On January 28, 2020, a Twitter post on the DecolonizeThisPlace account called for a violent uprising in New York City. The message was:
“The streets are ours. The trains our ours. The walls are ours. This moment is ours. How will you and your crew build and fuck shit up for #FTP3 on #J31 (THIS FRIDAY)? Issa mothafuckin’ movement.”
Three days later, on January 31, swarms of flash mobs carrying Palestinian, anarchist, and Antifa flags flooded several NYC MTA stations. The violence that ensued immobilized several transportation hubs in the city and resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to equipment and forced a large mobilization of NYPD and emergency service resources.
Image 1: The post from the anonymous masked individual calling for a violent intifada in NYC
The video embedded in the original tweet featured three hooded individuals one of whom delivered a lengthy social justice oration and openly called for violent attacks and a wide scale uprising.
Video 1: The DecolonzeThisPlace call for a violent uprising in NYC
On January 3, seventeen days before the violence erupted, the same Twitter account published an extensive political manifesto and a how-to guide titled:
“A report and analysis on the recent mass transit and anti-police #FTP (Fuck The Police) actions across the New York area.”
This detailed how-to primer for waging urban warfare in any large US city focused on targeting emergency service personnel and the transportation infrastructure. The following is an abridged version of the document:
I. The global wave of revolutionary uprisings kicked off last year has finally reached the shores of the USA. This Friday, the third #FTP protest took the streets and trains of New York City, the latest demonstration in an emerging movement fighting to win four demands:
- Free fare on the NYC transit system,
- No cops on the trains or in the stations,
- The end of police harassment of street vendors and performers, and
- Full accessibility for all
This protest was a clear escalation from #FTP2 on November 22nd, and points to the culmination of years of revolutionary intelligence being built in the city, from Occupy to Black Lives Matter. Young people formed an essential contingent of the demonstration, providing spirit, vitality, and determination unburdened by entrenched activist dogma.
II. The bet of #FTP3’s strategy was correct: the police cannot keep up with a diffuse crowd using the subways to flash mob different locations around the city. Diverse crowds of people stormed train stations, hopped turnstiles by the hundreds, chained open emergency doors and destroyed ticket readers. Train cars full of protesters branched off into multiple directions, creating “freedom trains” where people chanted slogans, dialogued with commuters, and graffitied the subways together.
NYPD’s model of policing relies on them having close contact with marches, flooding the streets with police and to keep protesters on the sidewalk, and making violent arrests whenever protests don’t move fast enough. They rely on following the marches through traffic in police vans, and are unable of predicting where marches will exit the subways. When the marches move through the trains, they can surface back up far from police control, and have ample ammount [sic] of time in the streets before the cops are able to catch up. The speed of these protests is an essential advantage over the police, who rely on bureaucratic chains of command and are thus incapable of making decisions on the fly. ‘Freedom Trains’ are both tactically effective and spiritually liberating, and reflect a core principle of the movement: the journey is the destination.
In concrete terms we see leaderless resistance that stays physically moving and outpacing the cops as a viable tactic. What is lacking most in the crowd is experience, but the momentum from the first #FTP march to #FTP3 is quickly building up the confidence of the protesters. Small subversive acts create trust between people who then feel safe doing even more subversive activities later. This lack of trust within the movement has been one of its biggest obstacles, but luckily #FTP3 proves that this trust can be built especially quickly when the justification and know-how behind these acts of subversion are clearly communicated. This is the subtle art of pushing struggles towards their revolutionary horizons. The more people trust each other to face their fears together, the better chance we have at creating a rich and diverse movement.
In comparison with past demonstrations in New York, this march felt much less determined by activist figureheads or non-profit organizations, and we see this as a sign of growing maturity. We’ve learned our lessons from Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street. The few moments where authority figures were able to seize control – in Grand Central Station, in Restoration Plaza – were also the moments where most arrests occurred. The relative absence of leadership, however, comes with an important caveat, familiar to anarchists : it’s on us to self-organize and to take initiative, and we must share the knowledge of how to do so with as many people as possible.
Compared to #FTP2, there were quantitatively more spontaneous acts of resistance, both during and in the lead up to #FTP3. We suspect that this increase in autonomous direct action is directly linked to the propaganda strategy pushed by various groups online, encouraging people to come prepared with things like lasers, paint, bicycle locks, and umbrellas. With a young crowd, we have to open source the unique skill-sets of sabotage and organization we’ve built up over the years. Spreading instructions manuals and infographics massively on social media resulted in diverse and leaderless affinity groups taking up various levels of subversive activity, from using umbrellas to shield protesters disabling ticket machines, to using laser pointers [that permanently blind ] to keep the cops at a safer distance. This made the crowd’s dynamic much less determined by either specialized activist groups or by isolated militants. Also effective was the social media strategy of posting of a continual and ongoing stream of autonomous actions throughout the day before the demonstration, documenting acts of resistance blossoming all across the city.
III. Coming out of this, we offer the following proposals for a two-pronged strategy for the future of the movement.
Diversity of tactics means diversity of content: we need to produce propaganda from many different angles reaching out to as many different kinds of people as possible. The goal is to create an open source database of anarchist knowledge that doesn’t restrict this knowledge to a specialized group of self-proclaimed ‘activists’ or ‘militants’. We need content that’s humorous, angry, sad, informative, inspiring, all working together to create a wide ecosystem of affects and information. If you can’t go to the march, you should meme it. Everyone has a place in the movement, and both our propaganda and our organizing should reflect this.
Find ways to digitally allow people in metropolitan areas to coordinate with each other on a large scale, both in daily life and especially during the protests. This helps people share their reflections and experiences and create an environment where a visible class consciousness can emerge. It also helps people coordinate in mass to be maximally effective in the constantly changing environment of a mass demonstration. While being leaderless is a clear advantage, the movement at this point lacks the architecture that could synchronize protest actions both in the moment, and over an extended period of time.
