the right thing to do is reach out to mosques and Muslim groups across the country, to have a relationship of trust and open communication,” said Ellison. “I recommend that Americans go out and get with your churches and your synagogues, reach out to a mosque. Get to know people.”

“I think the wrong direction is to sort of target discreet and insular minority groups like Muslims and sort of focus on that community in a strict law enforcement sense. I think that could have a negative effect,” he said.

“I think the right thing to do is, one, reach out to mosques and other groups across the country to have open communication and trust, because these good loyal Americans will be among the first to say, ‘You know what? We found somebody we believe is suspicious.’”

Ellison added, “We need to make sure that we stand for civil liberties, so we can deprive people like Osama bin Laden of the claim that Muslims are poorly treated in America. The United States is not at war with Islam. The United States is a fair country.”

Ellison also traveled to New York City on Saturday to remember the lives lost in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to show support for a planned Muslim community center in Manhattan.

“The whole world is watching you, the whole world has its eyes on you right now,” he told about 2,000 people gathered in Manhattan at a candlelight vigil hosted by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Here are Ellison’s full remarks on Face the Nation:

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The threat of terrorism in the U.S. today is “less severe” but “more complex and more diverse than at any time over the past nine years,” according to a new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group, the new incarnation of the 9/11 Commission. The lead anecdote in its report, “Assessing the Terrorist Threat,” released Friday morning, is that of Burhan Hassan, who illustrates a new problem in the battle against terrorism: the increasing role of U.S. residents or citizens in planning and assisting in terrorist operations.

Along with a handful of other local Somali males, 17-year-old Burhan, as Abdi Aynte reported here in in December 2008, boarded a plane from Minneapolis on election day that had the ultimate destination of Somalia, where he’d been recruited to join Al-Shabab (“The Youth”), “an al-Qaeda ally that deliberately emulates its mentor organization — down to its reliance on training camps, a safe haven, the use of the Internet for propaganda purposes, and suicide attacks,” BPC’s report states. Two of the youths that left that day later went on to kill others in suicide attacks. And, the report says, they are not alone: youth radicalized and recruited by the group elsewhere in the country have committed similar acts.

The report finds that al-Qaeda isn’t capable of a 9/11-scaled attack that would inflict mass casualties, but threats of attacks on American soil persist. Last year was a “watershed” for domestic terrorist plots or attacks, with a “record total of 11 jihadist attacks, jihadist-inspired plots, or efforts by Americans to travel overseas to obtain terrorist training.” At least 43 American citizens or residents with ties to Sunni militant groups or ideologies were charged or convicted of terror-related crimes last year — a record since 9/11, according to the BPC.

The real threat of terror by Islamist extremists isn’t from al-Qaeda-directed attacks, the report finds (at the time of the 9/11 attack, al-Qaeda had only 200 “sworn members”). Like-minded individuals or groups planning attacks independently is where the real threat lies.

One such group is al-Shabab, which swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden in 2009 and “has managed to plant al-Qaeda-like ideas into the heads of even its American recruits.” From the report:

Shirwa Ahmed, an ethnic Somali, graduated from high school in Minneapolis in 2003, then worked pushing passengers in wheelchairs at the Minneapolis airport. During this period Ahmed was radicalized; the exact mechanisms of that radicalization are still murky, but in late 2007 he traveled to Somalia. About a year later, on October 29, 2008, Ahmed drove a truck loaded with explosives toward a government compound in Puntland, northern Somalia, blowing himself up and killing about 20 people, including United Nations peacekeeping troops and international humanitarian assistance workers. The FBI matched Ahmed’s finger, recovered at the scene, to fingerprints already on file for him.44 Ahmed was the first American terrorist suicide attacker anywhere. It’s possible that 18-year-old Omar Mohamud of Seattle was the second. On September 17, 2009, two stolen U.N. vehicles loaded with bombs blew up at the Mogadishu airport, killing more than a dozen peacekeepers of the African Union. The FBI suspects that Mohamud was one of the bombers.

The report also notes, however, that would-be jihadists don’t fit a single ethnic profile:

[O]f the 57 Americans whose ethnicities are known who have been charged or convicted of Islamist terrorism crimes in the United States or elsewhere since January 2009, 21 percent (12) are Caucasian-Americans, 18 percent (10) are Arab-Americans, 14 percent (8) are South Asian-Americans, 9 percent (5) are African-Americans, 4 percent (2) are Hispanic-Americans and 2 percent (1) are Caribbean-American. The single largest bloc are Somali-Americans at 31 percent, a number that reflects the recent crackdown by federal authorities on support networks for Americans traveling to Somalia to fight with Shabab.

Read or download the 44-page report:

Final NSPG Threat Assessment Report Sept 2010 report w cover

On Fox and Friends, Dean said, “I see the absolute arrogance and absolute disrespect for the American people here. It’s always the American people who have to sit down and basically accept everyone for who they are when they come into America.”

He added, “It’s time for the American people to stand up and say to the foreigners that are coming to our country, ‘It’s time for you to see it our way and when we say no as Americans it’s means just that; you aren’t doing it here.’”

Here’s video of the full exchange:

He’s not the first Minnesotan to weigh in about a neighborhood project in New York City: Gov. Tim Pawlenty earned rebukes from Muslim groups in Minnesota and from Rep. Keith Ellison for calling the center “inappropriate,” and the Minnesota-based head of the National Council of Churches, the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, was among 40 religious leaders calling out some of the opposition as “xenophobia and religious bigotry.“

Somali flag. Image: Wikipedia

The Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed more details about today’s arrests of Minnesotans accused of aiding the Somlia-based terrorist organization al-Shabab. In a press release, the agency named two women charged with conspiracy to provide material support to the group (among other charges), 33-year-old Amina Farah Ali and 63-year-old Hawa Mohamed Hassan, both of Rochester. A July indictment unsealed today charges three U.S. citizens (Abdikadir Ali Abdi, 19; Abdisalan Hussein Ali, 21; and Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, 33) and two others (Farah Mohamed Beledi, 26; and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, 26) with “conspiring to and providing material support to al-Shabaab and conspiring to kill, maim, and injure persons abroad,” among other charges.

