Hamas's Rock Star

...Mufid was a toastmaster, and he loved the spotlight, relishing any excuse to get up in front of a crowd...

...The blood of martyrs will fall like the water of rain...

...Tino Pérez, a retired supervisor of the FBI squad that investigated the foundation, said the bureau was drawn to Mufid's performances at the movement's political festivals, where tens of thousands of dollars were raised...

...What I heard from him," says Iyas Maleh, president of the Dallas/Fort Worth branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, "is that he has a band and they play music and sing songs and [the Holy Land Foundation] used to invite them to their fundraisers to sing...

...There, the brothers lived among thousands of resentful former Silwad residents who would stew over the failure of yet another Arab attack on Israel in 1973...

...But Pérez says free speech is not at issue...

...An August 2003 Treasury Department "fact sheet" on Khaled accuses him of accepting diverted charitable donations of the kind that the Holy Land Foundation is uniquely suspected of distributing...

...Nonsense, say some members of the North Texas Muslim community who know Mufid...

...Jews will not fear threats, only action...

...Mufid sang: "Mother, when they bring you the good news of my martyrdom, remember how I sacrificed my head and heart...

...He became a naturalized citizen, and went to work for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation as an engineer...

...By 1988, he had married a native Oklahoman...

...Until this year's election victory, Khaled was a hunted man...

...Sources close to the trial say the recent political success of Hamas is not expected to play any role in the upcoming proceedings...

...Concert performances aside, Mufid's legal problems have to do with the Holy Land Foundation's main mission, the collection of money...

...In 1996, Khaled was elected chairman of Hamas's political bureau, which directly controls its "military" operations...

...If they cut off your water supply," reads one banner, "then Hamas will satisfy your thirst with blood...

...The FBI bugged a conference room there, as attendees discussed ways to cover up their ties to Hamas...

...Photos in Holy Land Foundation literature show Mufid at a table crowded with other volunteers, tabulating what appear to be donations to the cause...

...No to the peace conference...

...Our people in Al Aqsa are out to revenge, to destroy the enemy...

...The feds say the Holy Land Foundation was a bogus North Texas Muslim "charity" that had actually served since 1989 as Hamas's largest clandestine source of funding in the United States—collecting "over $57 million" in donations between 1992 and 2001...

...Sources close to the upcoming trial say the FBI will likely play video of Mufid's Al Sakhra performances for the jurors...

...But if he masked his secret life while at City Hall by day, the Arabic lyrics he sang at weekend Hamas fundraising gigs across the country, from New Jersey to California, left no doubt about his true feelings...

...But the FBI had no evidence to arrest Mufid, so agents in the spring of 2002 turned their attention to neutralizing the threat they believed he might pose...

...Mufid, who maintains his innocence, declined requests to be interviewed...

...Khaled's newfound top billing is all the more striking since his name recognition had long been confined to the smallish geography of the Arab-Israeli conflict and an even smaller circle of Western intelligence experts...

...One lamented in a recommendation letter that Mufid "will be greatly missed" and "hard to replace...

...With Hamas having reason to be furious over Bush's shutdown of the Holy Land Foundation, FBI officials had to assume the worst: Dallas could be in grave danger...

...He survived a botched Israeli assassination attempt in 1997 in Jordan, when his bodyguards caught two Israeli intelligence agents who tried to poison him...

...As he awaits his trial, he has lately been spotted giving religious lectures at a Dallas-area mosque...

...But at one point during the investigation, the discovery of Mufid's family connection to Hamas royalty, along with his Holy Land Foundation ties and his performances with Al Sakhra, so alarmed the FBI that agents penetrated city offices on cloak-and-dagger surveillance missions...

...The fact that the half brother of the leader of Hamas was working for one of the most prominent Muslim charities may have raised a red flag for law enforcement officials...

...In light of the events of September 11, 2001, this letter is being brought to your attention for whatever action you deem legal and necessary...

...We were not looking at this guy because he was expressing his First Amendment rights," he says...

...Mufid and Khaled both graduated from a Kuwaiti high school...

...The members also vowed to support jihad and raise funds at 15 festivals across the country...

