Anti-mosque ads depicting 9/11 to run on city buses!

NEW YORK - August 10, 2010 - Anti-mosque advertisements depicting a plane about to crash into a flaming World Trade Center will soon be displayed on New York City buses after the transit authority relented and agreed to the ads.

The display asking "Why There?" is the latest attempt by opponents to block the proposed Cordoba House Islamic community center two blocks from the site of the events of September 11, 2001.

The ads will begin appearing on New York City buses as soon as next week after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) approved them on Monday, an MTA spokesman said.

The proposed Islamic center has generated emotional opposition from some New Yorkers who see the project as an offense to the approximately 2,750 people who died on September 11, 2001.

The controversy grew on Monday when the U.S. State Department confirmed it was paying for the imam behind the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, to travel the Middle East as part of a U.S.-backed educational and cultural program, calling him a "distinguished cleric."

Fifty-three percent of New Yorkers oppose building the Islamic community center and prayer space next to "Ground Zero," according to a Marist Poll issued on Tuesday, versus 34% that favor its development.

The same poll found Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a vocal supporter of the mosque, fell below a 50% approval rating for the first time in five years, though not necessarily because of the mosque issue.

"The mosque issue is not doing him any good, but those who are most opposed are Republicans and that's a group that has not deserted the mayor," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

The American Freedom Defense Initiative had bought advertising space on 26 buses for a month at a cost of $8,000, an MTA spokesman said.