Ilhan Omar just endorsed a man who took the witness stand for the 1993 World Trade Center bomber.
Now that same man is the frontrunner in a New Jersey congressional primary.
And what just surfaced about his past makes the World Trade Center bombing connection look like the opening act.
Adam Hamawy and the Benevolence International Foundation
Adam Hamawy is leading a crowded Democrat field to replace retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District.
He's raised over $1.1 million – more than any other candidate in the race – and AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, and Bernie Sanders have all put their names behind him.
An anti-Israel group called American Priorities is spending $2 million to push him over the finish line.
And in 1994, he voluntarily went to work in Bosnia for the Benevolence International Foundation – a Chicago-based "charity" that federal authorities, the United Nations, and the 9/11 Commission all identified as a financial front for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
The 9/11 Commission Report described BIF's Bosnia operation as part of an "impressive array of offices" that "covertly provided financial and other support for terrorist activities" bin Laden relied on throughout the 1990s.
When Bosnian and U.S. authorities raided BIF's Sarajevo offices in 2002 – the same city where Hamawy told a New Jersey newspaper he had worked – they found false passports, bomb-making instructions, booby traps, weapons, and letters exchanged between the group's director and Osama bin Laden.
They also recovered the "Golden Chain" – bin Laden's list of 20 wealthy al-Qaeda financial backers, found on the office's computer system.
Then Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the federal indictment of BIF's director personally, charging him with using donor money to fund al-Qaeda and other terror organizations.
The Treasury Department designated BIF a terrorism financier under the USA PATRIOT Act.
That's the organization Adam Hamawy chose as his summer internship.
Adam Hamawy and the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman
The BIF connection isn't Hamawy's only tie to Islamic terrorism.
He also has a years-long relationship with Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman – the Blind Sheikh – the Egyptian cleric convicted of orchestrating a "war of urban terrorism" against America after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Hamawy first met Abdel-Rahman in 1991 while in medical school.
The two then drove together 13 hours to Detroit for a conference, where the Blind Sheikh mused openly about "conquering the land of the infidels."
Hamawy heard it.
He later worked as a personal translator for Abdel-Rahman.
And during Abdel-Rahman's terrorism trial in 1995, Hamawy took the witness stand for the defense – testifying to dispute a government informant's account that the Sheikh had urged followers to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
A man running for the United States Congress voluntarily took the stand for the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.
Abolish ICE and Dismantle DHS: What Hamawy Would Do in Congress
Look at what Hamawy is running on.
He wants to abolish ICE and dismantle the Department of Homeland Security – the agency built after 9/11 to prevent another attack like the ones the Blind Sheikh and bin Laden's network spent years planning.
On camera, he accused the U.S. military of "war crimes."
He volunteered in Gaza, and came home demanding Israel halt its military campaign against Hamas.
All of that was on the record when AOC and Ilhan Omar cut their endorsement checks.
The BIF story broke days before New Jersey voters go to the polls.
Hamawy's campaign responded by calling it "bigoted."
Twenty-Five Years After 9/11
The same party that spent four years insisting Trump was a Russian asset – with fabricated evidence and a discredited dossier – is six days from nominating a man with ties to two of the most dangerous terror networks in American history.
BIF wasn't some obscure operation that fooled everyone – it was raided by two governments, designated a terrorism financier under the PATRIOT Act, and named in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Hamawy worked in the exact cities – Sarajevo and Zenica – where those offices operated.
AOC and Ilhan Omar knew all of that when they cut their endorsement checks.
Calling this story bigoted isn't a defense of Adam Hamawy.
It's a statement about what they think of the 3,000 Americans who died on September 11th.
Sources:
- Ryan King, "Top NJ congressional hopeful volunteered with al-Qaeda-linked group in 1990s," New York Post, May 27, 2026.
- "Leading N.J. Dem congressional candidate Adam Hamawy volunteered with Al-Qaida-tied group in Bosnia," Jewish Insider, May 27, 2026.
- John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at BIF Indictment Press Conference, Department of Justice, October 9, 2002.
- The 9/11 Commission Report, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 2004.
- "He Testified for the WTC Terror Sheikh. Now He's Running for Congress," Frontpage Magazine, April 26, 2026.