The Chaplain Problem

Abdurahman Alamoudi presented the first imam in the United States Armed Forces with the military’s newest insignia, a silver crescent moon, at Army captain Abdul Muhammad’s commissioning service in 1993. The American Muslim Foundation—established by Alamoudi—had created the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council in 1991 to “certify Muslim chaplains hired by the military,” and the Pentagon recently confirmed that until 1998, he served in a non-salaried position, nominating and screening candidates to be Muslim chaplains in the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Alamoudi could afford to donate his services to the military. Long suspected of having terrorist ties, Alamoudi, a native of Eritrea who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1996, was arrested at Dulles airport on September 28 and charged with illegally accepting money from Libya—six weeks after British authorities caught him trying to smuggle $340,000 into Syria. While Alamoudi was on his most recent travels—using his Yemeni passport—to Great Britain, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Libya, Captain James “Yousef’ Yee, one of the Muslim chaplains his council recommended to the Army, was detained on suspicion that he engaged in espionage at Guantanamo Bay.

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Kate O'Beirne

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Abdurahman Alamoudi presented the first imam in the United States Armed Forces with the military’s newest insignia, a silver crescent moon, at Army captain Abdul Muhammad’s commissioning service in 1993. The American Muslim Foundation—established by Alamoudi—had created the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council in 1991 to “certify Muslim chaplains hired by the military,” and the Pentagon recently confirmed that until 1998, he served in a non-salaried position, nominating and screening candidates to be Muslim chaplains in the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Alamoudi could afford to donate his services to the military. Long suspected of having terrorist ties, Alamoudi, a native of Eritrea who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1996, was arrested at Dulles airport on September 28 and charged with illegally accepting money from Libya—six weeks after British authorities caught him trying to smuggle $340,000 into Syria. While Alamoudi was on his most recent travels—using his Yemeni passport—to Great Britain, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Libya, Captain James “Yousef’ Yee, one of the Muslim chaplains his council recommended to the Army, was detained on suspicion that he engaged in espionage at Guantanamo Bay.