MacDill Air Force Base hosts the headquarters of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is overseeing Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Federal authorities on Thursday unsealed indictments against a brother and sister accused of involvement in a suspected explosive device incident at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, following a March 16 security scare at the installation, Fox News reports.

Investigators allege that Alen Zheng placed the device near the MacDill visitor center.

He has been charged with attempted damage to government property by fire or explosion, unlawful making of a destructive device and possession of an unregistered destructive device. The FBI said Zheng is believed to be in China.

His sister, Ann Mary Zheng, was taken into custody by FBI Tampa and is charged with accessory after the fact and tampering with evidence.

According to court filings, she is accused of concealing or damaging a 2010 Mercedes-Benz to prevent it from being used in legal proceedings.

The incident began on March 16, when a suspicious package was reported outside the base entrance.

Law enforcement responded by shutting down traffic along South Dale Mabry Highway, with Tampa Police Department officers securing the area near the main gate.

MacDill Air Force Base hosts the headquarters of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is overseeing Operation Epic Fury against Iran.

The base is also home to U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), responsible for coordinating special operations forces across the Department of War.

Officials said a news conference is scheduled for Thursday afternoon following the release of the charges.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the case reflects coordination among multiple agencies involved in the investigation.

“Today’s indictments are the result of tremendous investigative work from our FBI teams and great coordination from our state, local, and federal partners across the board,” Patel said.

“No one who targets our brave service members and military facilities will ever get away with it — and this FBI will pursue all those responsible for the incident at MacDill Air Force Base to the ends of the earth,” he added.

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When officers entered the Chanaa family home, they found firearms—modern weapons, not antiques—as well as scores of ammunition and foreign passports.

By Collin Anderson, Washington Free Beacon

When police searched the home of two Students for Justice in Palestine leaders, a pair of sisters at George Mason University, their allies painted a sympathetic picture.

The students were targeted, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), for engaging in “anti-genocide events on campus.”

The Intercept reported that police found “antique firearms” registered to the students’ brother and brought gun-related charges as a result of his family’s “pro-Palestine activism.”

Excluded from those descriptions was the crime the sisters are suspected of committing. A group of student radicals defaced George Mason’s student center in August, spray painting messages that warned of a “student intifada.”

In its coverage of the incident, the Washington Post wrote that “activists spray-painted words on Wilkins Plaza outside the university’s Johnson Center.”

Those activists caused thousands of dollars in damage, a felony in the state of Virginia, and police suspect the SJP leaders, sisters Jena and Noor Chanaa, led the group of vandals.

Weeks after the incident, in November, a county judge granted a warrant—which is under seal until February, according to a Fairfax County court representative—allowing police to seize electronics from the Chanaa family home.

When officers entered the Chanaa family home, they found firearms—modern weapons, not antiques—as well as scores of ammunition and foreign passports, all of which sat in plain view, according to court documents obtained by the Free Beacon and sources familiar with the investigation.

They also found pro-terror materials, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags and signs that read “death to America” and “death to Jews,” according to court documents and sources familiar.

Police seized the weapons under Virginia’s red flag law, arguing that Mohammad Chanaa, the students’ brother and a George Mason alumnus, was “linked to destruction of property in connection with a large group of people with like-minded rhetoric” and posed a danger to others given his possession of “terroristic” materials.

On the day of the search, Nov. 7, law enforcement officials removed “long guns” from the residence, sources say. A day later, Mohammad Chanaa voluntarily relinquished his 9mm handgun and concealed carry permit, according to court records.

He was not charged with a crime—Virginia’s red flag law gives gun owners 14 days to petition a judge to return their firearms, and Mohammad Chanaa did so on Nov. 21. A Fairfax County circuit court judge granted his request as part of the civil case.

CAIR has denounced the “draconian measures used by law enforcement authorities” to “silence or intimidate those who seek to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”

A faculty group at George Mason, meanwhile, released a statement expressing “deep concern about the apparent targeting of two George Mason students for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”

The ongoing ordeal—local police are investigating the incident with the FBI’s assistance, sources familiar with that investigation tell the Free Beacon—reflects CAIR and SJP’s status as driving forces behind the anti-Semitic activism that has plagued college campuses in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.