...Khaled became an anti-Israel student activist at Kuwait University while earning a degree in physics...

...There's no First Amendment right if it's in support of terrorism...

...It wouldn't surprise me if investigators would be interested in exploring aspects of Abdulqader and Meshal's relationship...

...With all the fist-shaking angst of a rock star, Mufid would urge violent holy war and glorify the martyrdom of suicide bombers...

...They were like a top 10 group," Pérez says...

...But an examination of amateur videotapes of Mufid's performances shows Al Sakhra's lyrics were no less inflammatory after that date...

...The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, was created in 1987 by the international network of Islamic fundamentalists known as the Muslim Brotherhood...

...The recommendation went on to describe him as "civic-minded, honest, and an asset to the community...

...Incontestably, the Dallas FBI's discovery of the sibling relationship in late 2001 or early 2002 caused real alarm at the time...

...His band, now known as Al Nojoum ("The Stars"), runs a website offering tamer fare on its CDs...

...He returned to high praise from one trip to Colombia with $85,000 in hand...

...Funds transferred from charitable donations to Hamas for distribution to the families of Palestinian martyrs have been transferred to the bank account of [Khaled Meshal] and used to support Hamas military operations in Israel," the fact sheet states...

...But there were bigger surprises about Mufid, beyond Todd Bensman, a reporter in Dallas, works as an investigative producer for CBS-11 News...

...In August 1981, the 21-year-old made his way to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater to study engineering, earning a bachelor's and a master's degree...

...He promised that the jihad would continue unabated "with the power of Allah...

...His half brother Khaled was born in 1956...

...So Hamas, hit them with the shoe bottoms of Islam and Hamas...

...According to the federal government, as the Hamas organizational chart developed, the Brotherhood began spinning out a variety of other organizations on U.S...

...Children take the stage to perform pantomime stabbing and shooting motions to the beat...

...The two have maintained contact by telephone, and Mufid has visited his brother overseas from time to time, one knowledgeable source said...

...In 1967, Israel occupied the area after beating back a five-army Arab attack, and the family retreated to the burgeoning oil kingdom of Kuwait...

...At various times, in the style of a public television fundraiser, large donations are announced publicly from the podium, amid signs and banners...

...It was his support for financial gain for Hamas...

...A 1992 video places him and Khaled at a major Hamas fundraising conference in Oklahoma City...

...The Brotherhood created Hamas to add more punch and organization to the Palestinian uprising against Israel...

...Steven Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a private research institute in Washington, says, to the contrary, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations have been built on strong family ties...

...After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Department of Justice stepped up its investigation to prove that foundation funds had been used, in part, to support the families of Hamas suicide bombers...

...The July 2004 indictment, the first public disclosure of the relationship, offers no clues...

...Among their lyrics: "With holy war, we regain the land...

...Collection baskets circulate among audience members at the conferences...

...Much less is known about how authorities view Mufid's relationship with his half brother...

...It wouldn't have been easy for the two to express much brotherly love...

...our revolution is spread throughout the land...

...As mayor, however, she worked closely with Mufid on an important downtown redevelopment project called the Bishop Arts District, and has expressed high praise for his work in interviews...

...A recently unsealed arrest warrant affidavit states that Holy Land Foundation insiders considered Mufid one of the outfit's top fundraisers...

...To its great embarrassment, Israel was forced to exchange for them Hamas's imprisoned founding spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin...

...So on April 2, 2002, agents approached Mufid away from work and requested an interview...

...The foundation sent him all over the world...

...It was a big surprise in Dallas when Mufid Abdulqader, a publicly mild-mannered civil engineer employed by the city, was named on July 26, 2004, with six other men, in a 42-count indictment of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development...

...It is unclear when Mufid last performed...

...A magistrate ruled him harmless enough to remain out on bond until the trial...

...We . . . do not hold people legally responsible for things their relatives do," Cadeddu wrote...

...He departed Oklahoma City on exceptional terms with his employers...

...The judge who set him free on bond certainly doesn't think he did...

...And it's his talent for raising money that may implicate Mufid, more than any singing and dancing...

