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You can be an Al-Qaeda soldier and an Islamic teacher for children in Boston

A man convicted of being part of Al-Qaeda and training at a jihadist camp in Pakistan has been teaching Arabic and Islam to young children at a Muslim center in Boston.

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Tarek Mehanna, sentenced in 2012 to 17 years in prison for providing material support to Al-Qaeda and promoting violent jihad, has been Teaching Arabic and Islam to children aged between 4 and 10. at a Muslim community centre in Staten Island, New York (not Boston, as had initially been indicated), according to the publication. New York Post.

According to the court judgment, Mehanna He trained at a jihadist camp in Yemen and promoted extremist content on Islamist forums.. Despite this record, he managed to get a job as a teacher at a religious educational institution, where he taught four days a week for four hours a day.

A radical profile, not just symbolic

Tarek Mehanna He was not a mere sympathiser with radical Islamic causes., but rather an activist deeply involved in jihadism. According to the United States Department of Justice, in 2004 he went to Yemen to to join terrorist training camps. Because he couldn't find any he liked He went to Pakistan where he received military training.. The stated objective was to join the insurgency in Iraq and kill American soldiers.

Once back in the United States, Tarek Mehanna did not abandon his commitment to jihadism. According to prosecutors, he became one of the main purveyors of Al-Qaeda propaganda in English, with the aim of radicalising other young North Americans. He translated and published terrorist training manuals, as well as sermons by extremist ideologues such as Anwar al-Awlaki. His digital activity was not merely anecdotal: he sought to incite domestic attacks and recruit new fighters for the jihadist cause. He also publicly justified the killing of American soldiers and civilians, and considered that acting in the United States It was legitimate within his vision of “Islamic resistance"”.

In 2012, Tarek Mehanna was Sentenced to 17 years in federal prison to provide material support to Al-Qaeda, conspire to kill American soldiers and disseminate terrorist propaganda.

A religious centre under scrutiny

The scandal has caused political and social outrage. The Staten Island councillor, Frank Morano, has called for an urgent review of the recruitment processes: “We cannot allow people with extremist pasts to have access to children at such vulnerable stages.”, he has said to New York Post.

The Muslim Community Centre of Staten Island, which Mayor Eric Adams reopened in early 2025, hired Mehanna without publicly disclosing his past. The centre has confirmed that it already He hasn't worked there for more than a month., but has not clarified how their hiring came about or whether the pupils' families were notified at any point.

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