The five, along with five previously indicted Somalis in Minnesota, are charged with providing “financial support and personnel, including themselves as fighters, both to a conspiracy to kill abroad and to the foreign terrorist organization al Shabaab.” The five newly named men are believed to have traveled to Somalia in 2008 and 2009.

Ali and Hassan, reportedly the first women charged with aiding the al-Shabab group, were actively fundraising in Minnesota. From the FBI’s release:

Ali, Hassan, and others allegedly raised money for these individuals by soliciting funds door-to-door in Somali communities in Minneapolis, Rochester, and other locations in the United States and Canada. In addition, the defendants allegedly raised money by direct appeal to individuals participating in teleconferences that featured speakers who encouraged donations to support al Shabaab. Ali also allegedly raised funds under the false pretense that such funds were for the poor and needy.The indictment alleges that Ali and others transferred funds to al Shabaab through the hawala money remittance system. Ali and others allegedly used false names to identify the recipients of the funds to conceal that the funds were being provided to al Shabaab. The indictment lists 12 money transfers allegedly directed to al Shabaab by Ali.

The indictment alleges several overt acts to carry out the fund-raising conspiracy. For example, on Oct. 26, 2008, Ali allegedly hosted a teleconference in which an unindicted co-conspirator told listeners that it was not the time to help the poor and needy in Somalia; rather the priority was to give to the mujahidin. Ali and Hassan allegedly recorded $2,100 in pledges at the conclusion of the teleconference. On Feb. 10, 2009, Ali allegedly conducted another fundraising teleconference in which she told listeners to “forget about the other charities” and focus on “the jihad.”

On July 14, 2009, the day after the FBI executed a search warrant at her home, Ali allegedly contacted an unindicted co-conspirator and said, “I was questioned by the enemy here…they took all my stuff and are investigating it…do not accept calls from anyone.” The indictment further alleges that when Hassan was questioned by agents in an investigation involving international terrorism, she made false statements.

Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon, Gov. Tim Pawlenty offered a short statement on the indictments:

“This is a stark reminder that the threat of terrorism is not limited to faraway places. We must remain aggressive and vigilant in combating terrorism both at home and abroad.”

Rep. Tim Walz, who represents the Rochester district where Ali and Hassan live, also offered a reaction:

“Terrorists around the world need to clearly understand that this country will never rest until their extremist ideology is eliminated whether it be in Somalia, Afghanistan or on the streets of Rochester. From my experience meeting with our special forces in the Horn of Africa and in meetings with the FBI held in my Rochester office, it is clear we need to remain vigilant and focused on defeating terrorism here and around the world.”

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Minnesotans of Somali descent are among 14 people charged with providing support for the terrorist organizaiton al-Shabab in Somalia. The AP reports two indictments unsealed this morning include names of five new people charged in an ongoing investigation, bringing the total number of individuals charged here to 19. Two Rochester residents were accused of fundraising for the group, which was designated a terrorist group by the government in 2008.

“Most of the people are U.S. citizens, with some supporting the terrorist organization from the United States and others traveling to Somalia to do so,” Pete Yost of the AP reports.

Local ties to al-Shabab (also spelled al-Shabaab) have been investigated here for nearly two years, with the case focusing on around 20 young men who disappeared, apparently to go fight in Somalia. The investigation has rattled the local Somali community and brought the attention of national and international press.

Update: The Star Tribune reports that the two Minnesota women arrested this morning are naturalized citizens named Amina Farah Ali and Hawo Mohamed Hassan:

According to a grand jury indictment unsealed in Washington D.C. Thursday, Hassan and Ali communicated by telephone with members of Al-Shabab in Somalia and then worked to raise money for the group here in Minnesota.

Advertising that their fundraising was to help the poor and needy in their homeland, the women used teleconferences to make direct appeals to others to provide financial support to Al-Shabab and its work to further jihad, or holy war, investigators said.

They then allegedly transmitted funds to Somalia using several money express companies here in Minnesota.

Update: Here’s the indictment:

35421426-Somali-Mn-Indict

Photo: Simon Stromberg

Rep. Michele Bachmann laughed off criticism leveled at her by former President Bill Clinton at an event hosted by the Chicago Tea Party Patriots and the Chicago Republican Party on Saturday. Clinton said Bachmann’s statements about President Obama and Democrats as a “gangster government” might incite violence and “demonized” those who disagree with her. Bachmann says she’s a “nothing,” while repeating her claim and saying, “This is going to be fun.”

“[Clinton] was making an analogy that Michele Bachmann had made a statement the day before during the Tea Party rally that what President Obama was doing was gangster government,” Bachmann told the attendees. “And because I’m using a statement like ‘gangster,’ I’m responsible for creating the climate of hate that could lead to another Timothy McVeigh and another Oklahoma City bombing.”

She added, “How do you like them apples?”

She said she doesn’t have that kind of influence in politics.

“So I decided, well, this is going to be fun. This is going to be fun! I am nothing. I am on the bottom of the food chain. I’m in the minority party. I’m in my second term as a Congress woman and the former president of the United States decides I’m important enough to take me out!”

She said to Clinton, “Thank you very much! Thank you!”

Watch the video of Bachmann’s speech at the Chicago event: