‘Clock Boy’ Ahmed Mohamed claims anti-Islam protests held in Irving, Texas, keep him from returning to the United States. In October, the teen and his family relocated to Qatar after the controversial Texas student accepted a fully-funded education scholarship from the Muslim Brotherhood associated Qatar Foundation. Ahmed insists that, although homesick in Qatar, even peaceful anti-Islam rallies held in Irving are stopping him from traveling back to the place he calls home, Texas.
In a long-distance video phone interview with Dallas CBS affiliate KTVT 11, the “Clock Boy” said he was ready to come home and wanted to do so immediately, but claimed a recent armed yet peaceful protest outside the Irving mosque thwarted that plan. Ahmed told the TV news outlet: “I was scared because I’ve heard what happened recently with, like, people with guns going to my local mosque,” adding: “…I mean, they have the right to do that but it’s scary because I’m afraid, you know.”
Breitbart Texas reported on the small group, the Bureau of American-Islamic Relations (BAIR). On Nov. 21, they gathered outside of the Islamic Center of Irving. Breitbart Texas also reported that dozens of people openly carried rifles. BAIR intends to hold a second protest in the Dallas suburb of Richardson on Dec. 12. Subsequently, the group’s leader David Wright III published the names and addresses of Muslims and Muslim sympathizers who spoke at a March 19 Irving city council meeting. That personal information was public information and came from the City of Irving’s website, which contained the names of all those who signed up to speak for and against the topic of American laws for American courts at that meeting.
However, days before Ahmed’s plea to come back to the states, his attorneys, demanded a total of $15 million plus apologies from the City of Irving and the Irving Independent School District over his Sept. 14 arrest for bringing to school a homemade makeshift clock that resembled and was mistaken for a suitcase bomb. Breitbart Texas reported that letters sent by Ahmed’s attorneys alleged that the Mohamed family moved to the Middle East because “threats and fear drove his family from Texas.”
The demand letters made many claims including one that a blog superimposed Ahmed’s face onto an image of Osama bin Laden and called him a “little terrorist in training.” The attorney letters also alleged that people posted the Mohamed family home address on Twitter, although the numeric portion of their Irving street address was visible in news footage shot at the family’s Sept. 16 front lawn press conference hosted by the Dallas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Mohamed’s Irving residence exterior was again seen publicly in a CAIR fundraiser promotional video in which Ahmed appeared with the terror-tied organization’s co-founder Nihad Awad. Ahmed and his father Mohamed Elhassen Mohamed, claimed Ahmed was a victim of Islamophobia.
In a carefully metered interview, the KTVT 11 reporter pointed out that questioning the teen about the $15 million “was something that nearly ended (the interview).” The teen gingerly responded to the TV news outlet’s questions with “eyes drifting off camera” that appeared to look offside “for approval” from someone before answering questions. When asked if he wanted to return to Texas, Ahmed first looked away before answering “yes” with a smile.
“Clock Boy” then told the CBS affiliate he was waiting for people to calm down back home before he returned to the Lone Star state, adding he misses Texas. “I want to go back to a place where everyone knows me,” meaning the kids he grew up with, and he hinted a trip to Dallas may be in the works over the Christmas holiday.
In mid-October, though, the budding clockmaker tweeted: “I am coming home, tell the world I am coming home,” only it was not Texas he meant. It was Sudan. In addition to sponsored trips to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Ahmed traveled to the family’s ancestral homeland of Sudan where he met with the country’s genocidal dictator Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Follow Merrill Hope on Twitter @OutOfTheBoxMom.