The end of the protests present the unique opportunity for uncontrollable action to spread. When the march ends, people should hop the train together in a crowd and flash mob unexpected locations spontaneously. The forumla [sic] s simply: exit the train, graffiti the train station, take the streets, build barricades to prevent the cops from chasing, and march to the next station to do it all over again. The success of #FTP3 shows that the cops can be easily outpaced. Urban geography is a weapon, and we can use it against them just as effectively as they use it against us. We must set the tempo of our demonstrations and never let it be determined for us. Our biggest advantage is the capacity to disperse and regroup before the cops can mount an effective response. In the future, this coordination should be facilitated by digital platforms, which would allow crowds of thousands to people to quickly disseminate the locations of targets to flashmob, and the locations of meet-up points for protesters to re-convene.
Is This for Real?
Of course, this could all be just my take on it but having been in the business of evaluating threat intelligence for a long time, I tend to take seriously any video that features a masked and Kafia clad individual who uses a software voice modulator to mask their identity in a call for a violent and armed intifada, especially, when they have an established track record of delivering the goods.
Video 2: R-L Footage from one of the organizer’s phones showing him using epoxy paint to destroy an OMNI payment terminal and several composite clips showing him and others destroying fare card readers and vandalizing MTA rail cars
Regardless of the progressive, apologetic narrative which tries to pass these attacks as a poetic expression of the urban artistic collective, the DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+ calls and actions to blind NYPD officers with high powered green lasers and to destroy and vandalize trains and MTA infrastructure is sabotage in its purest form. In fact, back in the old days, in the 1940s, when the DOJ spent more time on enforcement and less on political activism, some of these foreign agent saboteurs would have been promptly arrested as unlawful combatants, court martialed, and most likely executed.
Image 2: High power green lasers used in attempts to blind NYPD police officers during the FTP events on January 31 2020
So in the spirit of “see something, say something”, I decided to throw a little time and computational resources at the problem and shine light on the leadership behind this little intifada.
The Solution Framework
Illustration 1 shows some of the system components and the solution architecture that I’ve used in this project. You can also find more information about similar projects in my posts: Military Romantic Scams – The Theory and Practice, The Fifth Column and the Pro-Iran Movement in the US, and Mechanics of Deception.
Illustration 1: System components and solution architecture
To conduct the video analytics and the data analytics, I’ve utilized the following tools:
- XRVision Sentinel AI Platform – Face recognition, facial indexing, OCR, LPR, image reconstruction, object classification and detection
- IBM Watson – Speech to Text
- Cyber Engine – Metasploit Framework with custom payloads
- Big Data Stack – Hadoop, Zeppelin, Kafka, Storm, and Spark frameworks
- Scripting and Integration – C#, and Python
- OSINT and Forensic Tools – Maltego, and Metagoofil
- Web Crawler and Scraper – RCrawler with an R package
- Network Link Analysis and Graph – Open Sementic Search with a Neo4J plugin
The Search Strategy
A combination of AI based video, audio, and big data analytics can help identify individuals and discover complex linkages by efficiently performing massive data searches (the FR for example, can scan 2.7 millions facial images per second) and by breaking down the anonymity that comes with swarming crowds, poor quality imagery, and masked faces. Following this approach, my strategy for uncovering the organizers of the MTA riots was to use several cyber techniques such as device fingerprinting, collect some SIGINT, and perform digital forensics.
Image 3: Sample AI based cataloging of one person of interest, Nitasha Dhillon, AKA “Snow Leopard”, AKA “Rosa Luxemburg” a globe trotting New York artist and a co-founder of DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+
Then, to collected all of the footage and video and ran video analytics on it. The widely available social media content of these riots and other related demonstrations allowed me to perform machine learning (ML) on various DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+related objects such as signs, stickers, banners, art, fashion, flags, keywords, and associated people.
Image 4: Sample source images used to train ML model to identify art styles affiliated with DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+
The large volume of hand written materials and graffiti specimens produced with markers and spray paint also made it possible to train the ML to identify individual writing styles. This in turn was used to create personal dossiers.
Image 5: Sample content identified by the AI via writing style and calligraphy matches as belonging to the organizers of the riots
Linking these dossiers to articles of clothing and accessories (like glass frames, wrist bands, rings, tattoos, etc.) helped confirm the presence of the individuals at the site and time of the riots.
Image 6: Sampling of the dossier of Moana Love, a leading member of DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+ collectives and a promoter of suicide bombers and the murder of civilians as the ideal form of ‘resistance’
Image 7: Sample source images used to train ML model to identify writing styles and calligraphy affiliated with DecolonzeThisPlace
Image 8: Sample art identified by the AI as matching the style generated by DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+ (artwork by Kyle Goen)
The first step in identifying the perps was to capture IP addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, and then link them to digital content such as documents and images. Some of the document processing steps included the OCR of images (pictures of written text), and the establishment of writing style, authorship, and the creation of chain of transmission trees. Finally, I used various image processing techniques to reconstruct the faces of the anonymous activists by removing occlusion such as hoodies, hats, shades, scarfs, pixilation, and masks from the faces. Once this was done, I used face recognition and other image fusion techniques to positively identify the individuals. Out of the 63 individuals captured on images and video, the system positively identified 58. Positive identification in this context was a match certainty score of ≥90 percent.
I Think It Means What They Think it Means
Examining the targets affiliated with DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+ retrieved about 1.3 GB of documents, video (with sound), and imagery. Many of the documents contained dozens of violent action keywords such as “fight”, “uprising”, “kill”, and “sabotage”. The imagery contained edged weapons, firearms, slingshots, and Molotov cocktails. The internal communications also contained links to where activists could purchase FTP (Fuck The Police) branded combat gear such as tactical helmets, face masks, high powered laser pointers, tactical vests, and swarming friendly shoes.
