he citizens of the
United States and Canada, as well as many within various
echelons of law enforcement, might be surprised to learn that
active paramilitary training of Islamic terrorists, who are
focused on bringing jihad or holy war into America on a large
scale, are currently operating in the United States and Canada.
In fact, they have existed inside North America since at least
1980.
Imagine that during the height of World War
II--a few short years after the worst attack against
America--you are taking a scenic drive through the woods of
upstate New York and somehow--merely by accident--you stumble
upon a group of men of Japanese ethnicity engaged in firearms
training. You quietly stand out of sight in the brush, hearing
them pledge their allegiance to Emperor Hirohito and watch as
they practice their combat skills they intend to use against you
and your fellow Americans at some time in the future. Frozen
somewhere between fear and curiosity, you watch them until they
break up, each entering different
vehicles. You follow one of the vehicles carrying two male
occupants back into town, and find out that one of the men works
for a utility company in the Finger Lakes while the other is
employed at a steel mill near Buffalo. Based on your
observations and concerned about possible spies working in
essential American jobs, you notify the authorities, but you are
assured that the men have "checked out" and were found to be no
risk to national security. But, you know what you saw and care
for the security and future of America. Unconvinced, you
continue to report your concerns until you are ultimately
labeled a bigot and an alarmist. Inconceivable? At that time,
when America was at war, when the majority of Americans
understood what was at stake and when the mind of every American
was focused on the security of the country, such a scenario
would be unlikely. Today, unfortunately, America as a nation is
at war while most Americans are at the mall.
In a 2002 commentary, Arnaud de Borchgrave,
editor at large for The Washington Times, wrote that
"Politico-religious extremists in PakistanÉ have convinced
themselves that 'in the next 10 years, Americans will wake up to
the existence of an Islamic army in their midst - an army of
jihadis who will force America to abandon imperialism and listen
to the voice of Allah.'" In that same article, he references the
number of criminals being recruited for this Islamic army, and
cites demographics to make his points clear. Our investigation
confirms the almost prophetic observations of Mr. de Borchgrave,
noting, however, that it has not taken ten years. The army is
already here.
An Islamic army operating in North America
This is the disturbing conclusion of a
comprehensive, 5-year investigation conducted by professional
multi-state licensed investigators of the Northeast Intelligence
Network and investigative journalists of Canada Free Press (CFP).
Our findings are the result of extensive covert surveillance
operations, field investigations, numerous interviews, and
research into paramilitary training and activities by Islamic
"extremists" living and working among us in North America. They
have been cited in various publications and books such as The
Day of Islam by Dr. Paul Williams, reports authored by
federal and state law enforcement agencies, and have recently
warranted casual mentions in a number of major media venues.
Since publishing our reports pertaining to
Islamberg--a private Muslim compound located at the western edge
of the Catskill Mountains in Hancock, NY and associated with the
Pakistani-based terrorist organization Jamaat ul Fuqra, public
interest and concerns by law enforcement about potential terror
training camps in existence in North America have intensified
unlike any other report we have published to date. Many who once
believed that terrorist training camps could not possibly exist
in the U.S., or thought their existence to be that of urban
legend, or a fabrication of "neocons" are beginning to realize
that the vast expanse of the U.S. and Canada offers near perfect
conditions for such camps to be operating without detection.
Recruiting the Islamic Army
It is said that necessity is the mother of
invention. When U.S. and coalition forces destroyed the jihad
training camps in Afghanistan, the Islamic terrorists
disseminated their instructional material via the Internet and
employed jihadist leaders in North America to assist in the
coordination of training camps. Such leaders of jihad actively
recruit their members from American prisons, most who are
African-Americans. It might come as a surprise to learn that
only about 10 percent of American Muslims are of Arab descent.
U.S.-born African-Americans account for over 40 percent, and immigrants from southern
Asia account for an additional 24 percent. The National Islamic
Prison Foundation, a country-wide campaign to convert inmates to
Islam, boasts an average of nearly 150,000 conversions to Islam
per year--and that number is climbing. Recent statistics show
that more than 10 percent of the 2-plus million U.S. prison
population is Muslim.
In the 1960s and into the early 1970s, there
were fewer than 20 mosques in the United States. Today, there
are more than 2,500 mosques and Islamic centers, of which about
85 percent are funded by Saudi Arabia and established by Imams
sent from Saudi Arabia to insure that the Saudi doctrine of
Wahabbism is practiced. As part of their prison outreach
program, Saudi Arabia has provided upwards of 100,000 Qu'rans to
American prisons, and funded some of the larger Islamic
organizations based inside the U.S.
