An activist group urging Americans to be warned of the danger within the nation has staged a mock 'hanging' of Osama bin Laden, who has taken credit for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Those attacks left more than 3,000 people dead, and Chairman Jesse Petrilla of United American Committee told WND that the location for the hanging in effigy – across the street from a Culver City, Calif., mosque – was chosen because several involved with that attack had been at the mosque earlier.
Petrilla staged the hanging across from the Saudi King Fahd Mosque as a crowd estimated by law enforcement at about 500 shouted, "No more jihad."
"Our goal, in addition to commemorating the terrorist attacks, is to bring attention to this mosque, which still is allowed to preach hatred and anti-American sentiment, while operating under a tax exempt status within our borders," Petrilla told WND during preparations for the event.
He said that one of the mosque personnel was engaged in conversation and told committee volunteers that the American soldiers who have died in the Middle East, "got what they deserved."
The 9/11 Commission report said two of those involved in the 2001 attack had come to the United States in 2000, and had been at or attended the mosque in Culver City briefly.
Committee supporters cheered and threw shoes at the figure as the rope was tightened.
Petrilla said counterprotesters chanted, "U.A.C. racist slime, being Muslim is not a crime," and his committee members responded with, "We love Muslims, We love Muslims."
"I think it's crazy," mosque spokesman Usman Madha told the Associated Press. "We have never encouraged extremism."
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