Image 9: Weapons and combat gear produced and sold under the FTP (Fuck The Police) label – retrieved from the storage of Amin Husain, co-founder and leader of DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+
The documents also included a large cache of Arabic language insurgency literature that was translated and used to create some of the derivative content that was distributed by the organizers prior to the events. Some of the publications included best practices on how to defeat the police and security services, which suggests that the authors had structured insurgency training overseas and hands-on sabotage experience.
Image 10: “A Guide to Becoming Ungovernable”, one of several how-to combat and sabotage guides published by Amin Husain and widely distributed via a number of messaging, email, and social media platforms
Some of the briefing materials that were distributed included a detailed urban combat manual with details on:
- How to conduct detailed reconnaissance about a target
- Pre activity briefings
- Review of police tactics and their weaknesses
- Transportation and movement maps
- Methods to uncover government informants and how to spread false information
- Tactical attack details and logistics (e.g. stashing bricks and bottles prior to the attack)
- Backup plans and retread routes
- A detailed schedule
- A communication plan
- Street hand-to-hand combat guides
Several publications were in Arabic and were sourced from Palestinians groups like Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and Fatah. These manuals contained instructions on how to utilize techniques such as killing with knifes, kidnaping, using burning tires and garbage bins for street barricades, and the most effective techniques for throwing projectiles like bottles, bricks, and stones at the enemy.
Image 11: Samples of terror manuals and related imagery used by DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+
Video 3: “Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab Stab!”, Sample video content distributed by the DecolonzeThisPlace activist network
The Search Results
I expected that search to run for some time but surprisingly, it was complete in about 12 minutes. It turns out that the mysterious masked leadership of the MTA riots was easier to parse than I had expected. The team was made up of the following individuals:
- Amin Husain – The leader
- Nitasha Dhillon – The artistic director
- Marz Saffore – The muscle and interface to a host of other organization such as BLM and other black militant groups
- Amar Husain – An organizer and sister of Amin Husain
Image 12: Example of using AI based image reconstruction to remove facial occlusions and image fusion techniques to match an individual using facial features (teeth structure), body geometry, object classifiers (missing ring indentation on finger), reconstruction of synthesized voice, skin color, and hand geometry
Image 13: The Unholy Trinity: Amin Husain, Nitash Dhillon, and Marz Saffore
From the communications (text, email, telegram, etc.), it became clear that Amin Husain was the official ‘leader’ of the movement (that is how he referred to himself in several communications). He was the one who decided on the time/place/form of the activity. He also controlled the budget and defined the scope and best methods to achieve the maximum impact.
Image 14: Sampling of the bottomless budget used by DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+ for international travel, accommodations, transportation, and supplies
Husain maintained close electronic communications and meetings with a number of foreign agents overseas informing them about his plans and soliciting their ‘technical’ advice. Some of these contacts included multiple briefings and debriefing calls via Telegram and Skype.
Image 15: Amin Husain in 2018 meeting in Copenhagen with Palestinian intelligence services
He was also given access to financial and logistics resources during face-to-face meetings (in Mexico, Denmark, and England) with his Palestinian intelligence handlers.
Image 16: Amin Husain’s handler, Major Sameer Tamimi, from the Palestinian Intelligence Services
Even though individuals like Marz Saffore and Nitash Dhillon are active participants and contributors to the cause, it seems from all material evidence that Amin Husain is the commander of this ‘resistance cell’. So for the sake of brevity, the remaining analysis will focus on him and when relevant will show his linkage to the other members.
Image 17: Amin Husain with his deputy Marz Saffore leading the armed struggle against American colonialism and occupation of indigenous people in the US
Amin Husain, The Profile of a Domestic Terrorist
Amin Husain, AKA Amene Husain, Amene, Amin Husen, and Ameme Hussain, was born in 1975 in al-Bireh, a city close to Ramallah in Israel. Husain and his family have a long history of militant activism. In 2016 he spoke at the rally describing his participation in the First Intifada:
“Living 18 years in Palestine, I was fighting in the first uprising, I was throwing rocks, molotov cocktails, the like.”
Video 4: Al-Quds Day 2016 NYC with ‘commander brother’ Husain
Image 18: Two SM profiles of Amin Husain, the co-founder and leader of DecolonzeThisPlace and MTL+
Image 19: Amin Husain and family back in the old stomping ground of al-Bireh and Ramallah honing the art of stone and Molotov cocktail throwing
Husain’s family immigrated to the US in 1993 and settled in Ohio and New York. In 1998 he graduated from Valparaiso University in Indiana with a degree in Philosophy and Political Science. He attended and graduated from Indiana University Law School (IU) in 2001. In 2004, he received an LLM from Columbia University (Columbia). Husain also studied at the School of the International Center of Photography (where he hooked up with his future collaborator Nitash Dhillon) and in the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Image 20: One apple doesn’t fall far from other apples, Amar Husain, Amin Husain’s little sister. The secret life of a Brooklyn psychologist, Arab militant activist, and promoter of domestic terrorism
The NGO Assembly Line
Husain is a founding member of NYC Solidarity with Palestine,which describes itself as ‘’seeking to broaden the work being done on Palestine by opening up more expansive spaces of resistances.’’ He is a supporter of New York City Students for Justice in Palestine (NYC SJP).
Husain is also a founding member of Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), a direct action wing of Gulf Labor Coalition—a self-organized group of artists, writers, architects, curators, and other cultural workers trying to “ensure worker’s rights are protected when art, labor and global capital intersect.”
Husain is an organizer for DecolonizeThisPlace (DTP) and co-founder of MTL+ he is also one of the leaders of the Abolish ICE movement and the Managing Co-Editor at TIDAL Magazine.
Image 21: Mandeep Dhillon with his sister Nitasha Dhillon, Amin Husain’s domestic partner in action ‘telling ICE what to do’ and some of the SM media content she is promoting via the On_This_Land Twitter account
Promoting Domestic Terrorism
On February 23, 2017, Husain posted as his Facebook cover photo a hand-drawn poster with the title:
“How to shut down the City.” The center of the poster featured speech bubbles containing words like ‘nails,’ ’tires,’ ‘glass bottles,’ ‘fire,’ ‘bricks,’’ ‘nails,’ ‘tires,’’ ‘glass bottles’ and ‘masks.’