...Mufid later did submit to an interview with the FBI, in the company of his defense attorney...

...While the familial tie must certainly have imbued Mufid with some stature among stateside Hamas activists, his attorney questions the relevance of the relationship...

...All of this was legal until 1995, when President Clinton designated Hamas a terrorist organization...

...Mufid's attorney, Marlo P. Cadeddu, has also declined to be interviewed but emailed a statement...

...The letter offered this warning: "[Mufid] is believed to have access to detailed technical plans pertaining to the city's infrastructure...

...Two government sources closely involved in trial preparation say that prosecutors plan to fully explore family relationships at trial, including much more than is now known about the brothers...

...the striking fact that his older brother served as the supreme political leader of Hamas...

...Since coming to America in 1980 and gaining citizenship, he has lived a double life that at once defines the differences between the brothers and underscores a chilling ideological sameness— mainly their shared fondness for the idea of murdering Jews...

...No to giving in...

...Those who have investigated the Holy Land Foundation-Hamas nexus say this meeting in Philadelphia represents a watershed moment in the government's understanding of how Hamas had opened support bases throughout the United States...

...My precious eyes are for Palestine, the agony of death is precious, killing Jews . . . Death to Jews, is precious...

...donations...

...Participants . .. resolved the 'Movement' should not publicly acknowledge receiving instruction from a foreign power," the FBI surveillance report reads...

...Agents realized then that thanks to his engineer's job, Mufid Abdulqader had access to Dallas's most important infrastructure—gas lines, water plants, electrical grids, and maintenance tunnels under the commuter rail system...

...Khaled, who was still climbing the ranks of Hamas's political bureau back in the Middle East, praised what he called the brave acts of martyrdom that had characterized "the blessed uprising" since the Persian Gulf war...

...If it fired up the troops to give more money, then all the better...

...The federal government, in its July 2004 indictment, made only brief reference to his showbusiness side, noting that Mufid "performed skits and songs which advocated the destruction of the State of Israel and glorified the killing of Jewish people...

...In 1996, for instance, Mufid and Al Sakhra performed at a crowded New Jersey conference...

...So important did the administration consider the Holy Land Foundation's role in the financial infrastructure of international terror that President Bush himself announced its closing in a December 2001 Rose Garden event...

...While the government says Khaled is a stone-cold deployer of suicide bombers, Mufid was a singer in a troupe that toured the country...

...Now, the reviled terrorist leader, outlawed by the Americans and hunted by the Israelis, has pulled up a seat at the international table...

...To Jerusalem let's go...

...Pérez says the FBI realized that the popularity of Mufid's band roused audience members to give to jihad operations, and investigated whether the performances violated antiterrorism statutes...

...Mufid's family hails from the West Bank farming village of Silwad...

...The sacrifice is calling...

...The next day, in a highly unusual move, Dallas FBI Special Agent in Charge Danny Defenbaugh had a letter delivered to Dallas Mayor Laura Miller pressing for an administrative solution...

...By this time, he had already discovered that he liked the spotlight...

...Until President Bush shut them down soon after 9/11, Holy Land Foundation officials fiercely defended the claim that they served only orphans and widows in the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

...He is expected to go on trial later this year...

...During brief intermissions, speakers take the stage to recite old Jewish-conspiracy canards...

...To be indicted for such activity is ridiculous...

...As he would later do in Dallas, Mufid won over his colleagues with his talent and, as one letter of recommendation put it, his "super personality...

...Mufid's Al Sakhra ("The Rock") band crooned a gospel of death and hatred toward the Jews at Hamas fundraisers, while the collection plates moved through wildly enthusiastic Arab-American audiences...

...With my blood I mark the way for my children, and under the ash, Mother, there is still fire...

...In 1993, not long after the Holy Land Foundation set up its headquarters in the suburb of Richardson just north of Dallas, the organization's officers had been swept up in an FBI bugging operation...

...The feds have corraled Khaled's half-brother Mufid in Dallas, in what is currently the administration's signature domestic terrorism case...

...Mufid cheerfully sang in one number...

