Zohran Mamdani, the main candidate in subsequent month's mayoral election, has often dodged questions on whether or not he helps Hamas.
Final week, throughout an interview with Fox Information, he refused to say if the terrorist group ought to lay down their arms and relinquish their management of Gaza. He claimed to not have opinions “about the way forward for Hamas and Israel past the query of justice and security.”
Nonetheless, a evaluation of his associations suggests he and his spouse, Rama Duwaji, have supported Muslim “extremists” — a few of whom are linked to terrorists.
Imam Siraj Wahhaj
Final week, Mamdani campaigned with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam who was an unindicted co-conspirator within the 1993 World Commerce Middle bombing and as soon as served as a personality witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the terrorist who organized it.
Six folks died within the World Commerce Middle bombing when a bomb was planted below the North Tower.
He additionally known as for a “jihad” in New York Metropolis, The Publish first revealed.
Wahhaj additionally has a historical past of creating homophobic feedback. “This can be a illness of this society,” Wahhaj mentioned in a sermon first revealed in 2017, advising followers to “defend in opposition to these homosexuals.”
Mamdani, together with Metropolis Council Member Yusef Salaam, campaigned with imam Wahhaj a day after the mayoral debate final week.
“As we speak at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of assembly with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of many nation's foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Mattress-Stuy neighborhood,” Mamdani wrote on X.
In the meantime, Wahhaj's son Siraj was convicted of terrorism in 2024 and two of his daughters, Hujrah and Subhannah, had been convicted of kidnapping leading to demise, following an incident at a compound in New Mexico the place they hoarded weapons, offered tactical coaching and “spoke of waging jihad,” per a federal memo.
Mamdani tried to justify his assembly with Wahhaj by claiming mayors Michael Bloomberg and Invoice De Blasio additionally met the imam and he had “campaigned alongside Eric Adams.”
Nonetheless, Bloomberg, who met Wahhaj in 2009, mentioned he regretted the encounter, telling The Publish if he knew he was a personality witness for Abdel-Rahman he would have declined to shake his hand.
Adams met with Wahhaj in 2015 when he was Brooklyn Borough President, presenting him with an award for civic engagement. His spokesperson denied he had ever campaigned with Wahhaj and urged Mamdani to “be part of the mayor in condemning Hamas [and] denouncing the phrase ‘globalize the intifada.'”
De Blasio appeared at Wahhaj's mosque in 2021, however its unclear if the 2 males met throughout that assembly.
Mamdani has additionally posed alongside Rebecca Kadaga, an anti-gay politician in his native Uganda, in July following his upset win within the Democratic mayoral major.
In 2012, then-Speaker Kadaga infamously mentioned she was passing a draconian regulation imposing extreme penalties in opposition to training homosexuals as a “Christmas reward” for supporters of the measure.
A spokeswoman for Mamdani didn't return a request for remark Monday. Wahhaj didn't return a request for remark.
Linda Sarsour
Controversial Muslim activist Linda Sarsour backed Mamdani's marketing campaign with a $2,100 contribution this month.
MPower Motion, the advocacy arm of her group MPower Change, has helped arrange the No Kings protests, endorsed Mamdani for mayor, and has helped get out the Muslim vote for him in New York.
Sarsour is a supporter of the marketing campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in opposition to Israel and has additionally been accused of antisemitism.
Like Mamdani, she is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Each Mamdani and Sarsour have campaigned for Rasmea Odeh, a member of the Fashionable Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine. Odeh was convicted of bombing a grocery store in Israel in 1969, which left two folks useless.
Anwar al-Awlaki
Mamdani questioned the FBI's techniques over their surveillance of al Qaeda operative and the group's English-language propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in a collection of X posts in 2015.
Al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011, seven years after he had moved to the nation to affix the terrorist group.
“Why no correct interrogation of what it means for @FBI to have carried out in depth surv. into #Awlaki's personal life?” mentioned Mamdani in one of many posts.
Earlier than shifting to Yemen, Al-Awlaki presided over a Virginia mosque the place three of the 9/11 hijackers worshipped. He was additionally linked to Umar Farouk Adulmatallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” who tried to explode a airplane above Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
Al-Awlaki's on-line speeches and movies in English impressed the murders of 12 folks on the Paris workplace of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical journal, in Paris in 2015. Al-Awlaki's speeches additionally impressed the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, in accordance with regulation enforcement.
The Holy Land 5
In 2017, Mamdani praised the administrators of the Holy Land Basis for Aid and Improvement — often known as “the Holy Land 5” — in a rap track known as “Salaam,” which the Queens Assemblyman mentioned is about rising up Muslim in New York.
The track, carried out below his rap moniker Mr.Cardamon, consists of the lyrics: “My like to the Holy Land 5. You higher look 'em up.”
In 2008, US authorities efficiently prosecuted the now-defunct Texas-based nonprofit for giving greater than $12 million to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The household of an American-born yeshiva scholar sued the Holy Land Basis in addition to a handful of different US-based nonprofits for financing the terrorist assault that left their son, David Boim, useless at a bus cease in Jerusalem in 1996. Boim was the primary US sufferer of Hamas.
“The Boims, having robust roots in Brooklyn, discover it inexplicable that New Yorkers would even think about electing a mayor who publicly proclaimed his love for the Holy Land Basis after their leaders had been convicted of offering materials help to Hamas, the fear group that murdered their son,” mentioned Dan Schlessinger, a lawyer for the Boims, in an electronic mail to The Publish.
Saleh Al-Jafarawi (Mr. FAFO)
Mamdani's spouse, Rama Duwaji, mourned Saleh Al-Jararawi, often known as Mr. FAFO, a Gaza-based influencer who glorified the October 7, 2023 terrorist assaults that left 1,200 Israelis useless.
Duwaji posted 4 damaged coronary heart emojis in an Instagram story with a photograph of the Hamas supporter, calling him “Beloved Jafarawi,” on Instagram. The influencer had gained recognition around the globe by posting movies from Gaza
Al-Jafarawi was killed by a gunshot to the top by an anti-Hamas militia in southern Gaza Metropolis.
Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik
Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik is a former intern for Mamdani's marketing campaign. She was as soon as caught on digicam berating a Muslim police officer throughout a pro-Palestinian demonstration earlier this yr.
Malik labored in Mamdani's marketing campaign through the summer time of 2024 and likewise headed up College students for Justice in Palestine on the Metropolis Faculty of New York.
In a video posted to social media, Malik characterizes her activism as jihad. “How gangster are you?… How dedicated am I to this?… What am I prepared to sacrifice for this noble trigger?” she requested in a single video. She additionally claims to be at peace with the fallout, claiming: “For those who get suspended, in case you get doxed… it should by no means, ever be in useless.”
Amongst a few of the images shared on her LinkedIn page are anti-Israel posters that learn “no tax break for genocide” and “funding unlawful settlements isn't charity.”