Underneath these speech bubbles was a step-by-step guide, showing a person being head-butted, kicked in the groin, kicked in the face, elbowed in the back, kicked to the ground and then kicked again. Text on the right hand side of the poster urged:
’WALKOUT EVERYWHERE’’, ‘’STRIKE EVERYWHERE’’, “BOYCOTT EVERYWHERE’’, BASH EVERYWHERE’’, ‘’DECOLONIZE EVERYWHERE’’, ‘’SABOTAGE EVERYWHERE.’’
Image 22: Sample of the operational guides that were distributed prior the attacks on the MTA subway stations. Note the section titled “HOW TO SHUT DOWN THE CITY”
Publicly Endorsing Terrorism
On July 1, 2016, Husain helped lead a pro-BDS “International Day of Al Quds” rally in Times Square, New York City. The event was hosted by Free Al-Quds and endorsed by a number of anti-Israel organizations including NYC SJP.
In several speeches, Husain promoted BDS and praised it as a tool to blur the distinction “between violence and nonviolence,” which he said “no one should judge each other on.” Husain advocated fighting for “justice in* all* the ways possible — and yes, Jihadis — Jihadis in all the ways possible …”, Husain stated that:
“It is our moment to fight, and don’t let anyone tell you that you need to renounce your brother or sister because they are fighting in a way that is unacceptable.”
Calling for an Armed US Intifada
On October 6, 2015, Husain participated in a rally at the Israeli consulate in New York City. The rally was co-sponsored by NYC SJP—and other America and Israel hating organizations, including NY4Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). The rally urged support for a “Day of Rage” in the US.
The so-called “Days of Rage” were created by Hamas as the launching pad of the new Intifada. It featured the murder of Israeli civilians by shootings, stabbings and car rammings. Husain and the protesters at the rally alternately screamed: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, “Long Live the Intifada! Intifada! Intifada!” and “Settler settler go back home, Palestine is ours alone!”
The same day, NYC SJP posted a “statement of solidarity” with the “Day of Rage” rally that featured the image of a rock-throwing Palestinian (imager was produced by Husain’s collective), with the caption: “Let the Intifada pave the way for People’s war! [sic.]”
Image 23: Amin Husain personally participating in the attacks. The metadata in the files show that he was at the place and the time of the riots and that he personally engaged in some of the action. Some of these attacks show anti-Semitic motives and intent to commit hate crimes
Promoting Criminal Behavior
In an interview dated July 29, 2016, Husain recounted an ‘intervention’ that he masterminded against the Guggenheim Art Museum. Husain said:
‘’we made our own art that named the trustees and placed it on the walls. We had to get into the space undetected and break up into groups, and people put media they’d created themselves on the walls. It was a transgression; it caused harm to the museum and simultaneously allowed everyone to make their own art.’’
Image 24: Amin Husain and his domestic partner, Nitasha Dhillon, running the Qatari sponsored GULF Labor Coalition to sabotage the Guggenheim plan to open an extension in Abu-Dhabi
Husain went on to describe another one of his public acts of vandalism:
“Another example that emphasizes action more so than art and organizing would be the dropping of a 90 ft. x 45 ft. banner off of the Manhattan bridge that said ‘’Gaza in our hearts/Boycott/Divest/Sanction/Israel” . We bought all of the pieces without credit cards and worked day and night for about 20 days, studying the NYPD and researching laws around federal terrorism charges. Then we did a successful action—and never got caught.’’
Image 25: The illegal flags of Amin Husain and the NYPD’s consistent inability to find out who is behind these acts
Supporting Khader Adnan from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Husain worked on a film titled “The Coming Intifada.” On November 15, 2015, images from the production were posted on the film’s Facebook page, that showed Husain meeting with Khader Adnan, a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). PIJ is dedicated to the violent destruction of Israel and the establishment of a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state in place of the state of Israel. PIJ does not use social nor information welfare; it concentrates on attacks against Israeli civilians and military forces, sometimes using women and children as suicide bombers.
Like Husain, Adnan was arrested by Israel for “activities that threaten regional security.” A 2007 YouTube video showed Adnan praising and encouraging suicide bombings: “Who among you will carry the next explosive belt? Who among you will fire the next bullets? Who among you will have his body parts blown all over?” Husain cited his meeting with Adnan in an article recounting Husain’s interview by Israeli airport security before he was barred from entering Israel.
Banned from Israel
In 2015, Husain announced on Facebook that he had been “banned from going to Palestine for one year because the Israeli Authorities determined I pose a security threat to the State of Israel.” On December 8, 2016, Husain announced on Facebook that the ban had been rescinded.
Meeting and Supporting Convicted Palestinian Terrorist Bassem Tamimi
On January 19, 2017, Husain posted photos from his visit to Bethlehem during which he met with Bassem Tamimi. Bassem Tamimi is known for exploiting young children as political props in staged confrontations with Israeli soldiers. In 2011, he was jailed for organizing violent rallies and inciting minors to commit violent crimes such as rock-throwing.
Tamimi’s United States visa was revoked in 2016 for his failure to disclose his prior arrest and terror related conviction. Prior to the revocation of his U.S. visa, Tamimi delivered a pro-Arab terrorist presentation to third-graders in Ithaca, New York. The presentation was geared to foster hatred of Israel and Jews. Tamimi concluded it by encouraging [00:11:29] the children to become “freedom fighters for Palestine.”
Image 26: Bassem Tamim’s revoked US visa
Image 27: Husain’s ‘freedom fighter’ network back home
Glorifying and Calling for Active Terror Acts in the US
On March 10, 2017, Husain posted on Facebook a video of “Palestinian women that led, fought, and sacrificed dearly.” One of the women featured in the video is Leila Khaled.
Khaled was a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. Khaled has said that the second intifada failed because it was not violent enough. She advocates for the use of children in terror attacks and compares Zionists to Nazis.