Both the American prison system as well as
newly established mosques and Islamic centers, funded by Saudi
Arabia, are fertile grounds from which "radicalized" Muslim
coverts emerge.
The Islamic "jihadist" Army in our Midst
The most astute researchers of Islamic
terrorist activities might believe that the so-called "Virginia
jihad network," often referred to as the "paintball jihad
network," was the first paramilitary training of its kind in
America. The "paintball jihad network" consisted of nearly a
dozen Muslim men, including Randall "Ismail" Royer, an American
convert to Islam and former official of the Council on American
Islamic Relations (CAIR), who honed their combat skills through
the use of paintball gun exercises with other like-minded
Muslims, according to the federal indictment and his subsequent
conviction. Others might cite the case of Ernest James UJAAMA,
a/k/a Bilal AHMED, (a Muslim convert born James Earnest
Thompson), who, according to court documents, attempted to set
up an Afghanistan-style terrorist training camp near Bly, Oregon
in 1999 as a precursor to physical jihad training in America.
Warriors for Islam: They could be your
neighbor or co-worker
The
stunning truth, however, is that Islamic terrorist training has
existed in the United States for much longer and involves
Muslims and Muslim converts from all stations in life that have
one common objective--to wage jihad or "holy war" against the
West. Individuals involved in such paramilitary training include
Muslim religious leaders, professional men, laborers, and even
students. Recruitment for Islamic jihad is as broad as its
participants, from radical Imams and community spiritual leaders
to Islamic prison chaplains who appeal to the largely black and
disenfranchised prison population.
Terrorist training camps are equally diverse, and range from ad
hoc locations in rural, sparsely populated areas to abandoned
warehouses in urban areas. Regardless of the individuals
involved in such training or the location of the combat
training, the motivations are the same, and should be considered
as potentially dangerous as the more established camps that
existed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other remote regions of
the world.
We know that the members of the "domestic"
terror cell dubbed as the "Fort Dix Six" utilized a rural area
in the Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains to conduct paramilitary
training using semi-automatic weapons--training they intended to
put into practice against one of America's military
installations where they intended to kill as many soldiers and
base staff as possible.
An example of paramilitary training conducted
in an urban area--a Miami, Florida warehouse--is the June 2006
arrest of seven Muslim "extremists". That group, led by Narseal
Batiste, trained in a secluded and secured warehouse in Miami to
conduct paramilitary exercises and training in preparation for
bombing and/or attacking the Sears Tower in Chicago, the FBI
building in North Miami Beach, Florida, and other government
buildings in Miami-Dade County.
Jamaat ul Fuqra--a dangerous terrorist
organization inside North America
Perhaps the most insidiously dangerous of all
terrorist organizations that maintain an active presence inside
the U.S., and the forerunner of all Islamic terrorist training
based in the U.S. and Canada, predating al Qaeda by nearly a
decade, is the Pakistani-based terrorist organization Jamaat ul
Fuqra led by terrorist Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani. Since 1980, at
least a dozen Jamaat ul-Fuqra members have been convicted for
terrorist activities, including conspiracy to commit murder,
firebombings, and gun smuggling. Jamaat ul-Fuqra members are
also suspected in 10 unsolved assassinations and 17 bombings
that have occurred since Gilani established his organization
when he spent time at a Brooklyn, NY mosque in 1980.
According to a 2002 report in The Weekly
Standard, "Gilani, sporting ammunition belts, preached Islam at
a Brooklyn mosque as the path to a better life and called for
fighters to join the holy war against the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. Under the guise of studying Islam, some of his
followers were initiated into the international Islamist
movement. Their campaign of crime on U.S. soil began almost at
once." Gilani's ideology begins with the idea that moderate
Muslim leaders have lost the moral authority and vision to
achieve "victory" and that he is the only true defender of
Islam. He considers all those who do not follow the tenets of
Islam (as laid out in the Qu'ran) to be his enemies. This
includes non-Muslims as well as Muslims he deems as heretics.
Members of his U.S. compounds must take an oath to Jamaat ul
Fuqra and Gilani that states: "I shall always hear and obey, and
whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's
sake."
