A NYC mayor hopeful’s mosque visit just unearthed ghosts of the ’93 WTC bombing—his beaming photo hides a deadly shadow. 😠
Grinning arm-in-arm with a cleric tied to the attack that shook towers and lives, the socialist frontrunner calls it a “beautiful” Friday prayer. But whispers of jihad calls and uncharged plots linger… Is this the ally New York needs, or a ticking reminder of terror?
Expose the full alliance ➡️
In the heart of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, where minarets pierce the skyline and the call to prayer echoes off brownstones, New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani— the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist state assemblyman eyeing Gracie Mansion—struck a pose that has ignited a political inferno. On Friday, October 17, Mamdani visited Masjid At-Taqwa for Jummah prayers, emerging arm-in-arm with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a 75-year-old cleric prosecutors once labeled an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that claimed six lives and scarred over 1,000 more. The grinning snapshot, posted triumphantly to Mamdani’s X account with the caption praising Wahhaj as a “pillar of the Bed-Stuy community,” has drawn fire from FBI veterans, 9/11 survivors, and even fellow Democrats, exposing fault lines in a race already roiled by debates over Israel, socialism, and street safety.
Mamdani, born in Kampala, Uganda, to academic parents and raised in a household steeped in leftist activism, has surged in polls as the anti-establishment darling in a crowded November 4 field. His platform—universal rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, and defunding the NYPD’s hate crimes unit—resonates with young progressives and immigrant enclaves, propelling him past rivals like former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (running independent) and Comptroller Brad Lander. Endorsed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in a surprise September pivot, Mamdani’s campaign has raked in $4.2 million from DSA-affiliated donors, per city filings, and boasts a war chest that dwarfs Cuomo’s by 30%. Yet the mosque visit, billed as outreach to Black Muslim voters in a borough where 40% of residents trace roots to Africa or the Caribbean, has backfired spectacularly. The photo— Mamdani in a crisp button-down, arms linked with Wahhaj and flanked by Manhattan Councilman Yusef Salaam of the exonerated Central Park Five—captures a moment of apparent camaraderie during a post-prayer event organized by the activist group Black Muslims Now. “A beautiful Jummah,” Mamdani gushed online, tagging the mosque and adding hashtags like #NYCStrong and #FaithInAction.
What Mamdani omitted: Wahhaj’s shadowed history. The imam, a former FBI informant turned firebrand preacher, was named in a 1995 federal indictment as one of 171 potential co-conspirators in the ’93 bombing—a Ryder truck packed with 1,200 pounds of urea nitrate detonated in the North Tower garage by Ramzi Yousef, nephew of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Though never charged, Wahhaj’s ties ran deep: He hosted Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman—the Egyptian cleric convicted as the plot’s ringleader—at his mosque, raised defense funds for assassin El Sayyid Nosair (convicted in Rabbi Meir Kahane’s 1990 slaying and linked to the bombing), and testified as a character witness for Abdel-Rahman, hailing him a “respected scholar.” In fiery sermons unearthed by the New York Post, Wahhaj decried the FBI and CIA as “real terrorists” for targeting the bombers, once musing on an “unarmed army of 10,000 men” to impose Sharia in New York and labeling America a “garbage can on fire.” His anti-LGBTQ rhetoric—calling homosexuality a “disease” and “blackmail tool”—clashes with Mamdani’s vocal Pride advocacy, drawing ire from GLAAD, which demanded the candidate disavow the imam.
The backlash erupted within hours. Vice President JD Vance, en route to a Hudson Valley fundraiser, fired off an X post: “Democrats oppose political violence, right? So condemn Zohran Mamdani campaigning with a ’93 WTC co-conspirator who killed six New Yorkers.” The missive, viewed 2.3 million times, amplified a GOP chorus: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) branded Mamdani a “jihadist” endorsed by a “desperate” Hochul; the Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted, “Nothing to see here, just the antisemitic socialist smiling with a WTC bomber’s pal.” Even across the aisle, Cuomo pounced during a Sunday WABC radio hit: “[Mamdani’s] proud to stand with an unindicted co-conspirator in the ’93 terror attack? Wipe that smile off your face.” The ex-governor, polling at 22% to Mamdani’s 38% in a Siena Research poll released Monday, tied the gaffe to broader knocks: Mamdani’s youth (he’d be the youngest mayor since Fiorello La Guardia in 1934) and inexperience, plus a recent photo-op with Uganda’s anti-gay Deputy PM Jessica Alupo.