Image 28: Samples of Amin Husain’s published calls for terror attacks against targets in NYC and some other militant literature that includes a guide for “Preparing In Advance for Action” and instructions “If You Are Arrested” and detailed how-to instructions for attack, target selection, target prioritization, and recommended rioting techniques (e.g. using projectiles vs. street barricades).
Image 29: Sample of Amin Husain’s militant projects in the US. Husain’s terror activity started shortly after he arrived in the US. In 2012, he was one of the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement
On August 3, 2016, Husain posted on Facebook calling Hamas-affiliated terrorist Mohammed Faqih – who murdered Rabbi Michael Mark as he was driving with his family on Route 60 in July 1, 2016 – a “Palestinian resistance fighter.”
Demonizing Israel
Husain, as part of his teaching position with NYC, claimed that ‘’In 1967, there was barely any Jews in Jerusalem and to the extent that there were Jews, they considered themselves Palestinians.’’
On August 5, 2016, Husain shared on Facebook “Important thoughts by Professor Steven Salaita on #BlackLivesMatter endorsement of #BDS,” in which Salaita described Israel as a “normative emblem of racism, inequality, and plutocracy masquerading as the apotheosis of liberal democracy.”
In 2014, The University of Illinois (U of I) withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted on June 19, 2014, shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: “You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” The bodies of abducted boys were found buried in Palestinian-controlled territory on June 30, 2014.
On May 15, 2016, Husain posted on Facebook a graphic featuring a series of maps that presented as “Palestine.” The description under the maps called Israelis “fascist Zionist invading occupiers.” The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land,” were purportedly stolen by Israel.
Image 30: Amin Husain and his network distributing maps showing the elimination of the State of Israel
In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college-level textbook that contained the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, the United States cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.
Demonizing America
In 2012, Husain was a featured speaker at an Occupy Wall Street demonstration on ‘’Al-Quds Day.’’ In his speech, videoed and published by Oppression TV on November 19, 2012, Husain stated:
”I grew up in Palestine, and I was there during the first Palestinian uprising, and I was a member of Fatah and part of the resistance movement. Then I came over here, searching for an American Dream that has never existed.’’
Image 31: Images circulated by Husain in his calls for attacks against the police
Husain stated on a number of public occasions:
‘’The oppression is here. And it’s ok it say we that live in a police state, that’s repressive, with surveillance on us because of the color of our skin and what we believe in. And we have to put our bodies at risk and that we can’t rely on governments, on NGO’s, on charities.’’
Husain continued:
” Who does the government serve? And who do they protect? We’ve been in the shadows of 911 for too long. We didn’t do it. This did it [gesturing towards the surrounding buildings on Wall Street]. And who owns this? Who controls this? Because I‘ll tell you what. I’m fighting for Palestine by fighting here.”
Image 32: Sampling of some of the operational documents that detail various procedures such attack target selection, target prioritization, recommended combat techniques (e.g. using Molotov cocktails vs. IEDs), pre activity preparation checklists, and a guide on how to resist police interrogation
Image 33: Amin Husain with the urban revolt leadership team
In 2019, Amin led the weekly protest at the Whitney Museum in New York called the “Nine Weeks of Art and Action” to protest Warren B. Kanders’ position as the vice-chair of Whitney’s board of directors. At the end of the protest on May 17, 2019, he led the protestors to Kanders’ home. Due to the ongoing harassment and for fear for his and his family’s safety, Kanders eventually resigned from the museum board.
Image 34: Amin Husain organizing the attacks and harassment of Warren Kanders, a board member at the Whitney museum
Image 35: Sampling of reference materials Amin Husain is distributing through his artist collective calling for a “Day or Rage” and an armed uprising across the US.
Video 5: Amin Husain, Nitasha Dhillon (AKA “Snow Leopard”, AKA “Rosa Luxemburg”), Marz Saffore, and Shellyne Rodriguez (AKA “Shellmicar Cabral”) assaulting a Jewish reporter who is covering one of the BDS events
Amin Husain’s Secret Powers
Husain is no starry-eyed, amateur justice warrior. He is a professionally trained and financed Palestinian terrorist and saboteur. Between 2004-2009 he worked as an attorney for the international law firm King & Spalding LLP, so he knows exactly how to leverage his legal expertise to avoid persecution. His formula so far has been a combination of obfuscating and anonymizing his direct involvement in the activity and leveraging a powerful network of political and financial supporters in NYC.
It is important to note that beside running the US web of ‘revolutionary’ organizations, he is also deeply involved in other domestic and international armed resistance movements such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Maxican Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), and the Islamic State Jammu & Kashmir.
Image 36: Amin Husain’s influence network of US and foreign organizations and leading progressive militant activists such as Laurie Arbeiter (who has been arrested multiple times but somehow managed to walk away each time without any charges)
Image 37: Amin Husain providing strategic and material support to the Zapatista National Liberation Army during his 2019 visit to Mexico.
Image 38: Leading a wide coalition of Muslim, black militant, and communist organizations in the US and aboard. Communications indicate that DecolonizeThisPlace is organizing mass nationwide violent FTPIII style attacks in 2020
Image 39: Sampling of the progressive influence network in action and some of its political linkages
From the documents retrieved during this search, it appears that Husain’s ability to walk through walls and magically resist prosecution can be traced to powerful NYC political figures such as Linda Sarsour and Mayor Bill de Blasio. As can be seen from the linkage below, de Balsio receives large portions of his funding and electoral support from NYC Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations and socialist groups like PSL and the ANSWER coalition.
Image 40: New York City mayor de Blasio and his little Muslim brotherhood shindig and bottomless election funding source
When asked why the NYPD failed to identify and persecute the leaders of the MTA riots, New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea (who is a former Chief of Detectives and quite familiar with investigative work) just sheepishly defended de Blasio. When asked why de Blasio remained silent for 24 hours before tweeting his “disapproval of the protests”, Shea said:
“I won’t even call that a protest. That was criminal activity… I’ve spoken to the mayor personally. I know he’s spoken publicly about it. I think quite honestly it’s not the mayor. It’s other people, it’s many other people.”