Once Gilani established his organization in
the U.S., he returned to Pakistan, where he currently resides in
the city of Lahore. According to a number of media reports and
intelligence briefs, Gilani was a participant in a "terrorist
summit" In Khartoum, in December 1993, at which time he rubbed
elbows with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and other
well-known and still sought Islamic terrorists. According to one
government report, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) filmed Gilani and the others shouting anti-U.S.
and anti-Semitic chants such as "Death to the Jews, Death to
America, Down, down USA, and down CIA!"
According to the Regional Organized Crime
Information Center (ROCIC) that serves more than 1,800 criminal
justice agencies located in 14 states in the southern U.S.,
including Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, there are
over 35 known Jamaat ul Fuqra compounds located inside the
United States under the control of Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani.
They operate under the names, Muslims of the Americas, Inc., a
"front organization" established by Gilani in 1990 (based on
ROCIC reports), and the Qu'ranic Open University, also founded
by Gilani.
Jamaat ul Fuqra compounds--Southeastern
United States
The locations are scattered throughout the United States,
located mostly in sparsely populated rural locations including:
Marion, Alabama; Augusta, Georgia; Commerce, Georgia; Macon
Georgia; Talihina, Oklahoma; York County, South Carolina; Dover,
Tennessee; Red House, Virginia, and Roanoke, Virginia. Other
Jamaat ul Fuqra compounds are located in Washington, Colorado,
Michigan, and California. Due to occasionally heightened
attention and complaints by local residents, some encampments
have become more transient over the last several years--moving
from one rural location to another. (Editor's note: Buena Vista,
a radical Muslim paramilitary compound referenced in Springtime
in Islamberg, a May 11, 2007, story by Dr. Paul Williams posted
by CFP no longer exists. It was raided by Colorado Attorney
General John W. Suthers, leading to the prosecution of five ul
Fuqra members between 1993 and 1994).
As we previously reported, their North
American headquarters is located in Hancock, NY, which is an
encampment of trailers, outbuildings, and various other
structures spread over a large area that is adjacent to a
reservoir that provides dinking water to all five boroughs of
the greater New York City area. Notably, other compounds are
situated in the same manner--close to significant infrastructure
targets. For example, the Jamaat ul-Fuqra property in Dover,
Tennessee is located along a power easement seven miles west of
the Tennessee Valley Authority's Cumberland Fossil Plant, a
plant that produces more power than any other plant in the TVA
system. Twelve miles northeast is Fort Campbell, home of the
U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. A CFP reader points out
that there was a penal institution near the now defunct Buena
Vista compound.
Nearby residents to the compounds report hearing gunfire coming
from the compounds, a fact that one resident of Islamberg
publicly admitted to John Mazor, a reporter for the New York
Post. The
article in the New York Post states that "reports of gunfire
and military-style physical training at the camp have led some
investigators to believe that the group's members are preparing
for homegrown jihad." Stated one member of Islamberg: "We got
guns up here just like everyone else got guns."
School bus on Islamic-owned property used
for target practice?
In America, it is one's right to own a gun.
Even in Islamberg, a Muslim enclave that boasts of adhering to
its own set of laws inside of the compound, based on Sharia law
and allegiance to the Sheikh Gilani and his beliefs--one has the
right to own a firearm as long as such ownership complies with
federal and state firearms laws. Based on Islamberg's ties to
Pakistani Sheikh Gilani, however, and a population that is
composed--at least partially--of recruits from the state and
federal prison system, questions must be raised. Such questions
become more pressing with the presence of a school bus (pictured
above) on the property. This bus appears to hold distinctions
few other school buses have... windows that appear to have been
"blown out" from the inside, and holes that resemble and appear
to be bullet holes into its exterior shell.
Members of Jamaat ul Fuqra, or those who have
been assisted by that organization include but are not limited
to such terrorists as Richard Reid, the infamous "shoe bomber,"
and John Allen Muhammad, the senior "DC sniper" who reportedly
received assistance from a Virginia Jamaat ul Fuqra compound.
Most notably, our exposure of the activities
of this organization
has generated the ire of the leader of the terrorist
organization himself, calling our report "a campaign of
hate, fabricated falsehood, lies, and appalling propaganda aimed
at bringing about a clash between Muslims and Christians the
world over, and particularly in the United States."
Gilani might be correct about one thing: a
clash between Muslims and non-Muslims is getting ready to take
place "the world over," and in many areas, has existed for
centuries. More importantly, however, is that the training for
the upcoming clash is taking place in our own backyard. Yet too
few seem to be paying attention.
