The jury deliberated for ten days.
I started to sweat after the first two days. Everyone was still positive through day four. After that, I didn’t get any more updates. When they came back on the tenth day, Chiheb and Jaser were found guilty of conspiring to commit murder for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group. They were sentenced to life in prison.
As of this writing, Chiheb remains in solitary confinement. He refuses to get strip-searched. I think it has something to do with the San Jose airport. It’s a fuck-you to me, because I’m a munafiq in his eyes. No more living amongst them, as them, to defeat them. He’s now going to die alone. In a way, he got his martyrdom. I was told Jaser is doing well in general population. He finally got to be the Imam with a bunch of minions hanging on his every word.
Abassi was charged with two counts of fraud and misuse of visas to facilitate an act of international terrorism. After seventeen months in jail, he pleaded guilty to lesser charges, including making a false statement to officials upon his arrival at Kennedy International Airport. As part of his plea, he was deported to Tunisia. The U.S. attorney backed off the terrorism enhancements, in part because the FBI didn’t want to expose me to another trial.
“I hope that you will think very seriously about the events of the last year and will decide to always abide by the laws of the United States,” Judge Miriam Cedarbaum said during Abassi’s July 2014 sentencing. It may not sound ideal, but it sidelined Abassi because it put him on law enforcement’s radar no matter where he goes.
After the trial, I returned to work. So did Nelly and the team. We are all still fighting the fight. Terrorism didn’t go away when we locked up Chiheb and Jaser.
There are about sixty designated foreign terrorist groups on the State Department’s list. I would say that more than half of them are radical Islamic factions with the same essential goal: bring down the West. So when I hear people debate whether it’s politically correct to call it “radical Islam,” I laugh. There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is. I am a Muslim. I am American, and I am fucking appalled at what these animals are doing to my religion and my country.
But giving them a label is just words. How do we defeat an enemy who is willing to die for a cause that they believe in? That is the question I ask every one of my students at the FBI undercover school before I start my lesson on radical Islam. Over the years, I have heard many different answers, but never the correct one: education. In order to defeat your enemy, you must first understand them.
The problems start when every Muslim gets painted with the jihadi brush. Jihadis are using a peaceful religion to further their agendas. That’s not religion. It’s politics. The reality is that radical Islam is a very small minority that twists the Quran to fit its needs. Just look at Chiheb, Jaser, and Abassi. Chiheb thought the Quran justified the murder of innocent men, women, and children because he chose not to honor the Prophet’s rules of war. He knew the rules. He just ignored them. Jaser thought Allah wanted him to kill Jews, and Abassi interpreted Allah’s call as a war against America. None of them were right. That is why “radical Islam” is a fine blanket term, but the key to defeating it is learning the differences among those who believe radically—as evident in Chiheb, Jaser, and Abassi. They’re not all the same, and understanding the fault lines between the different groups will be radical Islam’s undoing.
Banning Muslims from the United States throws gas on the myth that the United States is at war with Islam. I believe there should be a strict vetting process, but our world becomes more dangerous when we shut our doors to immigrants.
I was born Sunni Muslim in Egypt and came to the United States when I was just a child. I remember the day that I became a naturalized U.S. citizen. I missed most of field day. My dad dropped me back at school and I ran through the halls so I wouldn’t miss the whole day. My fifth-grade teacher stopped me.
“Congratulations, son,” he said as he shook my hand. “Today is a big day for you.”
I was ten years old and I will never forget the day I became an American. But my parents still sent me to Islamic school every Sunday to maintain my religion. We traveled back to Egypt almost every summer so I’d never forget my culture. My mother only spoke Arabic to me so I’d always know my native language. None of that made me less patriotic. I’ve served my country for twenty-two years and counting. Keeping America’s doors open ensures that when we are threatened by an enemy, we will always have someone who looks like them to help defeat them. Our best defense is inclusion.
America is everyone.