Tipsheet

Leading New Jersey Democratic Congressional Candidate Adam Hamawy Has Ties to Al-Qaida

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  May 27, 2026 2:45 PM

Adam Hamawy is the leading Democratic Congressional candidate from New Jersey. He's also got some pretty concerning ties to both Al-Qaida and a notorious terrorist. 

This includes a relationship with Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the Blind Sheik. Hamawy met Abdel-Rahman in 1991 and joined him on a road trip that same year, and Hamawy served as Abdel-Rahman's translator for a 1993 press conference in which he denied his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hamawy also testified on Abdel-Rahman during his 1995 trial, where the Islamist leader was convicted of planning terror attacks in New York City.

But before taking the stand for the terrorist, Hamway traveled to Bosnia to work for the Chicago-based nonprofit known as the Benevolence International Foundation.

Here's more:

Adam Hamawy’s past relationship with terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman has loomed over his rapid rise in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). 

Their relationship spanned a 1991 road trip the two took together to Detroit, Hamawy’s service as the sheikh’s translator for a press conference in which Abdel-Rahman denied any role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Hamawy’s testimony on the sheikh’s behalf at his 1995 trial, where the Islamist leader was convicted of plotting to carry out a campaign of terrorist attacks in New York City.

But just one year before Hamawy took the witness stand to describe his travels with Abdel-Rahman, the now-Congressional candidate made a different journey with another party entangled in terrorist conspiracies: to Bosnia, with a group subsequently shut down for providing “logistical support” to Al-Qaida.

In a 1996 interview with the Newark Star-Ledger, according to a copy Jewish Insider recovered through an archive of print publications, Hamawy described volunteering in Bosnia during the summer of 1994 with a Chicago-based nonprofit called the “Benevolence International Foundation.”

“I worked in Sarajevo for 10 days and then the rest in Zenica, a large regional center in central Bosnia,” Hamawy, who had just graduated from medical school, told the paper about the five weeks he spent with the organization. “We went out to hospitals around the area and in the mountains to check what supplies they needed and we tried to deliver them.”

Jewish Insider reports that Bosnian authorities ended up raiding the Benevolence International offices in 2002 as part of a joint effort with the U.S. to dismantle the group because it was a front for Al-Qaida. According to federal records, Benevolence International sent a representative to the Balkans in 1992 on a 'fact-finding mission' for Osama bin Laden and this was part of a larger plan to establish an Al-Qaida base in Europe to carry out attacks against the United States. Documents say that senior Al-Qaida officials reported that Benevolence International provided them with funding and weapons, including arms for Bosnian militants.

Hamawy also made a name for himself by working in Gaza during Israel's war against Hamas, including at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. The IDF hit the hospital in 2025 to take out an underground Hamas command center operating beneath the hospital. Hamawy claimed in several interviews that the command center didn't exist, saying it was "a completely benign civilian hospital." The IDF countered with video footage of subterranean tunnels, including the one where the body of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was recovered.

Several prominent Democrats have endorsed Hamawy, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Reps. Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib. 

Just 25 years after the September 11 terror attacks, it seems New Jersey might elect a man with ties to the terror group that killed thousands of Americans in the name of Islam. New Jersey voters should be aware of this before voting this November.