Counterterrorism Blog

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative Sami Al-Arian ended his hunger strike, which he began, allegedly, in protest of the Eastern District of Virginia's insistence that he testify before a grand jury investigating the terrorist connections of a Northern Virginia think tank, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Al-Arian is currently in the custody of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, awaiting deportation to an as of yet undetermined country. His lawyer, however, expects that Al-Arian may still be indicted for criminal contempt for his refusal to testify before the grand jury despite a grant of immunity.

Before Al-Arian was arrested, he was a computer science professor at the University of South Florida (USF). The current Secretary General of the PIJ, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, was a lecturer at the same university, brought there by Al-Arian to work for Al-Arian's think tank, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). Shallah taught Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at USF, through a cooperative agreement between USF and WISE.

When Shallah left WISE and became the head of PIJ, Al-Arian and WISE released a statement stating that "Dr. Abdullah" left WISE to write a book and "tend to his sick father," and that:

WISE denies any knowledge of Dr. Abdullah's association or affiliation with any political group or agency in Middle East.

That was, of course, a lie. But today brings news that Al-Arian, Shallah and their USF colleagues are not the only "academics" involved with the Islamic Jihad. In a story today published by CNN, Israeli forces kill Islamic Jihad chief, sources say, the following appears:

The person killed was the deputy commander of the Islamic Jihad military wing, according to the Palestinian sources, who said he also served as a school headmaster at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school.

For the full story, click here to visit the IPT's website.