And If You Sign Up By The End Of The Month You’ll Receive Al Manar2, Al Manar Family, Al Manar Comedy And Al Manar Latino

I don’t know which is more freaky — that the feds conduct covert aerial surveillance over New York City or that there is a market here for Hezbollah’s satellite television station:

A Staten Island man has been charged with aiding terrorists — by using his Brooklyn business to give local viewers a satellite hookup to a Lebanese TV station operated by Hezbollah.

Javed Iqbal, 42, was busted early Wednesday after authorities flew covert helicopter missions over his home and business to check out his electronic equipment and set up a complicated sting involving a bogus customer.

He was charged with conspiring to do business with a global terror organization, which is punishable by up to five years in jail. Prosecutors said the charges could be upgraded to providing material support for terrorists, which carries up to 15 years.

His lawyer, Mustapha Ndanusa, said his client is no terrorist, just “a small-time satellite receiver and dish network distributor.”

. . .

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office says Iqbal, who was also known by the first name John, obtained a Federal Communications Commission license in January 2005 to broadcast satellite TV.

Last February a confidential source told the feds that Iqbal was selling access to broadcasts of Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV through his business, HDTV Ltd., at 6805 and 6809 Fort Hamilton Parkway in Brooklyn.

. . .

In June, a “wired” FBI informant walked into Iqbal’s Brooklyn office, asking to be hooked up to the “DISH network.”

The informant explained he was Lebanese and wanted to watch the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, which transmits secular or Christian shows. Iqbal asked if he was “Lebanese Christian” and when the informant said no, he asked, “Why don’t you watch Al Manar?” court papers say.

He described different service packages that would allow the customer to receive Al Manar and other Arab networks, including Al-Jazeera.

Court papers also say Iqbal falsely told the customer that Al Manar broadcasts were legal in the United States — and a month later changed his sales pitch to say they would soon be legal.

Because It’s Not Like Thousands Of People Carry “A Liquid” With Them . . .

God help subway riders who now may have to endure this every day:

Cops halted a Manhattan subway and examined passengers carrying bottled water and other drinks yesterday after a concerned tipster reported seeing a bottle of suspicious liquid on the No.6 train, police and witnesses said.

The startling spot check was not part of a wider NYPD counterterrorism initiative and had no connection to the thwarted British terror plot to use liquid explosives to blow up passenger jets, authorities said.

It was a routine response to a suspicious package — but several passengers were still alarmed.

“This is a new level of fear, watching for people carrying drinks on the subway,” said Wallis Post, 25, of Manhattan, who was on the train searched by cops at the 51st St. station and again at Grand Central Terminal.

Cops halted the subway about 9 a.m. shortly after a tipster reported seeing a suspicious bottle of liquid on the train at 125th St., police said.

“Is anyone carrying a liquid?” a uniformed cop asked after boarding the train with another officer at 51st St., according to Post and another passenger.

Another cop then said into her hand-held radio: “We’re looking for the high alert,” prompting a few frightened passengers to get off the train, the witnesses said.

As the cops held the train, a woman in a gym outfit held up a Poland Spring water bottle with red juice inside it and told them, “I have this.”

The cops asked if the liquid had spilled on anything and then took it, Post said.

After a five-minute delay, the train was allowed to depart the station, but when it rolled into Grand Central another cop got on and asked: “Has anyone seen a liquid?”

Cops again searched the train before deciding there was no threat, Post said.

First, Do No Harm!

A creative defense emerges for a man accused of supporting terrorists:

The Columbia University-educated doctor charged with promising to provide medical care to Al Qaeda operatives will argue that professional ethics require him to offer medical aid to all patients, even terrorists.

This legal defense by the accused doctor, Rafiq Sabir, is outlined for the first time in court papers submitted recently in Manhattan. Lawyers for Dr. Sabir will challenge whether rendering medical services to terrorists counts as providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, which is illegal under federal law. The case against Dr. Sabir presents questions about the line separating an ethical physician from a terrorist supporter who happens to hold an M.D.

Dr. Sabir, of Boca Raton, Fla., is one of four co-defendants charged with a loosely connected plot to aid Al Qaeda that prosecutors made public last year. In a Bronx apartment in late May 2005, Dr. Sabir swore fealty to Osama bin Laden and pledged to provide medical assistance to jihadists who were wounded while training, a criminal complaint charged.

But in a recent court filing, Mr. Sabir’s attorneys, Edward Wilford and Natali Todd, argue that the prosecution is unconstitutional because it impinges on a doctor’s ability to practice medicine.

“As a medical doctor, Dr. Sabir is committed to saving lives, regardless of the status of the individuals because to do otherwise, would be to violate his cannons of ethics,” his attorneys wrote. “A doctor, similar to an attorney, should not be limited to who he can treat, however unpopular such an individual may be.”

Unfortunately, This Doesn’t Seem Like An Art Project

The gun was fake but, as the Queens Gazette notes, the threats were real enough to be taken into custody:

A 26-year-old man of Middle Eastern descent was observed pointing a machine gun, which later proved to be a replica, at an establishment at Queens Plaza North and Crescent Street on Wednesday, August 9. The weapon had “snaps” in it, causing it to make realistic noises of a gun being fired. He also resisted arrest. He was charged with making terroristic threats, menacing, resisting arrest, harassment, violation of a local law and disorderly conduct.

The question is what he was terroristically threatening. A strip club?

I think there’s also an army recruiter there, so maybe it was that . . . suffice it to say, we don’t need more crazy people waving guns — fake or real — at “establishments,” especially with Seattle so fresh in everyone’s minds.

Location scout: Queens Plaza.

Ray Kelly, 1; UBL, 0

Not to strike a distrustful tone in the wake of the very, very good news that a gigantic terror plot has been foiled, but it strains credulity that the NYPD even knew about the investigation for several months beforehand and still none of the bad guys caught on:

The New York Police Department had been kept apprised of the terrorist investigation for the past several months, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference.

That said, evildoers deserve a hearty “fuck you” for nail-clipperizing prescription medicine:

Dipty Jain, 30, a law student from Bedford Stuyvesant who was headed to Portland, went through the baggage screening process twice. The first time, she was allowed to keep her prescription medicine in her carry-on bag, but the second screeners told her she had to have a doctor’s note to accompany the medicine.

“They didn’t say you had to have the doctor’s note,” Jain said. “I’ve already tried to get in twice now.”

Give me back my valium . . . I think I’ll be needing it!