Mosque linked to Shamsud-Din Jabbar tells members to refer any questions from law enforcement, media to Islamic non-profit with terror ties

A Houston mosque, that has been tied to the Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who killed 15 people and injured dozens more in a New Orleans terror attack, has reportedly told its members to refer any questions from law enforcement or media to a non-profit group that has been linked to terrorism.

Investigative journalist Bree Dail obtained an announcement from “Masjid Bilal management” informing saying that the “tragic events that took place in New Orleans this morning" were being "classified as an act of terror" by the FBI.

"If anyone is contacted by the media it is very important that you do not respond," the announcement read. "If approached by the FBI and a response is necessary please refer to CAIR and ISGH."

According to investigative journalist Angela Van Der Pluym, the Houston CAIR office that is telling people at the Houston mosque not to talk to the FBI, law enforcement and the media is the same branch that was behind the Abandon Harris Campaign, which told voters to vote for Jill Stein and dump Kamala Harris.

The mosque has been linked to 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who had an ISIS flag with him in the rented Ford F-150 Lightning EV truck he used in a ramming attack on New Year’s Day in New Orleans. Once he crashed, he got out of the truck and opened fire. The religious institution is only blocks away from what the New York Post described as “a squalid trailer park on the outskirts of Houston that is home to mostly Muslim immigrants” where Jabbar lived and allowed geese, chickens, and sheep to roam freely in his yard.

CAIR, an IRS-designated tax-exempt nonprofit organization, is the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group that has been repeatedly tied to terrorism. ISGH is the Islamic Society of Greater Houston. 

In a September 2013 Justice Department Office of Inspector General’s report, CAIR was singled out. Evidence obtained during the 2008 federal case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development—the largest terror trial in US history—“linked CAIR leaders to Hamas, a specially designated terrorist organization." In that trial, "CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case." The US-based Muslim charity was revealed to have funneled millions of dollars to Hamas.

Earlier this month, Mofid Abdel Kader Mashaal, the brother of former Hamas political wing chairman Khaled Mashaal, was unexpectedly released from the US prison where he was held  following a wave of pardons and commutations by President Joe Biden. Mashaal had been sentenced to 20 years for financing Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation.

Despite CAIR’s ties to terror being called out by the US Justice Department, many progressive Democratic candidates and politicians still accept the group's endorsement as well as donations from its donors.

The Biden administration scrubbed CAIR from the White House’s task force on antisemitism after the group’s co-founder Nihad Awad said he was “happy” about the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israel on Oct 7, 2023. 

Steve Emerson, founder and director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, previously told the Jewish News Syndicate that “CAIR was created as a Hamas front group and still functions as a propaganda arm of Hamas to this day.”

"Antisemitism is in the DNA of CAIR. It is part of CAIR’s intrinsic fiber. CAIR leaders often traffic in antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric...some of its leaders have cultivated suspicion among the public toward a wide array of American Jewish institutions," according to the Anti-Defamation League. A recent ruling in a defamation suit the group filed against a former employee will now force CAIR to reveal its funding sources as part of discovery.