DEARBORN, MI — Just days before the FBI raided a Dearborn home and uncovered an alleged ISIS-inspired terror plot, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud was laughing about the word “Jihad.”
In a November 3rd podcast, Hammoud mocked the Wall Street Journal’s 2024 op-ed labeling Dearborn as “America’s Jihad Capital.” Rather than condemning violent extremism or addressing why Dearborn keeps ending up in headlines tied to radical networks, Hammoud joked that his “funny idea” for a city response video would be to have everyone in Dearborn say, “Hi, my name is Jihad… We are Jihad.”
Days earlier, on October 31st, the FBI executed raids in Dearborn and announced the arrests of two city residents, Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, accused of plotting an ISIS-style attack modeled after the 2015 Paris massacre. Federal agents say the suspects stockpiled weapons, practiced at gun ranges, and planned to strike LGBTQ bars in Ferndale over Halloween weekend.
(The podcast appears to have been recorded a day or two before the FBI busted up an ISIS-inspired terrorist plot in Dearborn.)
The timing is impossible to ignore. Dearborn’s mayor jokes about “Jihad,” and days before, federal agents are dismantling an alleged homegrown jihadist cell operating right under his nose.
While the arrests made national news, Hammoud’s only public response was a generic Instagram statement claiming there was “no immediate threat” and that the city was “monitoring developments.” No acknowledgment of his own comments, no mention of the ISIS plot, and no condemnation of violent extremism within Dearborn.
Community critics like Dearborn resident Anthony Deegan say the mayor’s silence is part of a wider problem. “People openly support Hezbollah and Hamas here,” Deegan said. “It’s almost like the best place to hide is out in the open.”
Even Muslim organizations largely stayed quiet after the arrests. The Islamic Center of America, the Islamic House of Wisdom, and others offered no comment. Instead, CAIR-Michigan’s director Dawud Walid suggested the FBI might have entrapped the suspects.
Meanwhile, Steven Stalinsky, the man behind the “Jihad Capital” article that Hammoud mocked, says his reporting was factual and fully sourced. “Anybody that studies terrorism knows I wasn’t incorrect,” he said, noting that the muted Muslim response to the FBI’s foiled plot speaks for itself.
Hammoud, who once stood publicly with clerics tied to Iran’s regime, still hasn’t retracted his “Jihad” joke or apologized for it, even as Dearborn finds itself once again at the center of a terrorism investigation.
Full Article By Western Islam:
https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-news/dearborn-mayor-jokes-about-jihad-days-before-fbi-raid-of-suspected-jihadis