Eventualy, after some public backlash, de Blasio also came around and said that he was “repulsed by the hooliganism”, but he still refused to classify these attacks as illegal or take any enforcement actions against the perpetrators.
The Big Question
What should puzzle everyone about the Amin Husain story is that despite all evidence, he is still the toast of the New York progressive art world and intelligentsia. The New York Times adores him and promotes him as one of the leading urban artists on the scene. He gets unlimited PR and access to New York state resources and museums. Lucrative academic teaching positions just magically fall at his feet. He is an adjunct professor at the Pratt Institute (Pratt), New York University (NYU) and The New School for Social Research (New School) specializing in ‘urban resistance’. Husain also teaches at New York University’s (NYU) Gallatin School of Individualized Study in the Media Culture and Communication Department and has taught at the New School’s Media Studies Department.
His social and professional network is fully aware that he is involved in domestic terrorism and engages in the vilest forms of anti-Semitism, but none of the moral compasses of the New York artistic establishment seems to care. They all just sit silently on the sideline watching and sipping their venti skim triple shot macchiatos, waiting restlessly for the next installment of blood and gore. Not a word of protest nor rebuke.
Image 41: The New York Times promoting Amin Husain as a social justice urban artist
This whole domestic intifada also raises some serious questions about the New York City sanctuary practices and the lawlessness that it promotes. From the counter intelligence point of view, it is very unlikely that Amin Husain hasn’t blipped on the NYPD radar. In 2015 he was barred by the Israeli authorities from entering the country on the grounds that he was involved in supporting terrorism. This information was communicated back to Obama’s State department, the department of HLS, and the NYPD but for some reason, Husain—in the style of Agent Smith—manages to dodge all bullets and continues to operate his little ‘resistance cell’ unaffected.
Even the lack of action by the social media police is puzzling. Many of the inflammatory and militant materials Husain and his cell posted in the open on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and websites took place weeks before the January 31 attacks. Yet none of this content was flagged nor blocked. This is despite the fact that it can be identified with the identical stop words and images that would trip any violence filters used by the SM platforms. Additionally, the NYC broadcast media the likes of CBS, CNBC and MSNBC were fully aware of the ongoing preparations for the MTA attacks, as some of the emails and messages from the DecolonizeThisPlace organizers clearly indicate that they counted on favorable MSM coverage.
Considering all of the virtue signaling that the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram do about removing ‘extremist’ speech and the lightning speed in which they de-platform conservative users and content, it’s noteworthy that they allow and even encourage the circulation of these types of anti-American and violent Anti-Semitic materials on their platforms.
Conclusion
In 1809, on the thirty-second anniversary of the Battle of Bennington, Vermont state officials invited John Stark, the American commander of the battle and one of the heroes of Bunker Hill, to deliver a speech. Stark, at that point, was suffering from painful rheumatism and could not travel to Bennington so he responded with a letter. He recalled the men he’d served with in Bunker Hill and Bennington and said:
“I am the enemy of all foreign influence, for all foreign influence is the influence of tyranny. This [the US] is the only chosen spot of liberty—this the only republic on earth.”
He noted that America’s biggest enemies during the Revolutionary War came from within in the form of subversive factions. He wrote that “by having good sentinels at our outposts we were apprised of the danger.” and that without these sentinels, American liberty may have perished without a fight or resistance. Stark continued, “These are my orders now, and will be my last orders to all my volunteers.” He commanded those who were to carry on the responsibility of safeguarding liberty to maintain vigilance, to stay alert, and always maintain sentries. Stark concluded his letter with a toast to as a tribute to his soldiers, “Live free or die—Death is not the worst of evils.”
From the unchecked spiraling lawlessness and violence of DecolonzeThisPlace and its many affiliated anarchist organizations, it is evident that NYC law enforcement and the DA are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute these terror cells. The reasons for this are unclear. It is very unlikely that Husain is a high value US intelligence asset but if he is, then my prediction is that he is another ticking Omar Mateen and so is anyone affiliated with his movement. In the future, if not checked, their violence as art will only escalate and is likely to end up a mass casualty incident.
Fighting domestic radicalization and terrorism can’t be left in the hands of politicians like de Blasio whose financial support base and constituency is made up of a large number of Muslim Brotherhood members and despotic middle eastern interests.
There are plenty of laws on the books to deal with these acts of terror, hate crimes, hate speech, and destructive foreign influence. We don’t need to legislate new ones, we just need to be consistent in enforcing the existing laws like criminal anarchy. The million dollar question for the DOJ shouldn’t be ‘under what statute should these people be charged?’, but rather ‘why aren’t they being charged in the first place?’ And who exactly are these mysterious “many other people” that are preventing the NYPD from doing its job?
People like Amin Husain, black militant organizations, and the Red-Green Alliance hate everything about America and everything it stands for. The terror methods and tactics they developed and promote have already been adapted by affiliated organizations such as Antifa and BLM (which they control). Due to their political effectiveness it is garneted that moving forward we are going to see a wide-scale adaptation of events like #FTP3 and #J31 in all future ‘progressive’ protests—albeit with more blood, gore, and daring.
These types of foreign controlled organizations and individuals shouldn’t be here; they should be shutdown, striped of their citizenship and deported. I am certain that INS won’t have any difficulty replacing them with law abiding and productive immigrants that would be grateful to take advantage of what the “only chosen spot of liberty—this the only republic on earth” has to offer.
To the rest of us, lets heed Stark’s advice: Keep sentinels. Be alert. Be vigilant. Because our history, neighborhoods, and businesses are about to be ‘decolonized’.
