Adam Hamawy, a leading Democratic congressional candidate in New Jersey, has a documented past that connects him to figures and organizations tied to Islamist terrorism, including a personal relationship with Omar Abdel-Rahman and volunteer work with a group later linked to Al-Qaida activity in the Balkans.

Adam Hamawy has surged to the top of the race to replace a retiring congresswoman in New Jersey, but his history is drawing scrutiny beyond routine politics. Records and contemporary reporting show he met and worked alongside controversial Islamist figures in the early 1990s. Those associations are resurfacing now as voters and political opponents examine his background more closely.

His connection to Omar Abdel-Rahman, widely known as the Blind Sheik, is central to the controversy. Hamawy met Abdel-Rahman in 1991, joined him on a road trip that year, and later acted as his translator during a 1993 press conference where Abdel-Rahman denied involvement in the World Trade Center bombing. Hamawy also testified on Abdel-Rahman’s behalf at the 1995 trial that resulted in convictions for plotting attacks in New York City.

Shortly before he testified in that trial, Hamawy traveled to Bosnia with a Chicago-based relief group, according to archival reporting. The organization he worked with was later the subject of international investigations that tied it to support networks for violent jihadists. That sequence—Bosnia volunteer work followed by public defense of an Islamist leader—raises questions about what Hamawy knew and why he chose those associations.

Contemporaneous news accounts describe Hamawy spending five weeks in Bosnia in 1994, visiting hospitals and assessing medical needs while he had just finished medical school. He said at the time that he worked in Sarajevo and in Zenica, traveling to mountain clinics and regional hospitals to deliver supplies. Those statements now come with added scrutiny because the group he volunteered with was later shut down amid allegations of funneling aid and logistical support to militants.

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.”

Federal and international investigations later targeted Benevolence International, and Bosnian authorities raided its offices in 2002 during a joint effort with the United States. U.S. records reportedly show that the group sent representatives to the Balkans in the early 1990s and that operatives tied to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida found channels of support through the organization. Prosecutors and analysts say the group was used to funnel money, weapons, and logistical help to militants.

Hamawy’s medical work didn’t stop in Bosnia. He also worked at medical facilities in Gaza during the recent Israel-Hamas war, including time at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. When the Israel Defense Forces targeted the hospital in 2025 claiming an underground Hamas command center underneath, Hamawy publicly disputed that claim and called it “a completely benign civilian hospital.”

The IDF released footage showing tunnels and the space where Hamas leaders allegedly operated, and Israeli forces reported they recovered the body of Mohammed Sinwar in subterranean passages. That contradiction—Hamawy’s characterization versus Israeli military evidence—adds another layer to the debate over his judgment and the accuracy of his public statements on sensitive security issues.

Prominent Democrats have publicly endorsed Hamawy, and those endorsements are part of what makes the story politically charged, since voters now weigh those endorsements against the candidate’s past associations. For Republicans and national security-focused voters, the connections to Abdel-Rahman and an organization later linked to Al-Qaida are hard to ignore and raise substantive questions about vetting and judgment.

The facts about Hamawy’s activities in the 1990s and his later public statements are on the record, and they deserve scrutiny from journalists, political opponents, and voters. This is a campaign season with national security and ideological alignment on the ballot, and background ties like these move from historical footnote to politically relevant matter when a candidate seeks federal office.