Ayman Jarwan is a Jordanian citizen who was born in Saudi Arabia and now resides in Syracuse, New York He wass the executive director of Help the Needy, Inc. (HTN) – an unlicensed, unregistered and now defunct Islamic charity organization based in Syracuse, New York. HTN, along with the Help The Needy Endowment (HTNE), was founded in 1994 to solicit money “for the starving and oppressed people of Iraq.” In February 2003, both groups, along with Jarwan and three other individuals, were charged with “conspiring to transfer funds to Iraq in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).”

Help the Needy was affiliated with the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), a group which Federal investigators allege funnels money to activities supporting terrorism. IANA co-founder Bassem Khafagi pled “guilty” in federal court in Detroit to two counts of bank fraud and one count of visa fraud. HTN’s web master, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, was a Saudi doctoral student at the University of Idaho who also ran websites linked or belonging to the IANA and posted fatwas from Salan Al-Awdah and Safir Al-Hawali, both supporters of suicide attacks against the United States. In addition, HTN gave over $42,000 to the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation, both of which were designated as “global terrorist-support organizations” by the U.S. government.

On October 9, 2005, Jarwan was charged with criminal conspiracy and was sentenced to a year and a half in prison and was released on December 22, 2006.