It also reflects the radical, pro-terror views that have become synonymous with that activism.

Both Jena and Noor Chanaa have been deeply involved with George Mason’s SJP chapter. Jena, a master’s student studying civil and infrastructure engineering, served as the chapter’s president last school year.

Noor, an undergraduate student, took over as co-president this year. Their brother, Mohammad, is a recent George Mason graduate who served in the Springfield, Va., volunteer fire department as recently as Sept. 2023, records show.

The three siblings hail from the area and live together in their parents’ home.

George Mason did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Fairfax County commonwealth attorney’s office, Laura Birnbaum, confirmed that officers found guns, ammunition, and pro-terror materials during their search and declined to comment further.

The Chanaa family attorney, Abdel-Rahman Hamed, did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement provided to the Washington Post, Hamed said the case marks “yet another example of the police state targeting American Muslims without cause.”

An “about” section on his LinkedIn page states, “I deny, defy, and defeat Zionists, antisemites, and White Supremacists.”

Under Jena and Noor’s leadership, George Mason’s chapter of SJP has endorsed Hamas and its “martyrs.”

In a statement issued two days after the Oct. 7 attack, the group lauded the “liberation of the Palestinian people” and endorsed “the right to resist for Palestinians living under the zionist occupation.”

It said “Palestinian resistance fighters” mobilized “into surrounding occupied areas” on Oct. 7, “reclaiming land and settlements considered illegal” in the name of “decolonization.”

“Decolonization entails the struggle for liberation of a colonized people from the grasp of their colonizers,” the statement read. “This struggle for the much-sought after liberation from the colonizer is not meant to be metaphysical—but material.”

“Every Palestinian is a civilian even if they hold arms. A settler is an aggressor, a soldier, and an occupier even if they are lounging on our occupied beaches.”

The group went on to hold campus protests rallying support for “Palestinian martyrs” and “the resistance.”

On the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, Jena Chanaa posted a photo of smiling Gazans on top of an Israeli military vehicle.

“One year ago we witnessed Gaza break through the prison doors. No cage will ever be strong enough to hold the colonized,” she wrote in a caption.

“We have tasted liberation and will free ourselves in this lifetime. Glory to every single martyr in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. May the earth burn for Gaza and may we avenge our martyrs every single day.”

Months earlier, in a pair of Instagram posts, she wrote that her family comes from “Taytaba in North Palestine” and expressed a willingness to “die in my homeland.”

“76 years have passed since the forced expulsion of my family,” she said. “76 years of resistance to the occupation. 76 years of steadfastness and determination. 76 years of the complete belief that we will inevitably return.”

Jena and Noor Chanaa and their associates appear to have leveled more aggressive threats toward their school through a pseudonym, using an Instagram account, “gmuintifada.”

The account posted a video of the Aug. 30 vandalism the sisters are suspected of leading with the caption:

We, the George Mason University students of conscience, bear witness to the atrocities funded and supplied by our university, and we have chosen to retaliate. During the early hours of Wednesday morning, autonomous students left the imperial George Mason University a message: that the student intifada has been reignited, and that we will honor all the Gazan martyrs who did not live to witness this academic year. University administrations across the nation have convinced themselves that they can suffocate the flames of resistance that have been unleashed since the inception of this genocide. Yet, what they fail to realize is that their every effort to stifle our voices and eradicate our movement for liberation has only provoked an inferno that will engulf all systems of oppression that are upholding the genocide of the steadfast and honorable Palestinians. George Mason University, you will NEVER be able to escape accountability for your role in this genocide. Gaza is our compass and the heart of our noble struggle and the Student Intifada will confront every dousing of our eternal flame of resistance with precision. We will never be extinguished. Resistance until victory, GMU Intifada #escalate4gaza #studentintifada.

Shortly thereafter, George Mason police offered a $2,000 reward “for information leading to the successful arrests of the persons involved in the criminal vandalism incident.” The “gmuintifada” account has since been deleted from Instagram.

In the wake of the November search on the Chanaa home, George Mason slapped its SJP chapter with an interim suspension, according to a coalition of student groups affiliated with the chapter.

University police also served Jena and Noor Chanaa “with criminal trespass notices barring them from campus for four years,” according to the Intercept.

