A leader of a Chicago mosque has been arrested on drug peddling charges: Mosque official’s release denied. (Hat tip: SoCalJustice.)

A federal judge Tuesday ordered that a leader of a mosque on Chicago’s South Side remain in custody on charges that he trafficked in a chemical essential to manufacture an illegal narcotic.

Tariq Isa, 55, a Palestinian-American, was arrested Thursday as he arrived at O’Hare International Airport on a flight from the Mideast, officials said.

An indictment charging Isa with distributing almost 1.73 million tablets of pseudoephedrine was returned in May in federal court in Chicago but sealed until after his arrest.

The two-count indictment alleges Isa knew or had reasonable cause to believe the pseudoephedrine would be used to make the illegal stimulant methamphetamine.

Isa is the third leader of the Mosque of the Martyr Izzedine Al-Qassam on West 63rd Street to be criminally charged since last year.

Ghassan Zayed Ballut and Hatem Fariz were indicted in Florida in 2003 for the alleged financing of terrorists in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Both men were charged with being members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group that has taken responsibility for suicide bombings that have killed scores of people in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza since 1994.

Last month, Fariz also was indicted in Chicago on food-stamp fraud and money-laundering charges stemming from his operation of a convenience store here.

In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Lisa Noller identified Isa, Ballut and Fariz as officers of the Chicago mosque and the only three to hold signatory authority over its bank account.

In seeking Isa’s detention, Noller also said Isa has been photographed with Ramadan Shallah, the worldwide head of Islamic Jihad.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve ordered Isa held without bail, in part because she said he has an incentive to flee because a conviction for peddling so much pseudoephedrine would carry a lengthy prison term. Noller said in court that Isa could face 24 to 30 years in prison if he is convicted.

Records show he has been a longtime treasurer of the mosque, which changed its English name in the mid-1990s to Chicago Islamic Center, though an Arabic sign on the building bears Al-Qassam’s name.

What this article doesn’t tell you: the “Izzedine Al-Qassam Brigades” is the so-called “military wing” of Hamas, and the name “Izzedine al Qassam” is used by dozens of Islamic terrorist organizations worldwide.

And just today, Palestinian terrorists fired a Qassam rocket at a kindergarten in Israel.