...In the videos, masked jihadists in camouflage uniforms march menacingly to the band's drumbeats...

...Mufid was born four years later to a different mother...

...One child points a toy gun at the sky, marching in place on stage...

...The Israelis later assassinated Yassin as part of a program of "targeted killing" of terrorist leaders...

...That's when the FBI crept into Mufid's offices after hours, armed with a FISA warrant...

...The full head of bristly black hair and limber eyebrows, which he often flexed sharply upward for comic effect, made him come off as a big, smiling teddy bear of a man to his former city colleagues...

...Only the one who is proud of carrying the rifle will succeed...

...If, by the end of last week, Americans were unsure how exactly to react to the Hamas leader, there's been no such ambivalence about Khaled's kid brother, who lives in President George W. Bush's home state of Texas...

...The building where Mufid worked contained a special room known as "The Vault," where detailed blueprints are made available to the civil engineers...

...To this day, no evidence has surfaced that Mufid posed a serious public safety threat...

...According to the government, the Occupied Land Fund, which in 1992 changed its name to the Holy Land Foundation, was to pose as a charity while serving as Hamas's primary source of income...

...But nothing in the public record alludes to his singing career, which was already taking off...

...soil designed to support Hamas's goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic theocracy...

...It wasn't exactly feel-good music in the conventional sense...

...But Mufid was bound for America...

...I will say," Cadeddu wrote, referencing Mufid's performances, "that in the United States, the right to express your political beliefs is protected by the Constitution...

...To a single droning drumbeat, Mufid and the members of Al Sakhra, all wearing traditional kaf-fiyeh headscarves and desert robes, sang: "I have nerves of steel, and no threats scare me...

...With Koran and Jihad, we will gain our homes back, hey, hey, hey...

...Mufid no longer works for the city of Dallas...

...Mufid is a fellow member of Toastmasters International where he has worked to improve his public speaking," one former coworker wrote in 1992...

...Even if he is no longer singing publicly, Mufid Abdulqader has still found his way to a center stage, of sorts...

...Successive courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, however, agreed with the Bush administration's assertion that the foundation was never more than a money-laundering front for Hamas, and a poorly disguised one at that...

...A Palestinian who grew up in Kuwait and a proud father of three U.S.-born daughters, he never turned down an invitation to lecture high school students about the struggles he endured as an immigrant searching for a better life in America...

...People loved to hear them...

...He turned them down cold, further worrying the government...

...Later that same year, the city of Dallas hired Mufid...

...The official letter warning of a possible terrorist mole at City Hall got lost in the paperwork shuffle during her recent election, she later said, and Miller never saw it until a reporter drew her attention to it in 2005...

...Astonishingly, Miller never read the letter...

...But by then he was already on the FBI's radar...

...Just what solution wasn't made clear, and Defenbaugh refuses to speak about it today...

...Mufid was identified as one of 25 individuals attending an invitation-only "Hamas conference" in Philadelphia...

...But Mufid the engineer could liven up a roomful of fellow technocrats with backslapping, disarming goofiness...

...Thickening a bit at the age of 46, Mufid wore his graying black beard heavy on his cheeks, as is customary for many pious Middle Eastern men...

...He was fired after FBI agents arrested him and the indictment was unsealed in the summer of 2004...

...The whole world seems these days to hang on every defiant word Khaled utters from his hideout in Damascus, where he's been ducking Israeli assassins the last several years...

...That year, Mufid and Al Sakhra performed at a crowded New Jersey fundraising conference to benefit Hamas, by which time Clinton's classification of the group as terrorist had made fundraising for it a federal crime...

...The stern Khaled Meshal may have been known for his angry praise of martyrs who'd blown themselves up amid Israeli civilians...

...The surveillance operation, however, did not yield anything damning...

...Was Khaled, through his younger brother in Dallas, pulling the strings that kept Hamas flush with U.S...

...BY TODD BENSMAN Dallas Just days after his party's upset landslide in the Palestinian elections, Hamas's supreme political leader, Khaled Meshal, was thrust into an unfamiliar spotlight, on the front page of the New York Times and in the looping reels of cable news shows...

...Yes to jihad...