References and Sourcing
XRVision Sentinel AI Platform – Face recognition, image reconstruction, and object classification
Stark, Memoir and Official Correspondence, 312-313
The Canary Mission – Portions of this post are based on the research published by TCM
FTP3 Operations Manual – The DecoloinzeThisPlace Fuck the Police Operations Manual
The Casbah – The DecoloinzeThisPlace urban guerrilla primer
Chinatown Not for Sale – The DecolonizeThisPlace literature on fighting landlords in Chinatown
NYCNot4Sale – DecolonizeThisPlace brochure on the elimination of private housing in NYC
Decolonize This Place – About the organization brochure
Cultures of Accountability – A DecolonizeThisPlace pamphlet for school distribution
Palestine BLM Boycott Arts – A DecolonizeThisPlace ideological liberation guidebook
The War Against The Terror Masters Michael A. Ledeen
See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad Philip Haney
18 USC § 2331(5) – Definition of Domestic Terrorism
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that— (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States;
Husain and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
On February 18, 2015, Husain co-wrote an article titled “Against Amnesia: The Cultural Boycott of Israel Matters” in which he claimed that Israel “intentionally targeted homes and the infrastructure of living, such as factories and schools” during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and accused Israel of “apartheid”, “racism”, “military experimentation on people” and “open-air prisons.” Husain’s article omitted that multiple news sources had exposed Hamas’ calculated exploitation of civilian infrastructure to attack Israel and Hamas’ use of human shields to frustrate Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.
The BDS movement was founded by Omar Barghouti with massive Qatari investment in 2005 as an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement” to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
In 2015, Barghouti was quoted saying that “BDS aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was, and to isolate its regime of oppression in order to achieve our UN-stipulated rights.” The dominant organization in the BDS Movement is the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC), founded by Barghouti in 2007, during the First Palestinian Conference for the Boycott of Israel. The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas. BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel and anti-Israel rallies and protests.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments, backed by anti-Israel affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of – or divestment from – Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities. These boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses. BDS activity is often violent and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic and anti-conservative incidents on campus. In 2013, when the student government of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats and the spitting on a student wearing a Star of David necklace.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
SJP was co-founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) by Professors Hatem Bazian and Snehal Shingavi. Bazian served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) while studying at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and headed the Muslim Students Association (MSA) while earning his M.A. at UC Berkeley. In 2004, while the second intifada was already winding down in Israel, he called for an intifada in the United States. Shingavi, an activist tied to the International Socialist Organization (ISO), has been criticized for using his literature course as a vehicle for promoting anti-Israel propaganda. SJP has grown to become the primary student movement advancing the Palestinian national agenda on North American campuses and is the primary force behind BDS campaigns at most schools.
SJP activists frequently intimidate and harass Jewish and pro-Israel students. SJP members have physically assaulted Jewish students, aggressively disrupted pro-Israel events and vandalized communal property. SJP rallies regularly include hate-speech and chants such as “Long Live The Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free” – calls for killing Jews and for the destruction of the Jewish state. SJP chapters frequently run inflammatory campaigns against Israel and the US, including BDS resolutions, rallies, Israel-Apartheid initiatives, propaganda comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, mock checkpoints and “die-ins.” SJP chapters regularly host individuals linked to terrorist activity and speakers who use language considered anti-Semitic by the U.S. State Department.
Husain Calling for the Annihilation of Israel
On October 4, 2015, NYC SJP wrote a statement titled “the BDS Ceiling” that conveyed the organization’s view of BDS’s ultimate purpose – to “confront and defeat Zionism” – with the goal of “the eventual establishment of a single Palestinian national state covering all of historic Palestine.”
The statement concluded that: “SJP… cannot be divorced from a larger, off-campus movement that organizes for the progressive demands of the people, regardless if those demands are related to the university.” NYC SJP then clarified in its statement on BDS, that the movement “is not only fighting to drop israeli investments, but is fighting to change the content of the Zionist, imperialist education itself, by engaging in a struggle to liberate the university and democratically administer it to serve the oppressed communities from New York City to Palestine.”
On April 26, 2016, NYC SJP tweeted a graphic showing the map of Israel overlaid entirely with the colors of the Palestinian Flag and superimposed with the text “Je Suis One State.” The comment on the graphic read “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free. #1948″ .
On March 1, 2015, NYC SJP members Atika Al-Bashir, Dan Cione, Nerdeen Kiswani and Leena Widdi were panel speakers in an event titled: “Revitalizing the One-State Solution.”
Husain Supporting PFLP Terrorists
On October 18, 2015, Husain posted on Facebook an article titled “Israel, the Media and the Anatomy of a Sick Society,” which excused a then-current wave of stabbing attacks against Israelis and claimed that child terrorist Ahmed Manasra (sometimes spelled Mansara) was shot and left to die. That posting followed on a video that Husain shared on October 13, 2015, on Facebook, titled “Jewish Settlers execute 3 school children.” The description under that video claimed: “Another assassination in #Jerusalem… The Palestinian youth was shot in the head and left to bleed to death..”
Ahmed Manasra (sometimes spelled Mansara) was wounded on October 12, 2015, while he and his 15-year-old cousin, Hassan, were engaged in a stabbing spree in Jerusalem, critically wounding a 13-year-old Israeli boy and moderately wounding a 25-year-old man. The Manasras’ stabbing spree was interrupted when police shot Hassan and a passing Israeli motorist hit Ahmed, who was thereupon surrounded by enraged onlookers. Ahmed was not killed but instead taken by Israeli police for treatment at an Israeli hospital. Manasra, who admitted to investigators “I went there to stab Jews,” was later tried and convicted on two counts of attempted murder.
On July 21, 2016, NYC SJP posted on Facebook in support of Bilal Kayed. Kayed is a military operative with the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization. Kayed was incarcerated for 14 years for terrorist operations committed during the Second Intifada, in 2002.
