WTC susp turns in terror kin
Pal of ’93 bomber exposes N.M. camp
A Brooklyn imam once linked to the 1993 World Trade Center blast steered police to a terrorist training center for kids run by his son in New Mexico.
Imam Siriaj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator of terrorist bomber Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, said Thursday that he was in contact with authorities after hearing from his daughter Subhannah that family members — including 11 of his grandchildren — were on the verge of starvation at the compound.
“The police came in because of information that we gave them,” the elder Wahhaj said of the Aug. 3 raid where his radical Muslim son Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was arrested for suspicion of child abuse.
The family patriarch also confirmed the body of a child found on the compound was his 4-year-old grandson Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, and appeared perplexed by the roles of his son and daughters Subhannah and Hurjah in the whole operation.
“To me, there’s obviously something happening, some mental disorder, something — I don’t know what it is,” the imam said outside his Brooklyn mosque. “This doesn’t seem like them … We’re just trying to understand what happened.”
The elder Wahhaj said the police were careful about planning and pulling off the raid. “They wanted to pick the right moment, so there would be no casualties, no shootouts,” he said.
Their concern was valid: Siraj Ibmn Wahhaj was toting a loaded revolver with five more 30-round magazines in pouches on his belt, and authorities described the group as heavily armed Muslim extremists. The 39-year-old suspect and his dad last spoke nine months ago, according to the father.
“Our family every day is saying, ‘This is so bizarre, it’s weird — what’s going on?’” said Wahhaj.
He said his son could be “a little bit extreme,” but “not radical, killing people and stuff like that.”
The imam said his son “had been overly concerned about possessions.”
Siriaj Wahhaj declared that his children deserved no mercy if they played any part in the death. The little boy disappeared with his dad while staying with his mom in Jonesboro, Ga., last December, and the child’s granddad said he was in contact with police immediately after the disappearance.
“God stands in judgement against them, and we stand on the side of truth,” said the senior Wahhaj. “… Whoever is responsible, that person should be accountable.”
The imam endured his own controversy when he appeared as a character witness for Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing attack on the World Trade Center. A half-dozen people were killed in the first attempt by Islamic terrorists to take down the Twin Towers, and prosecutors cited Wahhaj as an co-conspirator in the plot.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was busted while providing lessons to the children on conducting shooting rampages like the deadly assaults in Columbine High School, the Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was also the father of little Abdulghani, whose body was discovered Monday, his 4th birthday.