CAIR has called on George Mason to rescind those disciplinary measures.

University leaders see the case differently, with George Mason president Gregory Washington calling the school’s actions “justified based on the information available” in a Nov. 20 faculty senate meeting. So do state and local law enforcement officials.

“For us at the state and local level, you know, we’re concerned,” one official told the Free Beacon, noting CAIR’s ties to illicit fundraising efforts for Hamas as well as recent revelations that Iran has bankrolled anti-Israel campus protests in the United States.

“It clearly shows the connection between potential radicalization and some of these student groups that are out there,” the official added. “It needs to be investigated if these are just sympathies, or is there a road to radicalization?”

Jessica Costescu contributed to this report.

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By flooding college campuses with agitprop and staging activities — protests or vandalisms — they hoped to manufacture an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Domestic terrorism may be the end game for the over 150 pro-Hamas groups operating on colleges campuses and elsewhere across the US to foster anti-Israel demonstrations, according to a new report by the Capital Research Center (CRC) think tank.

“The movement contains militant elements pushing it toward a wider, more severe campaign focused on property destruction and violence properly described as domestic terrorism,” researcher Ryan Mauro wrote in the report, titled “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement,” which was published last week.

“It demands the ‘dismantlement’ of America’s ‘colonialist,’ ‘imperialist,’ or ‘capitalist,’ system, often calling for the US to be abolished as a country.”

He continued, “These revolutionary goals are held by the two different factions of the anti-Israel extremist groups. The first faction combines Islamists, communists/Marxists, and anarchists. The second faction consists of groups with white supremacist/nationalist ideologies. They share Jew-hatred, anti-Americanism, and the goal of sparking a revolutionary uprising.”

The group that is most responsible for the anti-Israel protest movement is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), according to the report.

Drawing on statements issued and actions taken by SJP and their collaborators, Mauro made the case that toolkits published by SJP herald Hamas for perpetrating mass casualties of civilians; SJP has endorsed Iran’s attacks on Israel as well as its stated intention to overturn the US-led world order; and other groups under its umbrella have called on followers to “Bring the Intifada Home.”

Such activities, the report explained, accelerated after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, which pro-Hamas groups perceived as an inflection point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an opportunity.

By flooding the internet and college campuses with agitprop and staging activities — protests or vandalisms — they hoped to manufacture a critical mass of youth support for their ideas, thus creating an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims as their own.

The result has been a series of the kinds of incidents seen in academia during fall semester.

Last month, when Jews around the world mourned on the anniversary of Oct. 7, a Harvard University student group called on pro-Hamas activists to “Bring the war home” and proceeded to vandalize a campus administrative building.

The group members, who described themselves as “anonymous,” later said in a statement, “We are committed to bringing the war home and answering the call to open up a new front here in the belly of the beast.”

On the same day, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) issued a similar statement, saying “now is the time to escalate,” adding, “Harvard’s insistence on funding slaughter only strengthens our moral imperative and commitment to our demands.”

More recently, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student wrote a journal article which argued that violence is a legitimate method of effecting political change and, moreover, advancing the pro-Palestinian movement.

In September, during Columbia University’s convocation ceremony, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a group which recently split due to racial tensions between Arabs and non-Arabs, distributed a pamphlet which called on students to join Hamas.

“This booklet is part of a coordinated and intentional effort to uphold the principles of the thawabit and the Palestinian resistance movement overall by transmitting the words of the resistance directly,” said the manifesto, distributed by CUAD, an SJP spinoff, to incoming freshmen.

“This material aims to build popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”

Other sections of it were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.”

Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.

“Groups in the pro-terrorism, anti-Israel movement co-exist as our concentric circles of increasing malevolence,” Mauro said of the level of support for revolutionary violence on college campuses.

“Groups in the outermost circle avoid risks as they recruit new protest members and seek to integrate as many political causes as possible under the anti-Israel umbrella … Some militants aspire to incorporate the campaign into a broader wear on law enforcement if not an insurgency.”

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, pro-Hamas activists have already demonstrated that they are willing to hurt people to achieve their goals.

Last year, in California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument.

At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and”“shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center.

Violence, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.

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