The PFLP pioneered aircraft hijackings as a high-profile means of drawing attention to their movement, most notably with the capture of an Air France plane in 1976. The hijackers flew the plane to Entebbe, Uganda where they separated nearly 100 Jewish passengers from the others – and threatened to execute one per hour. Israel, however, launched a successful commando raid to rescue the hostages. The PFLP also claimed “credit” for the November 18, 2014 Har Nof synagogue massacre – where PFLP operatives murdered six people in a Jerusalem Synagogue with a gun, axes and a butcher knife, during morning prayers. PFLP Gaza leader, Hani Thawbta, stated: “We declare full responsibility of the PFLP for the execution of this heroic operation…”
Husain Promoting Foreign Terrorist Activity
On January 10, 2017, Husain posted on Facebook a photograph of passenger vehicles moving down an Israeli Highway and two Palestinians standing above. Husain commented: “Two Palestinian youth targeting an Israeli army jeep with rocks today. Resistance is everyday. #decolonizethisplace”
On October 9, 2015, the Progressive Student Labor Front (PSLF) in Gaza – an organization politically linked to the PLFP – issued a statement via the PFLP website showing solidarity with their “comrades,” NYC SJP.
The statement praised NYC SJP for leading “a march through the streets of New York calling for ‘Intifada’ and the liberation of Palestine…” The statement went on to say: ” We urge the development and escalation of BDS campaigns at an international level just as we urge the escalation of resistance in all forms and all means here in Palestine ….” and ended with an affirmation that the PSLF is “proud to call them [NYC SJP]…comrades in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.”
Husain Condemning Interfaith Dialogue
On January 10, 2016, Husain posted on Facebook an article titled “The Hidden Dangers of Interfaith Discussions on Palestine and Israel” (which has now mysteriously disappeared from the Huffington Post website) condemning the Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI), sponsored by the Shalom Hartman Institute. MLI was founded by Imam Abdullah Antepli, the first Muslim chaplain at Duke University, as an educational program for Muslim Americans to “understand why Jews believe what they believe, how Jews see their history, why Jews are so attached to this contested strip of land (Israel) – and thus to better engage with American Jews.” According to Antepli, MLI aimed “to put mainstream North American Jewry in conversation with their Muslim counterparts.”
In August 2013, Husain signed a statement hosted on the Al-Awda NY website to express “firm opposition to the resumption of bilateral Israeli/Palestinian negotiations under U.S. auspices in Washington DC, today, July 29.”
Muslim fraternitati fieri delenda est!
Copyright 2020 Yaacov Apelbaum, All Rights Reserved.
I will never understand why our politicans allow terrorist hate groups to operate in our country. We have a lot of unserious fools and immoral charlatans sitting in our senate and house, as well as the federal bureaucracy. It is disturbing and discouraging to contemplate our police under attacks from men and women birthed and bred in hate, and using the freedoms our country affords them to spread fear and chaos.
I am in awe of your ability to expose their hatred of our country and remain as professional and matter-of-fact as you seem to be. One time I wrote a comment to you and expressed my worry, anger, and fear. You responded with a Bible verse and who you rely on — our Lord. I commend your fortitude, courage, and strength. And, I do hope you remain vigilant against harm from those you expose.
Best regards, and thank you for your fine work,
Joan M.
Thank you for your kind words Joan. It is a difficult problem to solve. Politicians pander to their voter not to an abstract concept like the constitution. The problem with politicians like de Blasio, Ilahn Omar, and Rashida Tlaib is that large portions of their voter base and financial support is made up of people like Amin Husain. So, unless we find a way to solve that problem by tightening our boarders and deportations, things are going to get much worse. The meteoric rise of Bernie Sanders is case in point. But on the positive side, identifying the problem is always the first a step in solving it.
Yaacov, this has been a huge resource ,thank you many times over. Now that he has been suspended we would like to connect with you please.
Astounding, Yaacov. Simply unlike anything I have ever read’.
Thank you for your kind words.
Yaacov, I just saw this whole story now. Horrible about NY subway sabotage. I heard nothing about this in the so-called “news”! Also, the American Museum of Natural History scheduled protests seem to be part of a scheme to disrupt and upset people this year — before the election in November. For example, schools will cancel trips to the Museum, something very sad to me as I remember these visits as a kid from 60 years ago, traveling in from Westchester Co. to see the museum. Simultaneously, schools closings in the NYC/suburban areas b/c of corona virus exposures are upsetting the school calendars of many institutions. I just saw that Princeton U. will let students take exams “remotely”– will the school offer a partial refund of room, board and tuition? Fear of crowds and “staying in” will lead to fewer people out and about and the fanatics who want to die anyway/terrorists will have greater sway. Also, staying away from polling places will be detrimental to life going on “as usual.” Who will wish to work at a polling place and deal with hundred of “voters” exposed to “who knows what” diseases/viruses?
Please know that your findings on the American Patriot Stark should be publicized far and wide. There are a number of US counties named for him but I don’t know much more about him. My DAR Patriot ancestor was an early settler in VT, coming as a middle-aged man from CT. He allowed his farm to be taken and used as a fort. A relative of his married Green Mtn Boys’ leader Ethan Allen’s cousin! His son’s written report of the sound of guns from skirmish at Hubbardston VT is very moving. That I believe was only the 2nd battle fought in VT during the Am Rev., after Bennington. The spirit of Liberty was overwhelming to these people, unique in history! The 250th Anniversary is coming up!
While I am new to your content (linked from ZeroHedge) from this article I can see you’re logical, methodical, meticulous, and inquisitive while having the equanimity to calmly draw the curtain aside and expose the ass-end of a story teller esteemed as an authority.
These used to be a much less rare found traits in a person, but I’m glad they can still be found.
Thank you for your kinds words Slartybardfarst. Love the name. How do you feel about Vogon poetry?
Wow…pretty deep. Fantastic work.
Thank you for your kind words Suzbo.
Yes Yaacov, great work. Also, thanks to “Simple Citzen” over at CTH for posting the link that gave me the chance to stumble onto this website.
The DOJ and their local US AG’s all standing down……………very telling.
Glad you find the material useful. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”