Talk about an outrage! How could this guy even be considered for the position of chaplain with the New York City Fire Department?

An imam slated to be sworn in Friday as the second Muslim chaplain in Fire Department history said he questioned whether 19 hijackers were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and suggested a broader conspiracy may have brought down the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700 people.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Imam Intikab Habib, 30, a native of Guyana who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, said he doubted the United States government's official story blaming 19 hijackers associated with al-Quaida and Osama bin Laden.

"I as an individual don't know who did the attacks," said Habib, 30, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to New York in July 2000 after spending six years in Saudi Arabia getting a degree in Islamic theology and law. "There are so many conflicting reports about it. I don't believe it was 19 ... hijackers who did those attacks."

Asked to elaborate on his reasons for doubting that story, he talked about video and news reports widely disseminated in the Muslim community.

"I've heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone," he said. "It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?"

Actually, that isn’t true. There are not that many conflicting reports – virtually the whole world agrees that the attack as a bin Laden production. Heck, Osama himself claims responsibility. The only folks who deny that the attack was an Islamist production are those with an anti-American or anti-Semitic (or both) agenda.

Questioned about who he believed was responsible for the attacks, Habib said he didn't know. He said, however, that he did not expect to raise his doubts with rank-and-file firefighters -- nor did he share them two weeks ago when he participated in several Sept. 11 memorials on behalf of the Fire Department.

"My position as a chaplain is that whoever did it, it's a tragic incident," he said. "I feel sorrow for the families who lost loved ones and for the firefighters who died in it. Whoever did it, it was a very wrong thing. It's always wrong to take an innocent human life."

Sorry – not good enough. If you cannot even acknowledge the fact that your co-religionists murdered hundreds of firefighters in the name of Islam, then you do not belong with FDNY. You are the moral equivalent of a Holocaust denier, and the city has a responsibility to reject you as unfit to serve.

UPDATE: Good news! The defender of Islamist terrorists has stepped aside.

Now letÂ’s deport him. There is no place for terrorist apologists in this country.

Posted by: Greg at 12:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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