Cousins Zubair Ahmed, 31, of North Chicago, Ill., and Khaleel Ahmed, 29, of Chicago, are Al Qaeda members who have been convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists this week.
Zubair was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Khaleel was sentenced to 8 years and 4 months.
This joke of a punishment for members of Al Qaeda would be funny if this wasn’t so serious.
Here we have members of a Jihadist organization dedicated to the destruction of the United States and to killing Americans and they will be out of prison by the time they are 41 and 38 respectively?
Does anyone else see the problem with this?
Are we to believe that two committed Jihadis who joined and supported an organization with the goals and track record of Al Qaeda will have learned their lesson through a stay in federal prison and get out docile and no longer committed to Jihad?
Does anyone at the Justice Department understand Jihad at all?
Why weren’t these men tried for treason? How many Americans do Al Qaeda and other Jihadist organizations have to kill and maim in order for us to recognize that they are at war with us and they are the ENEMY and not just some really bad international crime gang?
This is yet another example of why trying to deal with Jihad as if this was not a war but rather a law enforcement problem will not work.
These two men will go to prison, where they will be free to practice their faith and will meet up with others with similar views, possibly including some of the prison imams who harbor Jihadist tendencies. Chances are good that Zubair and Khaleel Ahmed will not emerge in a decade as reformed Jihadists, but as hardened Jihadists. That is certainly not unheard of among Muslims and Muslim converts in our prison system. In fact, rather than the prison system having a calming effect on these two guys, it is just as likely that they will influence their fellow inmates and spread Jihad to other violent offenders.
Terror Trends Bulletin 