A progressive darling leading in Democratic primary polls in New Jersey‘s 12th District has drawn scrutiny for his connections to a terrorist mastermind and alleged work with an al Qaeda front organization in Bosnia.
Dr. Adam Hamawy, who earned national fame for his work in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, has earned endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for his progressive congressional campaign. His congressional run has hit its first major roadblock, after media outlets resurfaced revelations about his decades-old deep connections to an infamous terrorist mastermind implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Hamawy and the “Blind Sheikh”
Hamawy testified that he met Omar Abdel-Rahman, better known as the “Blind Sheikh,” in 1991. Abdel-Rahman was the founder and spiritual leader of Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terrorist group involved in political violence against the Egyptian government and the United States. He was arrested in 1993 and convicted of seditious conspiracy and terrorism, earning him a life sentence in solitary confinement.
Hamawy formed a close relationship with the Islamic radical shortly after their meeting, even though Abdel-Rahman had already, by 1991, been charged with providing spiritual support for the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In the court transcript for Abdel-Rahman’s trial for the 1993 bombing, Hamawy was quoted as warmly greeting Abdel-Rahman with “asalamu alaikum” in court, getting a reciprocal greeting in response.
The terrorist leader’s defense team called Hamawy as a witness to counter a federal informant’s testimony that Abdel-Rahman encouraged him to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. During his testimony, Hamawy revealed that their relationship included home visits, the provision of translation help, and a 13-hour car ride to Detroit to attend an Islamist conference containing radical rhetoric.
Responding to questions from the Washington Examiner, a Hamawy campaign spokesperson said their contact and relationship were due to the small size of New Jersey’s Muslim community at the time.
“At the time, the man in question was one of very few religious figures in what was then a very small Muslim community in New Jersey — he saw him speak in religious settings in his early 20s,” the spokesperson said. “Dr. Hamawy condemns that man’s violent rhetoric and actions, and all violence, hatred, and terrorism — and he will always. Dr. Hamawy had no contact with this person after they were arrested.”
The campaign also stressed Hamawy’s distinguished military service record, which included saving the life of Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL).
“He was in the military at the time the events litigated in the trial took place, during the trial, and after the trial,” the Hamawy campaign spokesperson said. “In the years that followed, Dr. Hamawy was chosen for one of the most sensitive and highest-trust roles for an Army doctor: deployment to treat critically injured troops in Iraq. His sacrifices for our freedom accurately reflect his character and values then and now.”
Abdel-Rahman died in U.S. custody in February 2017 at age 78.
Bosnian intrigue
Another notable connection touched upon in Hamawy’s testimony was his brief time in Bosnia during its civil war from 1992 to 1995. The sectarian conflict pitted the Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs, and Muslim Bosnians against each other. Competing interests drew partisans from around the world, with one of many groups taking up arms being Islamist terrorist groups, including al Qaeda. Bosnia would become a major precursor for many of the international jihadist struggles in the ensuing decades — one of the preeminent works of jihadist propaganda was a hagiographical collection of accounts of foreign jihadists killed in the war, titled In the Hearts of Green Birds: The Martyrs of Bosnia.
Bosnia featured prominently in Abdel-Rahman’s trial, with prosecutors pressing Hamawy on the details of his trip. When pressed on his trip to Bosnia in 1994, he said he went to “basically help with the humanitarian effort there.” When asked if he was working as part of an organization and what he did there, the defense shut down the line of questioning.
He provided further context in a 1996 interview with the Newark-based Star-Ledger, an archived version of which was obtained by Jewish Insider. According to the outlet, he discussed his five-week trip to the embattled country with a Chicago-based nonprofit organization called the Benevolence International Foundation.
“I worked in Sarajevo for 10 days and then the rest in Zenica, a large regional center in central Bosnia,” Hamawy told the Star-Ledger. “We went out to hospitals around the area and in the mountains to check what supplies they needed and we tried to deliver them.”
The Benevolence International Foundation was later exposed as a front for al Qaeda and was designated a financier of terrorism by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2002. The 9/11 Commission Report described the foundation as part of an “impressive array of offices” that “covertly provided financial and other support for terrorist activities.”
Hamawy’s campaign countered that his work with the group came at the suggestion of the Bosnian mission on how to assist the Bosnians through a U.N.-approved route.
“It must be the final days of the election, because the attacks are getting more desperate than ever. Dr. Adam Hamawy, as a young medical student and member of the US military, volunteered to provide medical assistance to victims of the Bosnian genocide, per the suggestion the Bosnian mission made to him on how to help via a United Nations-approved route,” the campaign said.
“The idea that this absurd claim could be seriously entertained about the work of a veteran who served our country for twenty years, was awarded the Global War on Terrorism medal for his service in Iraq, and climbed the rubble at Ground Zero searching for survivors on 9/11 would be laughable if it weren’t so gross and bigoted,” it added.
Hamawy was never legally charged or accused of wrongdoing over his association with Abdel-Rahman and work in Bosnia.
Opposition reaction
Hamawy is leading a packed race, with no less than 12 Democratic candidates running to replace Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), 81, who is retiring after six terms in the House. The Washington Examiner reached out to the other notable candidates in the race, two of whom suggested Hamawy’s associations were a real problem.
“These concerning revelations are a distraction from the needs of Central Jerseyans,” former Department of Energy official Jay Vaingankar said. “As the youngest congressional candidate in the country and someone who recently held a Top Secret security clearance in the Biden White House, I don’t have this kind of baggage. The threats posed by the Trump Administration require Members of Congress who can stay laser-focused on fighting back.”
Shanel Robinson, a military veteran, stressed that she appreciated Hamawy’s military service, saying it “speaks to his patriotism.”
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“Adam’s relationship with Sheikh Abdel Rahman was thirty years ago, but Adam and I are both asking the people of New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District to select us for positions of authority in the federal government,” she said. “The voters will judge us on our entire adult lives, the choices we have made, and the people we associate with regardless of whether it was 30 days or 30 years ago.”
“Therefore, the voters deserve to hear directly from Adam about this,” Robinson added. “In the end, it will be up to the voters to decide.”
Whoever wins the Democratic primary is almost guaranteed to win the general election in a deep blue seat. Only one Republican has registered to run.