• Founder and Executive Director of the American Muslim Council
• Islamic affairs advisor for the Clinton administration
• "We are all supporters of Hamas . . . I am also a supporter of Hezbollah."
• Arrested in 2003 for terrorist fundraising

A self-described Muslim moderate, Abdurahman Alamoudi is the founder and Executive Director of the American Muslim Council (AMC). In past years, he was also a Board member of American Muslims for Jerusalem; a Board member of the Council on National Interest Foundation; a Board member of Interfaith Impact for Justice and Peace; the head of the American Task Force for Bosnia; a founding trustee of the Fiqh Council of North America; the Washington, DC regional representative for the Islamic Society of North America; a Board member of Mercy International; President of the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada; Executive Assistant to the President of the SAAR Foundation; Secretary of the Success Foundation; Director of the Talibah International Aid Association; a Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); and a Board member of the Somali Relief Fund. Moreover, he served as an Islamic Affairs advisor for the Clinton administration, a Pentagon appointee in charge of choosing Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military, and a State Department "goodwill ambassador" to Muslim nations.

An FBI insider once described Alamoudi as an "expert in the art of deception" because of his abilty to appear to be a moderate Muslim while privately embracing a radical anti-American agenda. Behind the scenes, much of Alamoudi's energy was devoted to fundraising activities on behalf of Hamas, Hezbollah, Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. He also had dealings with the Libyan regime of Muammar Qadhafi.

Born in Eritrea, Alamoudi immigrated to the United States in 1979 (and would become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1996). From 1985 to 1990, he served as Executive Assistant to the President of the Saudi-funded SAAR Foundation in northern Virginia.

Alamoudi founded AMC in 1990 for the purpose of engaging the American Muslim community in both national and international issues of interest to them. In 1991 he established the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council (AMAFVAC), whose purpose was to "certify Muslim chaplains hired by the military." 

He courted both the Democratic and Republican parties during the 1992 presidential election cycle. When Bill Clinton took office in January 1993, Alamoudi stepped up his donations to the Democratic Party in an effort to develop a closer relationship with the party in control of the White House. Alamoudi's access to Clinton insiders grew as the decade wore on.

In 1993 the Defense Department certified AMAFVAC as one of two organizations (the other was the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences) authorized to approve and endorse Muslim chaplains.

In March 1993 Alamoudi disparaged the federal government's terrorism allegations against Mohammed Salameh, who had been arrested ten days after the first World Trade Center bombings in February. "All their [law enforcement] facts ... are flimsy," said Alamoudi. "We don't think that any of those facts that they have against him, or the fact that they searched his home and they found a few wires here or there -- are not enough." (Salameh was eventually convicted in the bombing plot and was sentenced to life in prison.)

From about 1993 to 1998, the Pentagon would retain Alamoudi on an unpaid basis to nominate and approve Muslim chaplain candidates for the U.S. military. Among the chaplains Alamoudi hired was James Yee, who would eventually be arrested in 2003 on suspicion of espionage.

In 1995 Alamoudi helped President Clinton and the ACLU develop a presidential guideline entitled "Religious Expression in Public School," which paved the way for the abolition of Christian symbols, such as the Nativity scene, from public school grounds. In November of that year, Alamoudi and 23 other Muslim leaders met with President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. On December 8, Clinton's National Security Adviser, Anthony Lake, met with Alamoudi and several other AMC Board members. On February 8, 1996, Hillary Clinton penned a newspaper column based on talking points provided by Alamoudi. Later that month, Mrs. Clinton asked AMC to draw up a guest list for a reception marking the end of Ramadan that was to be held at the White House.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, while Alamoudi portrayed himself as a "moderate" to the media and to the Washington elite, he offered occasional glimpses into the sympathy he felt for the enemies of Israel and America alike:

• In 1994 he said: "Hamas is not a terrorist group. … I have followed the good work of Hamas. ... They have a wing that is a violent wing. They had to resort to some kind of violence."
  
  
• During a March 26, 1996 appearance on Middle East TV, Alamoudi said the following about Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) founder Musa Abu Marzook, who in 1997 would be deported from the United States because of his Hamas-related activities: "I am honored to be a member of the committee that is defending Musa Abu Marzook in America. …  I really consider him to be from among the best people in the Islamic movement, Hamas … and I work together with him."
  
  
• On December 29, 1996, Alamoudi told a meeting of the IAP: "I think if we were outside this country, we can say, 'Oh, Allah, destroy America,' but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means to do it. You can be violent anywhere else but in America."
  
  
• In October 2000, Alamoudi attended an anti-Israel protest outside the White House. Speaking to a group of Palestinian-terrorist-supporters, he declared: "I have been labeled … as being a supporter of Hamas. Anybody supporters of Hamas here? … We are all supporters of Hamas ... I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah."
  
  
• Alamoudi defended Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh imprisoned for his role in plotting New York-area terrorist attacks -- most notably the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Starting in 2000, Alamoudi illegally began making regular trips to Libya, where he met with government officials to discuss strategies by which they could create "headaches" for Saudi Arabia. Alamoudi would later admit that he was involved in a scheme to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.

In January 2001, Alamoudi attended a conference in Beirut with leaders of numerous terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda.

On September 28, 2003, Alamoudi was arrested in Washington, DC for illegally failing to notify the U.S. State Department of his numerous trips to Libya and for illegally accepting $10,700 from the Libyan mission to the United Nations. Earlier that same month, British customs officials had found $340,000 in cash in Alamoudi's luggage -- money that, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement affidavit -- originated in Libya and was intended for distribution in Syria, where terror groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad maintain a strong presence.

After Alamoudi's arrest, federal authorities released a transcript of a telephone conversation in which he could be heard lamenting that no Americans had died during al Qaeda's 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. In the same conversation, Alamoudi also recommended that more operations be conducted like the 1994 Hezbollah bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association cultural center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people died.

On July 30, 2004 Alamoudi pleaded guilty to three criminal charges, for which he faced a maximum sentence of 23 years in prison. Said Paul McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia: "This conviction is a milestone in the war on terrorism. Alamoudi was a major player in the financial support of terrorism."

In the summer 2007 Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) trial (which looked into evidence of HLF's fundraising on behalf of Hamas), the U.S. government released a list of approximately 300 of HLF's "unindicted co-conspirators" and "joint venturers." Among the unindicted co-conspirators were many individuals affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas, including Abdurahman Alamoudi, Omar Ahmad, Yousef al-Qaradawi, Abdallah Azzam, Jamal Badawi, Mohammad Jaghlit, Mousa Abu Marzook, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and Ahmed Yassin. The list also included groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Hamas, INFOCOM, the Islamic Association for Palestine, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Arab Youth Association, the United Association for Studies and Research, and the North American Islamic Trust.