Law enforcement echoes the alarm. Retired FBI agent Frank Pellegrino, who grilled Yousef in the bombing’s aftermath, told Fox News: “Either Mamdani doesn’t know who Wahhaj is, or he doesn’t care. Either way, he looks foolish.” John Anticev, the Bureau’s lead case agent, added: “Politicians should vet endorsements. Wahhaj pushed a radical agenda.” Survivors piled on: Monica Gabrielle, widowed in the ’93 blast, tweeted, “My husband choked on smoke from that van bomb. Mamdani’s grin dishonors us.” Port Authority PBA President Frank Conti warned: “Voters backing Mamdani forget February 26, 1993—six dead, a city terrified.” The imam’s family ties fuel further scrutiny: His son, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was convicted in 2018 for running a New Mexico compound where kids were trained for school shootings and starved as “jihad prep.”
Mamdani’s camp, caught flat-footed, scrambled a response. In a Monday statement to Grok News, spokesperson Aisha Rahman defended: “Assemblyman Mamdani respects Imam Wahhaj’s decades of anti-gang and anti-drug work in Bed-Stuy, where he’s met mayors from Dinkins to de Blasio. This is standard outreach—smears won’t distract from our fight for affordable housing.” Mamdani himself, during a Tuesday Bronx canvass, dismissed the uproar as “Islamophobic dog-whistling,” telling reporters: “Attacks on my faith and allies spike because I’m winning. Wahhaj’s a community leader, not a terrorist.” He pointed to Wahhaj’s 2011 Obama-era White House invite and CAIR praise for his social justice bona fides. Salaam, in the photo, backed his ally: “Siraj’s mosque feeds the hungry— that’s Bed-Stuy’s truth.”
Reformist Muslims, however, aren’t buying it. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy called the alliance “clarifying—and damning.” “Wahhaj’s Islamism, not Islam, drove the ’93 plot. Mamdani’s embrace empowers radicals over reformers.” Soraya Deen of the Muslim Women Speakers Movement decried the photo’s optics—no women visible, per Wahhaj’s gender-segregated prayers: “It’s regressive, sidelining women’s voices in a city craving progress.” Dalia Ziada, an ISGAP fellow, warned: “Mosques as political platforms normalize extremism. Mamdani’s sidelining moderates for votes.”
The scandal ripples through the race’s fault lines. Polls show Mamdani’s lead shrinking to 5 points post-photo, per Emerson College’s October 20 survey, with Jewish voters (key in Brooklyn’s Orthodox pockets) fleeing to Cuomo by 15%. Trump, from Mar-a-Lago, weighed in Tuesday: “Mamdani’s a disaster waiting—cozy with the guy who blew up the WTC? NYC deserves better.” Elon Musk retweeted Vance’s post with a single emoji: a ticking bomb. On X, #MamdaniWahhaj trended with 1.8 million impressions, memes juxtaposing the duo against ’93 headlines.
Mamdani’s backstory adds layers. Son of Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani, whose writings defend suicide bombings as “resistance” and laud Uganda’s Idi Amin, the candidate cut his teeth in DSA youth wings, co-founding a pro-Palestine group post-10/7 that drew ADL scrutiny. His mentor, Linda Sarsour—co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March and Wahhaj ally—has praised the imam’s “transformative” sermons. Critics like Stefanik tie it to a pattern: Mamdani’s October 10 rally chant of “Globalize the Intifada” and refusal to condemn Hamas in a Fox debate.
Defenders frame it as outreach necessity. In a city where Muslims number 800,000—1 in 10 residents—Mamdani’s team argues ignoring figures like Wahhaj alienates bases. “Bed-Stuy’s 70% Black; Wahhaj’s mosque is its soul,” Rahman told Politico. Hochul, mum initially, issued a tepid Tuesday statement: “All New Yorkers deserve safe streets—candidates should choose associates wisely.” But the silence from DSA heavyweights like AOC speaks volumes; her repost of Mamdani’s photo drew 12,000 replies, split between “Solidarity!” and “Tone-deaf.”
As the election nears, the photo’s fallout tests Mamdani’s Teflon. A Marist poll Tuesday shows 52% of independents now view him “unfit on security,” up from 37% pre-scandal. Cuomo’s ads, launching Wednesday, flash the image over ’93 footage: “Judgment matters.” For Wahhaj, holed up at his Fulton Street mosque amid a media scrum, it’s déjà vu: The cleric, who converted from Christianity in the ’70s and built MANA into a national network, has long walked a razor’s edge—praised by Obama for anti-gang work, probed by the FBI for terror links. “I’ve met presidents; this is politics,” he told CNN from his pulpit, dodging the co-conspirator tag as “government smears.”
In a city forever etched by twin tragedies—’93’s rumble and 9/11’s roar—the image of Mamdani’s embrace forces a reckoning. Is it savvy coalition-building or a flirt with fire? As one X user quipped amid the viral storm: “From intifada chants to imam handshakes—NYC’s next mayor or its next wake-up call?” With early voting underway, the answer lies in ballots cast under the shadow of those towers that refused to fall.